Issues of Race in William Shakespeare Plays
The issues of race constitute one of the most important themes in world-wide
literature. Although in Elizabethan England the ideas of race were much ignored
due to the confusion and lack of knowledge in regard to foreigners, William
Shakespeare usually applied to the issues of race and racism in his plays.
On the basis of such portrayal, it is clear that people of different races
lived in England in those times, and that Shakespeare was aware of the complex
relations between English people and foreigners. Through his characters, the
dramatist uncovers the negative aspects of Elizabethan social ideologies that
created a gap among races, alienating foreigners from other members of English
society and contributing to their destruction. However, even today the researchers
continue to dispute about the implications of race in Shakespeare's plays.
Some scholars maintain the notion that the differences in religions and cultures
aggravated the alienation of various races in England, while other researchers
oppose to this viewpoint, claiming that the colour of skin influenced the
complex relations between Englishmen and foreigners.
Thus, the issue of race is rather controversial and it should be discussed
through religious, cultural, social, political and ethnic contexts in the
plays of William Shakespeare. To some extent, such controversy can be explained
by the fact that the race has always been utilised to substitute the established
social systems for new social hierarchies that reflected their own norms and
principles. In this regard, in Elizabethan times people were socially divided
into one or another race, taking into account the colour of skin, religious
beliefs and cultural traditions of various individuals. Another controversy
concerns the origin of the word "race" that usually dates back to 18-19th
centuries; therefore, Shakespeare's researchers prefer to substitute the term
"race" for the term "otherness" in their analyses of Shakespeare's plays.
However, such shift from one term to another term is not able to eliminate
Shakespeare's unique interpretation of racial issues in the selected plays.
2 Introduction William Shakespeare wrote many of his plays in Elizabethan
period, the era when, contrary to the commonly accepted view, people of various
races began to arrive to England. Some recent findings provide valid evidence
as to the existence of black people in the 16th-century London. In this regard,
the issues of race, to which the dramatist applies in such plays as Titus
Andronicus, The Tempest and Othello, provide a new vision on the impact of
these races on cultural and social life of English people. At the beginning,
black people were taken by force and brought to England as exotic creatures
that possessed no rights, but finally they became the members of English society
who were called as the Moors. However, such racial integration soon resulted
in rather complex tensions among different races, and Shakespeare reflected
these relations in his works. As Bernard Harris puts it, "To Elizabethan Londoners
the appearance and conduct of the Moors was a spectacle and an outrage, emphasising
the nature of the deep difference between themselves and their visitors, between
their Queen and this 'erring Barbarian"1.
Thus, English people could rarely distinguish one race from another race.
However, Shakespeare, who took an active part in public life and visited various
cultural and public-service institutions, had an opportunity to observe foreigners
and attitude of the English towards them, depicting his observations in his
literary works. In addition, Margo Hendricks claims that various economic
and social changes occurred in England in the middle of the 16th century2.
In particular, England established constant relations with Morocco. As a result,
various merchants and military people of different races began to arrive to
the country and acquire certain positions among the members of English society.
All these non-English people, who arrived from Africa, Israel, Ireland, Wales,
Scotland and some other places, were called as 'aliens' or 'outsiders'. Despite
this integration, many Englishmen revealed racial biases towards these foreigners.
According to Ania Loomba, "Jews, Moors and Christians were never simply religious
categories, but variably articulated with nationality, and ethnicity, and
often colour"3. Thus, on the one hand, English people accepted foreigners
in their country, but, on the other hand, they treated them as outsiders,
if these foreigners acquired more power and knowledge in comparison with native
citizens. Various violent attacks were initiated by English people against
these foreigners; such hostility was intensified by Church that pointed at
the poverty of Englishmen as a result of foreigners' integration into social,
political, economical, religious and cultural life of English people. In this
regard, English society either rejected these foreigners or forced to assimilate
to them, paving the way for racism. This can be explained by the fact that
Englishmen were afraid of acquiring culture and traditions of foreigners,
as they became engaged in economic relations with them. As Margo Hendricks
claims, "Beginning in the middle ages, the English engagement with 'foreigners'
often functioned on two levels: spiritual and material"4. Although Englishmen
realised that they could receive material profits from their interactions
with people of different races, they made everything to preserve their superior
position. It was in this environment of racial tensions and complex relations
that William Shakespeare created such plays as The Tempest, Titus Andronicus
and Othello.
The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the representation of race in the
selected Shakespeare's plays on the basis of different perceptions and viewpoints.
The research is divided into sections. Chapter 1 presents a statement of the
problem that reveals the core of the analysis. Chapter 2 provides a general
overview of the issue, observing the context, in which the plays are produced.
Chapter 3 offers a survey of the works that have been written on the issues
of race in Shakespeare's plays. Chapter 4 points at the research methods that
constitute a theoretical basis for the conducted analysis. Drawing upon earlier
findings and evidence, Chapter 5 observes in detail the issues of race in
such plays as The Tempest, Titus Andronicus and Othello. Chapter 6 makes a
summarisation of the results, while Chapter 7 stresses on the limitations
of the dissertation and provides some suggestions for further research.