Luke Harding
Helms
Rethinking Medieval Literature
November 5, 2021
Using Things of Darkness to Analyze Themes of Race in Othello and American Moor
Things of Darkness by Kim F. Hall introduces a number of racial analysis methods and themes that can be applied to a variety of works, particularly early British and Medieval literature such as Othello. However, the themes presented in both of these pieces reach beyond a historical context and extend their prominence into modern day society, as seen in Keith Hamilton-Cobb’s American Moor. This essay looks to utilize the works of Hall to better understand themes of blackness, whiteness, and racial power dynamics as displayed in Othello and American Moor.
Hall’s book Things of Darkness analyzes a variety of components of racial dynamics and depictions in early British literature. She introduces connections between race and politics, sexuality, purity, beauty, nationalism, and a variety of other concepts and impactful topics as depicted in texts. In her analysis of blackness as depicted in early British literature, Hall makes claims regarding the use of race as connected to a lack of purity. Hall states that “Shakespeare and his contemporaries regularly use black as if it were a simple antonym for ‘beautiful’” (Hall, 70). This dynamic is evidenced by Othello and Desdamona’s contrasting depictions. Othello, as noted in American Moor, is noted not as a beautiful or complex individual but instead as a physical specimen; a renowned general former slave who assimilated into a white culture to become accepted, even as he is seen as an outsider. Hall continues by establishing a connection between the depictions of race and sexual deviance, noting a connection between depictions of race and what she calls “erotic danger” (Hall, 65). She goes on to note these depictions as rooted in racist rhetoric established and spread through Christianity. She notes that Christianity establishes a pureness with light and whiteness while “evil, sexuality, and difference are linked with darkness” (Hall, 69). This theme of sexuality is apparent in Othello when Iago looks to wake Desdamona’s father with a rather graphic and racist exclamation. He describes Othello and Desdamona’s relations to Desdamona’s father, referencing “an old black ram / (that) is tupping your white ewe” (Shakespeare, Oth.1.1.97-98). Hall’s point regarding racist connections between blackness and deviant sexuality is depicted clearly in this scene. Iago uses a graphic and distasteful description of Othello and Desdamona that lacks respect for Othello and radiates racist attitudes about him that extend back to Christian and European depictions of blackness that coincide with evil and sexual deviance. Hall’s use of traditional European writings’ use of blackness as associated with evil and strange allows the reader to perceive Othello in a new light, one of empathy for the character and frustration with the writer (as well as Iago) who, through traditions repeated over generations of Christian art, partakes in a depiction of racist tropes and metaphors.
Coinciding with Hall’s explanations and connections of blackness with European texts is the depiction of whiteness. Throughout Othello the reader can notice the senses of purity and freedom from sin or wrongdoing that are associated with Desdamona and, of note, Othello’s attitudes toward her. As a white woman from a family with class, Desdamona is perceived with a level of perfection that further carries with it racist ideas of white purity and black darkness. When Othello enters her room to slay Desdamona he pauses to reflect upon his actions. He seeks to strangle her so as to not “shed her blood / not scar that whiter skin of hers than snow / and smooth as monumental alabaster” (Shakespeare, Oth. 5.2.4-5). Here Othello demonstrates the very concept of white pureness that has been perpetuated by European literature and other forms of art that Hall emphasizes. These themes continue an ongoing toxic dynamic in writings that continue to uphold a racist hierarchy in the field of literature. Hall analyzes this dynamic further. She highlights a tendency in early European literature to use whiteness, particularly for women, to portray the subject as an “acceptable object of platonic love and admiration” (Hall, 67). Desdamona is a subject of love and admiration throughout Othello. Almost as if she is a relic or a piece of human art created for observation and appreciation as a perfect subject, Desdamona and her whiteness resemble arrogant and racist European attitudes that Hall recognizes and highlights in her writing. The tragic side of Othello that this highlights is Othello’s attitudes about himself. As a former slave who was assimilated into European culture, he seems to demonstrate similar attitudes about whiteness and blackness that are ingrained into European writings and culture. These attitudes uphold a hierarchy between races. They establish a white dominance over blackness that perpetuates and lingers in modern society. In American Moor, the racial hierarchy of literature is not only identified in historic texts but emphasized in its resemblance in modern society’s practices.
Hall recognizes the role of literature in the racial hierarchy that Europeans and, as demonstrated by Cobb, Americans perpetuate. Halls describes the role of literature in understanding and perceiving race. She highlights the emphasis of darkness and whiteness and how they “begin to function as a desire for a stable European linguistic order” (Hall, 71). Essentially, Hall is identifying the role of art in culture. By perpetuating racist practices in literature a text is therefore perpetuating a culture of racist attitudes. While it is done without consciousness, texts like Othello (as well as the attitudes around them) that have existed for centuries uphold a racial hierarchy that limits the opportunities for people of color and upholds the power imbalance for white folks. This theme permeates in Cobb’s American Moor. Throughout the text, there is an unsettling dynamic between the actor (a black man auditioning to play the part of Othello) and the director of the play. This dynamic is built around the white director’s traditional perspective on Shakespearian pieces (as created and practiced by predominantly white members of the theatre community) as opposed to the black actor’s beliefs and experiences. Cobb demonstrates a frustration with this literary hierarchy. The actor essentially accuses the director of demanding a reading of the play in the way he sees it (traditional white perspective) and, according to the actor, “in this instance, in this play, that is unacceptable” (Cobb, 19). The actor battles a complex and traumatic establishment in which white dominance is celebrated and upheld at the expense of minorities and their lack of opportunities. How literature is written, portrayed, celebrated, and taught has weight in a given culture. It either challenges or perpetuates standards and beliefs that uphold this racist hierarchy that has been practiced and contributed to for centuries if not millennia. The very dynamic of the audition room is a microcosm of this idea. The director, a white man with total domain over the casting and production of the play, determines whether the black actor is capable and within his vision of playing Othello, a character that, according to Cobb, is only truly understandable from his perspective because of the nature of the black experience. He equates himself and his experiences with those of Othello, claiming that “his anger, Othello’s anger… does not see [the director]. He sees all the hovering forces in [the] room, in that senate chamber, in the world” (Cobb, 19). The actor goes on to describe the power dynamics that had been established in the broader context of the world and continue to dictate the power struggle of the audition room. These contexts and dynamics, as Hall and Cobb demonstrate, are embroidered into the nature of literature, ranging from pieces like Othello and extending their influence into the world today. As Cobb and Hall point out, modern linguistics and literature perpetuate racist dynamics and power imbalances in modern culture.
Things of Darkness by Kim F. Hall introduces a number of topics in regards to race and early European literature, but her observations and theories continue to find themselves in modern texts. Pieces such as American Moor demonstrate this modern understanding of these themes in how contemporary texts uphold these dynamics and themes. Othello is a subject of these analyses. The ways in which Shakespeare’s works are upheld and produced have aspects that, as American Moor points out, continue to perpetuate these racial dynamics. As Hall demonstrates in her work, the themes of whiteness and blackness that Othello utilizes contribute to these racist perceptions and traditions that have found themselves in works throughout European history, and American Moor demonstrates how they continue today. These works allow readers to see these themes in a new light and consider how they uphold racist power imbalances in broader cultural contexts.
Works Cited
Cobb, Keith Hamilton. American Moor. Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Hall, Kim F. “Fair Texts/Dark Ladies.” Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in
Early Modern England, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1995, pp. 62–122.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet from The Folger Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul
Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, November 5, 2021.
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/romeo-and-juliet/