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How Is Othello Respected

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As a high ranking military officer Othello is respected to some extent, however Othello being a Moor makes him lose most if not all of the respect afforded to him because of his dark skin color. During Shakespeare’s time Africans were characterized as “ beast-like, lacking in reason” by English writers. Due to the fact that Africans had vastly different cultures than that of the one in Elizabethan England Africans were not seen as equals. To Europeans it was unfathomable that Africans had the brain capacity to do anything other than fight like brutes and be sexually permissive. It was said of Moors that they acted as if “ they continually lived in a forest among wild things”. Moors and Africans overall were not seen as human beings they were instead seen as savage wild animals just like lions,tigers, and wolves.The Moorish people were seen with disgust show by Iago dictating to others to “disrelish and abhor the Moor”. As a Moor Othello was not seen as a human equal to the white population of Venice. The people of Venice feel that they are justified in their ridicule and disrespect of Othello because he was inferior to Europeans. The Venetian’s idea of superiority of Othello is shown through how they rarely address him by his name Othello they choose mostly to refer to and call upon him as the Moor. In the play the …show more content…

To the people of Venice it did not matter where Othello was truly from all they saw was that Othello was an outsider in Venice. Othello was

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