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The Colonial Discourse in Othello and the Tempest2 136 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 3, 2017 MA. & MSc. Blerina ZYLFO/LLESHI1 THE COLONIAL DISCOURSE IN OTHELLO AND THE TEMPEST2 Abstract This thesis discusses the Colonial Discourse in Shakespeare’s plays: Othello and The Tempest, and gives a re-evaluation of Shakespeare’s position in the Arab world and show. Many questions are aroused about Shakespeare, such as whether Shakespeare is sexist, whether Shakespeare is a feudal propagandist or whether Shakespeare is a racist. This paper attempts to answer the question, that is, whether Shakespeare is a racist through the study of two of his works: Othello and The Tempest, by showing the plausibility of the claim that Shakespeare is a “bloody racist”. Key words: The Colonial Discourse, Othello and The Tempest, racism, racist. Introduction Old criticism looks at Shakespeare with the eye of an admirer. Everyone becomes sympathetic with Othello. Shakespeare makes a great figure of Othello. Many questions are aroused about Shakespeare, such as whether Shakespeare is a sexist, whether Shakespeare is a feudal propagandist or whether Shakespeare is a racist. This paper attempts to answer the last question, that is, whether Shakespeare is a racist through the study of two of his works: Othello and The Tempest. Bradley writes: Othello… a being essentially large and grand, towering above his fellows, holding a volume of 1 Email: [email protected]; Faculty of Foreign Languages; University of Tirana 2 Paper presneted in “3 International Conference ‘Foreign Languages in a Global World, Linguistics, Literature, Didactics” Durres, June 2017” Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 3, 2017 137 force which in repose ensures pre-eminence without an efforts, and in commotion reminds us rather of the fury of the elements than of the tumult of common human passion (150). Shakespeare admires Othello at the expense of the white man. Othello stands for good while Iago stands for evil. Iago is an evil man; he is the devil incarnate. Iago is the devil white man who hates black people. Iago is the destroyer of Othello who is loved by all characters. But Iago, here, is an exception. Shakespeare seems not to encourage the split between races. He is not degrading the “other”. Iago is responsible for Othello’s fate. Moreover, Othello is presented as a hero and a savior. The Duke says “ Valiant Othello, we must … employ you / against the general enemy Ottoman”. Shakespeare describes the Ottomans as a dangerous enemy overseas who are heathens, pagans and barbarians. Then, he describes the Venetian as a nation that is established on order and that they are going to fight the barbarians. Originally, Othello is a Moor who comes from Africa. Africans also are described as heathens, pagans, barbarians and savages, but Othello becomes Christian and learns to live in Venice. This image of Turks and Africans is painted by Shakespeare. However, if one goes back in history, he will find that the image is different. The Turks are not heathen people; they are Moslems. At the time of the play, they established a wonderful civilization. They reached the peak of grandeur. They reached the heart of Europe in their extension. But the problem is that Shakespeare knows nothing about Moslems. He believes that whoever is not Christian is pagan. This is a racist perspective. Shakespeare refuses to consider “the other”. He is narrow - minded. He fears to see virtue in “the other” in order not to see the defects of “the self”. This can be considered an accumulative inferiority complex through the ages of Moslems’ superiority over Europe. So, there are two possibilities: Shakespeare either does this in cold blood or just does this through collective unconscious. But in both cases the result in one - a racist view. When Brabantio knows that his daughter elopes with Othello, he is much grieved. He thinks that his daughter is stolen from him or she is under spell. Brabantio accepts him superficially while deeply he rejects him as a marginalized person and considers him an exotic, a remote, an outsider and an alien figure. Iago never mentions his name; but he always calls him “the Moor”. There are many signs of racial division. Shakespeare paints him as civilized on the surface but indigenously he is a beast who is ready to devour any thing. Iago scratches out the surface and shows the beast. According to European standard such a man who is not cunning and 138 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 3, 2017 resourceful and who is so innocent is not to be respected. He should not command, on the contrary, he should be commanded and enslaved because he is racially inferior. He is so free from cunning and deception. He does not deserve to be embraced and accepted. He should remain marginalized. His blackness is always emphasized. Even the pure white angel, Desdemona, falls in love with his mind, not his visage. When Desdemona dies, she realizes that his eyes are like the eyes of a beast. And Othello at last learns the Venetian habit: the best of his kind is the worst among the white men who never regarded him as part of them. However, Othello is the very image of masculinity because he is a brave warrior who fights the cannibals. When he was young, he was taken as a slave and he swam in the sea and get to Europe. He becomes the leader of the white - a commander who is enslaved to win them victory. According to the Western Concept, he is a gull and a fool. He proves himself the worst fool. At the end everyone in the play damns him. He is called “black devil”, as blackness is associated with the devil. Shakespeare gives Othello lines like: “Her name, that was as fresh as Dian’s visage, is now begrim’d and black as mine own face” or, “O yet mortal engines, whose rude throats th’ immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit. He says to Emelia, “you, mistress, have had the office opposite to St. Peter.” And so forth. We have a portrait of a Moor talking not in the language of his putative Islamic origins, but in Christian and classical terms, such as Dian, Jove, St. Peter and patience, ‘thou Rose of a cherubim’. This kind of language raises numerous question marks. Harris notes, “To recount the story of the embassy in some detail is to take us nearer to Shakespeare’s England, perhaps even, in a sense to Shakespeare’s Moor” (24). Thus, the portrait of the ambassador from Morocco and Harris’ essay serve to remind of the political forces that frame a society’s ‘racial imagination’ just as effectively as the literary ones. Obviously Othello’s character is the invention of Shakespeare’s imagination, obviously, too, the account of his general life and crime, with details concerning his rank and race, come from Cinthio’s Il Moro (23). Azza Gadallah says that for Greenblatt the play’s political nature lies in its presentation through the character of Iago the imperialist attitude towards weaker nations. It is what Edward Said defines as the “hegemony of the superior” that is Iago (the European) over Othello the inferior (The Non European) (201). Here, one can emphasize again that the Imperialist situation always leads to fiasco on both parts: Othello and Iago. Both are destined to death. This is another proof that the clash of civilizations is an utter fantasy. It is an illusion or a lie that the colonizers are the first to believe it. So, the solution of this complicated issue is Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 3, 2017 139 dialogue between civilization. Nations have to fill the gaps of communication between them through mutual understanding and not clashes. EL-Halawany mentions that Othello’s character is frequently associated with animals such as ‘horse’ beast’, ‘ ass’ and ‘ bear’ (124). In short, the question raised by Othello: “Will, I pray; demand that demi-devil / Why he hath thus ensnar’d my soul and body?” (V.ii. 302 - 3) remains unanswered. But this question should be asked by all minorities, marginalised, oppressed and enslaved nations to their oppressors. Of course the answer the colonizers will give is that they just want to help the colonized to gain their freedom. This is the colonial discourse everywhere and the throughout history. It is a mirage in the human horizon. The Tempest is another work by Shakespeare that elucidates the colonial discourse. Greenblatt’s essay entitled “Invisible Bullets” in Shakespearean Negotiations (1988) begins by reading a selection from Thomas Harriot’s A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, written in 1588, as a representative discourse of the English colonizers of America. Greenblatt also asserts that Harriot tests the English power structure that he attests by recording in his Report the counter - voices of the American Indians who are being appropriated and oppressed by that power. Greenblatt then identifies parallel modes of power - discourse and counter discourse in the dialogues in Shakespeare’s Tempest between Prospero the imperialist appropriator and Caliban the expropriated native of his island (Abrams 187 - 88). It is no coincidence that the now hugely influential reading of The Tempest in the context of “the discourse of colonialism’ began for the purposes of the Anglo - American academy with Stephen Greenblatt’s essay “ Learning to curse”, published in 1976, in a book called First Images of America: The Impact of the New world on the Old which explicitly marked the bicentenary of the American Declaration of Independence. In this essay Greenblatt mentions that the link between The Tempest and the New World has often been noted, as, for example, by Terence Hawkes who suggests, in his book Shakespeare’s Talking Animals, that in creating Prospero, the playwright’s imagination was fired by the resemblance he perceived between himself and a colonist.
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