This week's blog is all about the first act of the infamous play Othello, more specifically, Act 1.
In Act 1, we're introduced to the main characters, Othello, the black leutenant, Roderigo, the rich merchant, Iago, the warrior, Brabantio, Desdemona's father, the Duke and Desdemona, Brabantio's daughter. We find out that Iago, who was supost to become Othellos second in command, but the position was given to Cassio, the strategist. Because of this, he is infuriated and decides to seek revenge on him and Othello. His first plan is to tell Brabantio that Othello and Desdemona decided to elope. This plan almost works, because Brabantio runs off to go kill Othello, who has been caught red handed defiling his daughter and showing disregard for tradition and a lack of respect towards him. Meanwhile, there's a fleet of Turkish ships heading towards Cyprus, ready to attack. Brabantio and his angry mob take Othello to the war counsel, who is praying that he will be found innocent in order to lead them into battle, for a trial. After accusing him of drugging, abusing, enchanting and misleading Desdemona, Othello tells his side of the story, where he explains that Desdemona fell in love with him because of all of the stories he had from battle. After giving a short speech which wins over the Duke and Brabantio, and letting Desdemona tell her account, they determine that Othello is innocent.
One of the major themes in this Act is racism. Because Othello is black, Brabantio (along with the help of Iago and Roderigo) jumps to conclusions about his relationship with his daughter. Rogerigo and Iago call Othello an old black ram, and a big black horse. They also refer to him as the devil, and say that if he and Desdemona had children, they would run around neighing and they'd be offsprings of the devil. In retrospect, in this time period it wasn't uncommon that younger girls married older men. Also, Othello was regarded as the best warrior in his village, so if he was white I'm sure Brabantio would be very happy that his daughter decided to marry him. To play devil's advocate, I can understand where Brabantio's coming from. I personally wouldn't want my daughter marrying someone who's three times her age, no matter what skin colour or religion. I would just find is disgusting and creepy.
In my opinion, this story still has relevant themes, but the actual story is slightly confusing if you don't have any background information of that time period.
