The Ewe and the Barbary Horse: Reading Othello alongside Edward Said’s Orientalism as a Means to Better Understanding Both

Edward Said’s Orientalism set out to define the prejudices of the Western world—specifically the European world—against those of the Eastern. Said believes that Europeans used their knowledge of those in Middle East to decide in what ways they were different from themselves. These differences, he believes allow westerners to judge easterners as inferior, less civilized, and less evolved than the rest of the modern world (Said 24). The work can, of course, be applied to any culture that the Western world has viewed as outside of their frame of reference. For the European characters in Shakespeare’s Othello, this refers to the play’s title character. While Shakespeare himself seems critical of this approach to understanding the Eastern world, his characters do not. Through their words and actions, often extremely racist in nature, the individuals around Othello remind him, again and again, that he is different, and therefore, inferior to them.

One of the first lines spoken in Othello comes from the play’s antagonist, Iago. He has decided to use Othello’s involvement with a young woman, Desdemona, as leverage against Othello. Motive, at this point, remains to be seen, but it is possible that a simple distrust of someone foreign-born is enough for the villain. Iago runs to Desdemona’s father, Barbantio, and exclaims:

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram

Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;

Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,

Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.

(Shakespeare I.ii.9-12)

First of all, Iago refers to Othello, not by name, but as “an old black man.” Here, he is not even “the” old black man, but “an.” Despite the fact that Othello is a respected soldier in the city, according to Iago, he could be anyone. This separation of Othello from his name follows closely with Said’s discussion regarding the separation of the individual from his identity, and it carries through throughout the entirety of the play. Othello, for example, is often simply referred to as “the moor,” which is an attempt, either consciously or sub-consciously to remind Othello and the audience that he is different from the rest of the characters and that, at least according to many of the cities’ citizens, makes him inferior.

It is important to note that Iago refers to Desdemona as a “white ewe.” Her color is important to Iago, as she is decidedly not black, and so Iago believes that Othello is ruining her because he is not white. This distinction between black and white is also important to Said’s argument about the otherness of the Eastern man, as it underscores the divide between the Eastern and Western world. In general, white is a symbol of purity and black a symbol of evil, so it is not surprising that Iago decides to draw this comparison. Further proving this divide is Iago’s reference to Othello as “the devil.” Here, Othello is simply “an” old black man, but he is “THE” devil. Again, Iago has chosen his words very carefully in order to draw as much attention to the fact that Othello is an outsider as possible.

Once it becomes apparent that Desdemona and Othello are involved, Othello is called before the Duke and the senate to explain his case. He begins by explaining how Desdemona fell for him. He tells the Duke that he had dazzled Desdemona and her father with his stories of traveling to far off lands. He recounts that the “cannibals that each other eat, / The Anthropophagi and men whose heads / Do grow beneath their shoulders” (Shakespeare I.iii.20). These are all images extremely foreign to Desdemona, who hung on every word as Othello told her father these stories. Barbantio believes that the only way Desdemona could have been convinced to involve herself with Othello is through a powerful magic, and his beliefs help the audience to understand that the other characters in the play believe Othello to be so far removed from their own frames of references, that they imagine he has mystical powers due to his foreign history.

When later, Iago discusses the idea of Desdemona’s marriage to Othello, he again approaches her father, this time with even more racial prejudices and ideas about her the couples’ involvement. He states that Desdemona should be looking for someone

of her own clime, complexion, and degree,

Whereto we see in all things nature tends—

Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank,

Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.

(Shakespeare III.iii.10-13)

Not only does Iago believe that Desdemona should be looking for a husband of her own race and color, but also that any involvement with Othello would be “most rank.” Again, we see an example of Said’s beliefs about the racism that is rampant in orientalist thought.

It is especially interesting to watch Othello’s journey from perceived savage to actual savage. Toward the beginning of the play, Othello is a respected soldier in Vienna. By the play’s end he is very much reduced to an angry, inarticulate individual. It is important to note that while Othello’s downfall is at the hands of a fellow soldier who acts more like the idea of the ill-behaved savage Said describes than Othello ever does. It is only after Othello has been manipulated and lied to by Iago and his company that he devolves in this way. Othello’s final words are especially telling:

a malignant and a turban'd Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

I took by the throat the circumcised dog,

And smote him, thus. [kills himself]

(Shakespeare V.ii.66-70)

At this point in the play, Othello has accepted the fact that his identity is based solely on his skin. He is now “malignant” and also a “turban’d Turk.” Even worse is the fact that he refers to himself as a circumcised dog, only furthering the animal imagery used in the play and supported by Said’s belief that the Eastern world’s portrayal of the Western world is grossly inaccurate and also offensive to the people who identify with it.

While Othello is primarily a play about manipulation and deception, it also provides an example of how orientalism shapes the way individuals from these two halves of the world interact. Edward Said’s Orientalism outlines the behaviors of the members of the Eastern world, which have led to the existence of a Western world that is (similar to Othello, himself) more often than not feared and misunderstood. While Shakespeare’s characters tend to perpetuate these issues, there are instances where it seems that Shakespeare himself would have chosen to defend people more closely associated with the Western world. Reading Othello with Orientalism in mind makes it easier for the reader to see how it happens that an entire group of people can be intimidated by the differences of those whose lives are unlike their own.

Works Cited

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 1978.

Shakespeare, William. Othello the Moor of Venice. Floating Press, 2008.