The Moor in Othello, a Play by William Shakespeare

Othello, by William Shakespeare, is a play named after the protagonist, Othello. The main character stands out in comparison to the other characters because he is a “moor”. The word “moor” highlights Othello’s difference from the rest of the characters and also displays how the other characters think differently of a “moor”. The audience can use this word to decide if they think Othello is a racist play or a product of a racist time.

Othello is the strong leader of the Venetian army, but that doesn’t stop other characters from glossing over that to highlight his moorness. In the first interaction of the play between Iago and Roderigo, Othello is referred to only as “his moorship” or “the moor”. Because the characters do not use Othello’s name, the audience immediately sees that both Iago and Roderigo do not respect Othello, instead they look down on him for “his moorship”. This characterizes lago and Roderigo as racist people from the very beginning of the play. They do not see Othello as human, but instead these dehumanize him using microaggressive language. This may also be apart of explaining why Iago and Roderigo are targeting Othello from the first scene. The audience knows that Othello is a moor being targeted and it seems that these two ideas are connected. Shakespeare may have chosen to have his evil characters use this word immediately to continue to characterize them as evil and negative. This interpretation would also imply that the play in itself is not racist, as it shows this kind of discrimination coming from the evil characters.

Iago and Roderigo continue to show the audience their racist tendencies when they are talking to Brabantio. They arrive to tell him about Desdemona and Othello, which bothers them because it is an interracial relationship. To Iago and Roderigo, a white woman is too pure and good to be with a black man. This is obviously a racist idea, and it further highlights their racism. Because they tell Brabantio about this “problem” while referring to Othello as the “moor”, we can see how they assume Brabantio is racist too. If Brabainto wasn’t racist, the “moor” part of Desdemona’s husband would not be important. Later in this scene, Brabantio also uses the word “moor” about Othello, “Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?”. This shows that Brabantio, as well as lago and Roderigo, is characterized by Shakespeare as racist towards Othello. Again, because this happens in the first scene, it sets up the rest of the play and it makes it clear that Othello is being targeted for being different, for being black. Brabantio being characterized as racist is different from Iago and Roderigo being characterized as racist because he is not a villain in the story. Since Shakespeare didn’t chose to make Brabantio racist to characterize him as a villain, “moor” is used in this context to show how the people in this time period and location were often racist because it was common, and we can’t really blame them. These two different uses of “moor” show how the word has a multidimensional function within the play. The audience also can ask themselves if these characters are all racist for using this word, or if they are products of their place in time.

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