Brabantio views Desdemona’s marriage to Othello as unnatural for a few reasons. She is his only daughter and heir and in the past has rejected many rich men who have tried to woo her, so Brabantio sees any marriage that Desdemona would willingly accept as unnatural with regard to how he has come to understand what his daughter would want. He thought that she was opposed to marriage with all of her would be suitors so marrying out of her own accord seems unnatural. Brabantio praises his daughter’s innocence to a fault; he forgets, or knowingly ignores, the chance that she has made this decision out of her own free will.
It’s harder to tell just to what extent Brabantio is racist since it is his daughter that is marrying Othello as opposed to someone else’s. Othello does state that Brabantio did at least respect and admire him, possibly ‘love’ him, and had Othello married not Desdemona but someone else’s daughter then Brabantio wouldn’t be as outraged and would probably see it as less unnatural (less personal/more forgivable/less need to use racial slander). But that’s still kind off racist. It’s the difference between tolerance and acceptance. Desdemona accepted everything about Othello till her death whereas Brabantio “tolerated” it, albeit grudgingly but that’s still tolerance.
If I decided to marry someone of a different ethnicity (and I seriously doubt even the possibility of me wanting to get married to anyone regardless of ethnic background anytime in the future) then I’d probably have enough reason to not care what my parents thought, but they probably would react unfavorably, at least initially.
The more secular a society the more tolerant it can be. If you live in a society that believes things without evidence or just reason then that society can’t possibly be as tolerant as those that don’t because people’s beliefs and opinions towards one another will not be open to rational discourse. If people don’t have a chance to discuss the way they feel and why they feel that way then it is not possible to uproot those prejudices. Of coarse most western societies today are more tolerant of race than in Shakespeare’s day but genocide is still occurring in different areas of the world and it wont ever stop because people have the ability to believe just about anything.
If people continue to blindly accept all the views,opinions, ideas, prejudices, everything that they inherit from previous generations; without trying to view it objectively to reach decisions based on reason whether it is moral, ethical, or even true to begin with then they make possible the things they say they want to prevent.
4 comments:
Interesting--the way you put it, then, Desdemona and Othello are quite amazing in being able to chuck tradition (especially Desdemona because she is so young). And Venetian culture is quite tolerant, maybe even more than some cultures these days.
It really was more in the defense of Brabantio and the possible reason for him saying what he had said. Its almost too easy to blame everything in this play on either racism or sexism. Why not take into account individual motivations and the cultural subtext that allows/determines these people to behave the way they do.
You really got to the core of it. People will generaly believe what they want to believe and see what they want to see. The sad thing is that people will alaways find something in "different" to be "unnatural". I think Brabantio was being a very protective father and in the time this took place, it is not so uncommon. He is racist, there is no doubt about it, but we can see the same thing today. You may be tolerant toward an ethinic group but god forbid if your daughter or son married into one. It's really sad, but it's the way society works. I see your point.
im with you on marriage period. NOOOO anyhow it doent matter what race of faith or anything you marry who you love and anyone elses view on the person doesnt matter i agree totally. tolerance is not true acceptace
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