Othello
Historical
Context
Written
on, or just after, the beginning of the 1600s (possibly 1603) Based on the
Italian short story “Un Capitano Moro” (A Moorish Captain) First known
performance, November 1, 1604 in Whitehall, London Written one year before King
Lear and MacBeth Follows a theme of the downfall of great/powerful men.
Othello
: Moor, North African Some debate about actual skin color
Desdemona:
Venetian : Wife to Othello
Othello’s
race
Referred
to as a Moor Berber
or Arab people of Northern Africa Prominent
use of “black” however may suggest a darker skin color than the lighter color
suggested by North African heritage He
is also called “thicklips” at one point, reflecting English stereotypes of
sub-Saharan Africans.
Important
Themes
Dehumanization
Internalization
Dramatic
Irony
The
significance of names.
Dehumanization
Dehumanization,
a central theme of the play, is the process by which a person, or group, is
made to feel or act less than human through systematic mistreatment.
Denial
of rights often involves dehumanization (think Nazi depictions of Jews as
animals, slaveholder depictions of Africans as beasts)
Internalized
Oppression
Over
time, dehumanization and continued oppression leads to internalization, the
process by which the victims begin taking on the traits forced on them by the
oppressors.
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