인종차별주의적 관점에서 본 오셀로(Othello)의 손수건

Abstract

Thomas Rymer criticized Othello for using too much stress and repetition on handkerchief. Despite his comment, the handkerchief is crucial for the play because it has many symbolic meanings related to Desdemona, to Othello, and even to us. Handkerchief was a luxury item which showed the owner’s wealth, social status and even good behavior especially during the Elizabethan era. On the contrary, however, it could show sexual sin when it was in the hands of a prostitute. Strawberries spotted on the handkerchief also has contrary meanings of the good and hypocrites. This ambivalent meanings of the handkerchief and strawberries are what Iago uses to destroy Othello’s life. Iago’s malice against Othello is based on racism. As a racist, he thinks the marriage of Othello to a white woman is unnatural and intolerable. In the Venetian society of white people, Othello has been welcomed with his storytelling about his exotic past. Desdemona falls in love with his stories and betrays her father by marrying Othello. To her, handkerchief is something she can think of his stories as real. Iago knows the value of the handkerchief and uses it to destroy Othello. Incited by Iago’s trick, jealous Othello makes a story about the handkerchief to test her love. However, Desdemona doubts the truth of the story and it is the moment when he loses the authority of his whole stories and even himself. To prove his story as real, Othello clings to the handkerchief, and becomes a voluntary victim of Iago’s plot. Thus, Iago’s distortion of the symbolic meaning of the handkerchief causes Desdemona’s death and eventually destroys Othello. The last scene discloses another face of racism. The impartial attitude of Venetians toward Othello at the beginning of the play is gone. They share a hidden racist disapproval of Othello. Like the handkerchief, Othello is a mere ‘trifle’ within the Venetian racial society. This kind of hidden racism still remains among us. The color of the handkerchief proves it. We overlook the clue in the text and take it for granted that the color of the handkerchief is white. With the handkerchief, Shakespeare even makes us alert the racism which might exist in us without realizing it.