Othello The Devil In The Night example essay topic

Devils, witchcraft, feminine and racial subordination and a fear of disorder, these were the main issues people were subject to during Shakespeare's time and this is reflected in his play "Othello". Though a lot has changed after five hundred years that has affected the way people respond to his dominant reading such as the feminist movement and the drive for coloured people's rites in America. Act 1 begins with Iago and Roderigo plotting in the dark and doing so very sneakily. "I follow him to serve my turn upon him".

To an Elizabethan audience the darkness would represent the work of the devil (who supposedly only worked at night) and would stir their supernatural beliefs. Though a modern (Christian) audience after the reforms of the church don't see the devil as having a large stranglehold on the events in the world and would miss this dominant reading and just see them as being sneaky and maybe only to some a little mischievous. If so this takes away from Iago's character and makes him seem, only just a little, less villainous. This use of night is continued when Iago and Roderigo awake Brabantio to tell him about his Daughter's relationship with Othello. "Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags. Thieves, thieves, thieves!" shows at the time not only how women are men's subordinates but how, through Othello the devil in the night has stolen away this influential man's daughter, "That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, or with some dram conjur'd to this effect, he wrought upon her".

For a woman to have power was also a sign of deterioration, something that a fifteenth to sixteenth century audience was very afraid of. After the effects of the feminist movement the view of Desdemona being "stolen" has changed and we now see her as a strong willed and courageous person who has challenged the fabric of society by disobeying her Father and Marrying a Moor (African). Therefore she is no longer a person that is to be pitied but a woman that is independent and can stand her ground when she needs to. Racial discrimination was also ripe in Shakespeare's time and for an inter-racial marriage to occur was something very un ordinary, also coloured people were seen as being somewhere in between human and animal, savages, uncontrollable and uncivilized. The first act is plastered with characters commenting on Othello's appearance the "Thick lips", "An old black ram is t upping your white ewe", "lascivious moor" and "to go against all rules of nature". These racist comments from today's perspective only add to Brabantio's hatred, amplify Iago's jealousy and makes plain his mad thoughts when he reveals to the audience his suspicion that he thinks Othello has been sleeping with his wife as it is considered that unfair to denigrate someone because of their race.

Being a modern audience we have been subjected to changes in religion, superstition, social hierarchy and the increased freedom people have, and therefore our perception of the characters, the relationships between them and the situations are different to those Shakespeare's audience would have experienced.