SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO: A REPRESENTATION OF THE CLASH BETWEEN THE ORIENT AND THE OCCIDENT

This paper attempts to trace how Shakespeare’s Othello reflects the deep-rooted Eurocentric ideology of the Elizabethan people and show how such views created distinctions between self and other, master and slave, civilized and savage, white and black, good and evil, strong and weak, occident and orient. These views had such a deep impact that many writers have portrayed the Europeans as superior and the ‘self ’ as belonging to the ‘centre ’ or ‘Occident, ’ whereas people in far-away lands are shown as inferior and the ‘other ’ belonging to the ‘margin ’ or ‘Orient’. However, in the play Othello Shakespeare breaks away from these beliefs and introduces an African man who disregards such stereotypical views thus shocking his audience with this deviation from the norm. He presents, in Othello’s person, a reality that African men are polite, educated, loyal and brave warriors. Shakespeare even makes Othello more prejudiced against his own culture than against another race. Here is a Black man who is not against white people, but against people belonging to other religions