How Does Shakespeare Present The Theme Of The Outsider In Othello(TM) Act 1?

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Ben Williams 10-1                Word Count - 2394

How Does Shakespeare Present The Theme Of The Outsider In ‘Othello’ Act 1?

‘Othello’ is one of Shakespeare’s most well known tragedies. It is a story of black versus white. Shakespeare has put a twist within this play, as there is a battle between good and evil, good being represented as a black man while evil being represented as a white man. We are not sure whether it is an accident of irony or Shakespeare trying to speak out to the public and make a statement about equality amongst races. Othello is a highly regarded General employed by the Venetian state to protect them against the Turks. This alone is quite bizarre, as a black man would not normally have any authority outside his homeland so he is often depicted as being a true hero and someone to look up to.  However, he is flawed, as he is honest and tends to see the good in most people he fail to notice that Iago uses him in deceitful ways. In the era this play was written the black man would normally be used to portray the evil as the colour black is usually considered tinted and impure while the white man would normally portray the good as white is considered to be pure. Othello is quite unusual in Venice because he is a foreigner as he is a Moor, a black man from North Africa. He falls from the honour in which he is held by allowing himself to be deceived by Iago about the faithfulness of his wife Desdemona. Desdemona represents purity in the play, as she is an innocent white aristocratic female who was murdered by the love of her life because of the evil and anger of one person. This play is home to many themes including the theme of the outsider. Although the Venetian senate consider him to be a ‘valiant Moor’, some sections of society consider him to be an outsider because of his skin colour and possible because he elopes with Desdemona. ‘Othello’ is a tragedy about love, death and manipulation that one can learn to love with ease.

        In the first act Shakespeare does not allow the audience to see Othello on stage initially so it is hard to create our own emotions towards him, but instead presents his character through some major accusations of negativity in a derogatory manner from Iago and Roderigo that we believer to be true. Therefore, it is hard to create an accurate judgement on Othello as we keep getting negative attitudes of him without the balance of any compliments towards him. It becomes clear that both Iago and Roderigo despise Othello in the first few lines of Othello. “Tush! Never tell me. I take it much unkindly that thou, Iago, who has had my purse as if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.” Roderigo is saying this to Iago and we get the impression that they are arguing and obviously paying Iago for information about another person. As they are in mid conversation, Shakespeare has made the audience try and work out the relationship between the pair and decipher the laws that each person hold close to them in which they use judge people.

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        In the quote “Thou, told’st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate” Roderigo portrays his feeling towards Othello as “him”. This tells the reader that Roderigo is angry with Othello as by using a harsh pronoun it conveys his anger as if he cannot mention Othello’s name directly as fury is building up inside of him just by thinking of Othello.

        We find out more about Iago and what he is capable of in the next few lines “Three great ones in personal suit to him; and by the faith of man, I know my price; I am worth ...

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