Racial and Cultural Conflicts in ‘Othello’: A Road to a Clash of Civilizations

Abstract

This study aims to explore racial and cultural conflicts in Shakespearean Tragedy ‘Othello’ and examines how these conflicts may lead to a clash of civilizations. During the sixteenth century Renaissance in Europe, different civilizations of the world were coming together for different purposes. For the first time man had stepped out of his house on such massive scale. There were explorations in every walk of life. Man was driven with ceaseless curiosity to explore more. New lands were being discovered. New seas were being explored. The map of the world was expanding as new lands were discovered but the lands and places themselves were shrinking into a global village.  People from different countries with different races, nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, values and beliefs were gathering. Where it was a matchless positive development, at the same time it had its potential dangers as well. These differences in races, cultures, values, languages could easily be exploited by those who knew the difference among them and those foreigners who were ignorant of these differences could easily be victimized. So, there was a looming threat of civilizations, and this threat was very adeptly smelled by Shakespeare, and he came up with one of his great tragedies, Othello. To what extent cultural and racial differences are there in the play ‘Othello’ and how they can push to a clash of civilizations is the objective of this paper to explore.