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?