Othello Context

Othello Context

1. Women

   • Othello idolises his wife, whereas Iago see love as "merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will
   • Like Othello and Iago the attitudes of the audience at the time are likely to have been varied too.
   • Misogyny- women were distrusted simply because they were women
   • At the time it was assumed that women would cheat- it was part of their nature
   • Elizabethan women were tutored at home - there were no schools for girls. They were not allowed to enter university and were banned from becoming doctors or lawyers.

2. Religion

   • The dominant religion in Shakespeare's Europe was Christianity
   • To be any religion other than Christian was treated with distrust, fear and often hatred
   • One of the factors that marginalised Moors was their religion
   • Othello's background would be possibly an African religion but more likely to have been muslm.
   • Othello is an outsider because of his birth religion as well as his colour
   • Differences in religion and culture led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian kingdoms of Europe, which tried to reclaim control of Muslim areas

3. Race

   • As critics have established, the term 'moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms such as 'African'.
   • The origin of the word "moor" was used in literature to describe a group of people called the Berbers, who originated from North Africa.
   • As a visible minority in Shakespeare's London, blacks attempted to carve out lives for themselves in what must have eeemed a bizarre majority culture

4. Jealousy

   • Jealousy was viewed as something irrational and linked to the deadly sin of envy
   • It was viewed at a sudden infection against which there was no prevention or cure
   • Being jealous could let in evil and chaos and it was a state greatly feared by Shakespeare's audiences

5. Cuckold derives from "cuckoo" - the bird known for laying their eggs in another's nest

   • Any man whose wife cheated on him (without his knowledge) was known as a cuckold
   • It was highly undesirable to be considered a cuckold. All of the community would find out about it and it was considered a public humiliation

6. Vengeance

   • Revenge was seen as a kind of wild justice, which is urged by an awareness of the internal ravages
   • It was believed that harbouring vengeful feelings keeps alive the wounds which originally motivated the desire for revenge.