Victim or Villain? -The Racist and Homoerotic Corruption of the Anti-Hero, Iago in Othello
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice consists of numerous dualities that are more than meets the eye. However, among these stands the duality of Iago. To Othello and his soldiers, Iago presents himself as honest and lovable, but to the audience, beneath the theatrics, we see him for what he truly is. In the annals of literary history and villainy, Iago is among the most prominent characters. However, like the fissiparous notions of black and white or good and evil, Iago is a multidimensional character who goes beyond common labels, throwing him on the precipice of the precarious line that separates good from evil. He is, in other words, a perversion of “Honest Iago” driven to nefarious menace by his repressed homoerotic love and a racist society. In an era when strict traditional and cultural ideals were upheld, there was no place for a scandalous homoerotic love between Iago and Othello. Examining the text, moments of Iago’s brilliant and devilish scheme are seen to carry undertones of the racist society he was raised in, which perverts his repressed homoerotic love for Othello. In this paper, I lay a foundation by examining the rigid notions of society, particularly regarding race and love, to explore Iago’s fall. Ultimately, this paper seeks to examine the interplay between racism and homoeroticism that corrupt Iago and his love for Othello. They distort Iago’s romantic, homoerotic love toward Othello into his own corrupted jealousy and force him into the role of an epitomic Machiavellian villain or anti-hero, fated, destined on a path to hatred and destruction.
Abstract
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice consists of numerous dualities that are more than meets the eye. However, among these stands the duality of Iago. To Othello and his soldiers, Iago presents himself as honest and lovable, but to the audience, beneath the theatrics, we see him for what he truly is. In the annals of literary history and villainy, Iago is among the most prominent characters. However, like the fissiparous notions of black and white or good and evil, Iago is a multidimensional character who goes beyond common labels, throwing him on the precipice of the precarious line that separates good from evil. He is, in other words, a perversion of “Honest Iago” driven to nefarious menace by his repressed homoerotic love and a racist society. In an era when strict traditional and cultural ideals were upheld, there was no place for a scandalous homoerotic love between Iago and Othello. Examining the text, moments of Iago’s brilliant and devilish scheme are seen to carry undertones of the racist society he was raised in, which perverts his repressed homoerotic love for Othello. In this paper, I lay a foundation by examining the rigid notions of society, particularly regarding race and love, to explore Iago’s fall. Ultimately, this paper seeks to examine the interplay between racism and homoeroticism that corrupt Iago and his love for Othello. They distort Iago’s romantic, homoerotic love toward Othello into his own corrupted jealousy and force him into the role of an epitomic Machiavellian villain or anti-hero, fated, destined on a path to hatred and destruction.
참고문헌 (20)
- Adelman, J., "Iago’s Alter Ego : Race as Projection in Othello", Shakespeare Quarterly, 48(2), pp.125~144 (1997)[DOI]
- Arjunan, A., "Characterisation-an intrinsic aspect of dramatic text", IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 20(3), pp.76~78 (2015)
- Babcock, W., "Iago An Extraordinary Honest Man", Shakespeare Quarterly, 16(4), pp.297~301 (1965)
- Beier, B. V., "The Art of Persuasion and Shakespeare’s Two Iagos", Studies in Philology, 111(1), pp.34~64 (2014)
- Bowman, T. D., "A Further Study in the Characterization and Motivation of Iago", College English, 4(8), pp.460~469 (1943)
- Bray, A., "Homosexuality in Renaissance England" (1995), Columbia University Press
- Cacicedo, A., "Othello, Stranger in a Strange Land", Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 18(1), pp.7~27 (2016)
- Calvino, I., "Quickness. Six Memos for the Next Millennium", pp.31~54 (1993), Vintage
- Dekker, T., "English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology", pp.488~543 (2002), W.W. Norton Company
- Goldberg, J., "Sodomy and Society : The Case of Christopher Marlowe", Southwest Review, 69(4), pp.371~378 (1984)
- Mason, P., "Othello and Race Prejudice", Caribbean Quarterly, 8(3), pp.154~162 (1962)
- Milton, J., "Paradise Lost" (1998), Longman
- Rosenberg, M., "In Defense of Iago", Shakespeare Quarterly, 6(2), pp.145~158 (1955)
- Shakespeare, W., "The Norton Shakespeare", pp.2109~2191 (2008), W.W. Norton Company
- Smith, B., "Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England: A Cultural Poetics" (1995), University of Chicago Press
- The Holy Bible, "English Standard Version" (2011), Crossway
- Turner, T. A., "Othello on the Rack", Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 15(3), pp.102~136 (2015)
- "Villein", Merriam-Webster, ~ (2022)