September 18 Post

1. A) This novel is not the story of a mean, vindictive mistress; it is the story of a desperate one.  It concerns a troubled, disappointed woman confined to the prison of her defeated flesh.  (Morrison, 1014)

B)  Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well,
Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum. Set you down this,
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog
And smote him thus.  (Othello, 116)

2.  How does this Othello's struggles and problems compare to that of a racially oppressed person as described in Morrison's Playing in the Dark?

3.  I feel that these quotes connect with each other at two different levels.  The first level concerns the villainy of the mistress and Othello.  Neither mistreat others as a result of an inherent evil side to themselves, it simply stems from a misunderstanding and the villainy of others around them.  The discussed mistress mistreats minorities poorly out of desperation and misunderstanding, just like Othello kills his wife out of pure lament because she has allegedly cheated on him.  Both are evil acts committed without truly evil intentions but more from feelings of loss.  The second level concerns a feeling of exclusion due to racial differences.  Othello compares the Venetians and the Turks and discusses items of a foreign nature, such as Arabian trees and how he misses them, establishing how he still feels to be very much an outsider.  The quote from the Literary theory also discusses how the "disappointed woman" feels like she is trapped in her skin because she is black and how this also leads to a feeling of isolation.  With this being said I find Othello and Playing in the Dark to be similar in several aspects.