preview

Comparing Othello 'And The Snow Child'

Decent Essays
Open Document

During the Renaissance period, a relationship between two people from different racial background was unheard of and seen as unconventional, so society did not approve as they believed this relationship couldn’t be based on love but pure lust. Iago uses the taboo topic of interracial relationship to warn Desdemona’s father Brabantio as his first attempt of malevolent trickery in Act one, Scene One when he says ‘you have lost half your soul; an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe’. The racial reference regarding the Moor creates an animalistic imagery of Othello as a sexual predator, so before the audience are officially introduced to the protagonist, we are forced see Othello from Iago’s perspective, immediately disliking the Moor. Shakespeare …show more content…

This is seen as destructive because it’s a dramatic irony as the audience are aware of Iago’s plan and Iago tries to convince Brabantio that Othello sees his daughter as inferior and merely an object of lust and physical desires. Likewise, in The Snow Child by Angela Carter, she subverts the tale of Snow white and explores themes of male perversion and sexual corruption. It is evident that the Count desires a child he describes as ‘white as snow’, ‘red as blood’ and ‘black as the bird’s feathers’. Carter also uses colours to expose the counts perverted intensions; the colour ‘white’ connotes innocence and purity, ‘red’ as sexual maturity, and ‘black’ his evil intensions. When the child he described so precisely appeared in front of him she was ‘the child of his desires’; here we are forced to consider whether his desires are parental or simply for sexual gratification. This soon becomes clear when the count ‘unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead …show more content…

Carter emphasises the destructive nature of the count’s love; he has a parental desire to have a child whom he can love and protect, but he allows his perversion to take over and abuse this child. Therefore, Carter uses the count as a symbol to highlight the perverted ideologies of men in this patriarchal society, and this makes love destructive because men are unable to see women past sexual objects but as human beings. However, Duffy focuses on the positive aspect of love, and how love does not always and how the passage of time has a significant effect on love. Duffy begins the poem by explaining the importance of the relationship between love and time for instance when the speaker says ‘Love’s time ‘s beggar…makes love rich’. Carter’s use of personification and metaphor shows the desperation love is for more time; love is the beggar and time is the person, and every moment time allows more time for love to last its appreciates

Get Access