Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter?

 

-Brabantio

Othello                           Act I, Scene ii, Line 62

 

Okay, I’m giving you a break this morning. The actual line I picked was a few lines down from this, but it was in the middle of a really long sentence. So I gave you the first line of Brabantio’s rant. He’s going off on Othello and accusing him of using foul means to steal his daughter, Desdemona. It’s a pretty good rant, and it brings up more than one discussion point. Why don’t we take a look at it, or at least a part of it.

 

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter?

Damn’d as thou art, thou hast enchanted here;

For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,

If she in chains of magic were not bound,

Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,

So opposite to marriage that she shunn’d

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,

Would ever have, t’incur a genral mock,

Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom

Of such a thing as thou,--to fear, not to delight.

 

That’s only about half of it. It goes on, but at least that’s the end of a sentence.

Obviously Brabantio feels that Othello used magic or something to get Desdemona to fall in love with him. Why else would she pass up  rich (understood to be white), well heeled gentlemen for a black thing like you? Oh yes, he said that.  And here’s where we run into a discussion point and perhaps a sticking point, and it rests on one word. Sooty. Soot is black. Sooty is black in color. Yes, Othello is a black man. So, yes, Brabantio went there and said that. Why would my daughter possibly fall in love with a black thing like you?

Is that a nice thing to say? Of course not. Is it a racist thing to say? Probably. Is it in reality, something that someone in Brabantio’s situation, and time and place might say? Probably. Does it work well in the context of this dramatic work? I think so.

So we've concluded that it's a racist comment and therefore objectionable (and rightly so) to many. Therefore, do we need to eliminate, or sanitize this dramatic work, or can we find a way tolerate and understand this use of the word sooty. To be clear, there are a few other references in the play to Othello's skin color, and Will does manage to utilize racial and ethnic branding in other of his works. 

Anyway, I hope that we can find a way to tolerate and understand Will's, and other artists, use of language that portrays objectionable behaviour. It would, I think, be wrong and self-defeating, to try to pretend that such behaviour does not exist. Such a pretense is a dream of a very nice world which will never co-exist with humankind. 

Oooh, a little bit heady this morning. Sorry about that.

This is a sooty albatross. 

Language is funny sometimes, isn't it?