“‘Say Die and I Will Die’: Betraying the Other, Controlling Female Desire, and Legally Destroying Women in 'Wide Sargasso Sea' and Othello'”

Gruesser, John. “‘Say Die and I Will Die’: Betraying the Other, Controlling Female Desire, and Legally Destroying Women in Wide Sargasso Sea and Othello.” Journal of Caribbean Literatures, vol. 3, no. 3, 2003, pp. 99–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40986147. Accessed 21 July 2021.

In this essay, Gruesser asserts that Wide Sargasso Sea is not only Othello’s feminist counterpart, but also a postcolonial revision of Shakespeare’s infamous tragedy. The structure of the piece compares and contrasts both male protagonists, Othello and Rhys’s Rochester, and female protagonists, Desdemona and Antoinette. Although Gruesser suggests additional connections between other characters, the analysis fixates strongly on the primary couples of which each story details. First, Gruesser claims that Othello and Antoinette are framed as the colonial Other, but are further divided by other factors, such as nationality, gender, and status. They are united in character by the perspective of the Other, and subsequent treatment of both Antoinette and Othello, lead them to unravel spiritually, emotionally, and physically. The author explains that jealousy, insanity, shame, and obsessive desire are the result of the continuous pressure that Antoinette and Othello experience as foreign people under the metaphorical thumb of colonizers. 

The remaining half of the analysis then explores the similarities between Antoinette’s character and Desdemona. Both women are limited in their power, mostly due to their sex, but also in personality and the handling of their partner’s false accusations and later abuse. Given the historical and cultural context of the role of the female in English society, both Othello and Rochester are able and encouraged to pursue any thoughts of doubt with their wives, and are considered justified in their punishments of Desdemona and Antoinette. Within this lens, the men are unified in their villainy, while the women experience a similar destruction due to a gaslighting husband. 

--Emily Tushar

“We Are Othello: Speaking of Race in Early Modern Studies.”

 Smith, Ian. “We Are Othello: Speaking of Race in Early Modern Studies.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 1, 2016, pp. 104-124. Project MUSE, doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/shq.2016.0000.

     Ian Smith considers the implications that race relations in Othello can have on contemporary racial conflicts in the U.S., such as police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement. Ultimately, he uses the racial conflicts present in Othello to argue that predominantly white culture, specifically scholars, need to do the internal work necessary in order to 1) fully understand the perspective and unique experience of a person of color and 2) discuss race without a biased lens of white privilege. Smith begins by questioning the reliability of white scholars in accurately representing Othello in their analyses, considering that Othello is a black man and literary scholars are predominately white. Smith says that with primarily white critics, Othello might not get the credit he deserves because white audiences/readers/critics are “unreliable narrators” of Othello’s story (113). Smith then explores how white privilege in the U.S. is mirrored in Othello, pointing toward Othello needing to answer for his skin color when questioned on Desdemona’s love for him, and toward Othello needing to ask his comrades to “speak of” him at the end of the play. Othello must trust that his comrades will accurately reflect his story without their own biases. This is where Smith considers the notion of white privilege in the U.S. and challenges readers and scholars to do the work necessary to develop a reliable representation of Othello’s experience--and of the experience of people of color in general. While it is easy for people who are white to ignore race because they are not confronted with their race on a daily basis, doing so perpetuates white privilege. In order to “speak of” Othello (and by extension, people of color) reliably, we must do the work that allows us to fully understand Othello’s experience; we must align with the sentiment expressed in the article’s title: “We Are Othello.”

Jenny Jadin

"Stitching and Unstitching: Fabrications of Othello"

Brendon, Devika. "Stitching and Unstitching: Fabrications of Othello." The Hopkins Review, vol. 14, no. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86. doi.org/10.1353/thr.2021.0017.

In Brendon's article, "Stitching and Unstitching: Fabrications of Othello," she offers an examination "in the contexts of Postcolonial and Feminist criticism..." (74) of race in Othello, by drawing modern-day parallels and differences with a modern reenactment of the movie, Internal Affairs. Brendon argues that both "Othello's" are "strong-willed and strong-minded" (Ibid) men lending to their aggressive responses to the"Desdemona's" perceived conduct. In the movie, Andy Garcia's "Othello" violently slaps Desdemona (Nancy Travis) whereas Othello killed Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello.

But unlike the seventeenth century Desdemona, our modern version lives in a world where women have a more equal footing and can rationally communicate to Othello. Travis's character is more equipped to deal with the conflict than the original Desdemona. The modern Desdemona is "able to break down the manufactured distrust with communication: because she has standing in the relationship; because they are partners; because there is respect, and honesty, at the base of the connection" (75).

Brendon argues that part of the dysfunction between Desdemona and Othello in Shakespeare's original origin arises from their racial differences; Othello subconsciously/unconsciously is motivated to act and react because of his race. The continual subtext of him constantly having to prove himself makes him this hyper-sensitive and reactive character. As Brendon asserts " Being an honored dinner guest of a Senator and being his son-in-law and the father of his grandchildren are two different matters" (82).

-David Kase