The Moor

In those 38 plays he wrote, Shakespeare confronted issues that have taken hundreds of years to resolve. In a number of his plays, the role of women in Elizabethan society is continually being redefined. Maybe that was because England was ruled by a woman, one who understood the drawbacks of this position in society.

In this play, however, Shakespeare takes on the almost unheard of issue of race. Race was not really an issue in Elizabethan society, as there were few people living in England that were not Anglo-Saxon/Norman English. Even the “dark lady” of Shakespeare’s later sonnets is believed to be a Venetian Jew. But in this play, Shakespeare takes his audience to Venice and the promotion of a Moor (a black North African) to the head of the Venetian army. This Moor also falls in love with, and marries, the daughter of an influential Venetian, Desdemona. While this promotion and marriage causes some eyebrows to raise in Venice, it infuriates a fellow officer, Iago to action. The play becomes a vehicle of innuendo and duplicity as Iago plants doubts in Othello’s mind, doubts that lead to tragedy.

In Act III, Scene iii, the following dialogue between Othello and Iago illustrates the pernicious nature of this betrayal.


Othello

Act III, Scene iii


OTHELLO
Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.

IAGO
My noble lord--

OTHELLO
What dost thou say, Iago?

IAGO
Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,
Know of your love?

OTHELLO
He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?

IAGO
But for a satisfaction of my thought;
No further harm.

OTHELLO
Why of thy thought, Iago?

IAGO
I did not think he had been acquainted with her.

OTHELLO
O, yes; and went between us very oft.

IAGO
Indeed!

OTHELLO
Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in that?
Is he not honest?

IAGO
Honest, my lord!

OTHELLO
Honest! ay, honest.

IAGO
My lord, for aught I know.

OTHELLO
What dost thou think?

IAGO
Think, my lord!

OTHELLO
Think, my lord!
By heaven, he echoes me,
As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?
And when I told thee he was of my counsel
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!'
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,
Show me thy thought.

There have been a number of performances of this play on film, the most noteworthy in my opinion, is the one with Lawrence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh. However, the film “O”, while popular recently, is merely a use of the plays theme without the language of Shakespeare and the power of his way of telling the story (Shakespeare Lite, if you will).