Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s Othello
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Sidia Fiorato
Abstract
Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most forensic works; in particular, the trial scene of act 1 becomes the locus for the negotiation of the characters’ identity in the context of Venetian society. Othello and Desdemona attempt at overcoming the gender and ethnic tenets of their time through a self-fashioning of their own identities which then they try to submit for legal recognition. In their speeches they both contravene one of patriarchy’s most powerful symbols, that is, marriage, and its social determination and control. Othello tries to circumvent the threat of interracial marriage by fashioning his own image through the narration of his adventures; he aims at making his inner and outer aspect coincide in order to be included in Venetian society. Desdemona fashions herself as a desiring subject and takes the law into her hands as she repeats the ceremony of the spousal per verba de praesenti, thus indirectly obtaining its official sanctioning. The scene seemingly concludes in Othello and Desdemona’s favour, but it actually acknowledges also Brabantio’s disowning act and renders both characters social outcasts. This will emerge more powerfully in the course of the tragedy but the seeds of their condition can be traced to this opening scene, which concludes itself on ambiguous terms. Like many princely figures in the Shakespearean canon, the Doge does not prove capable of administering the law in emergency situations and seems to subsume the inner social threat in favour of an outer social threat (the Turkish invasion). This attitude on his part undermines also the image of the law, reduced to words and negotiated in virtue of the needs of the republic.
©2015 by De Gruyter
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Focus: Shakespeare and the Law
- Weak Kings and Perverted Symbolism. How Shakespeare Treats the Doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies
- Free Will and Folly in As You Like It
- Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name
- Unreliable Sources for Law: Dying Declarations in Shakespeare’s King John, Othello & King Lear
- Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s Othello
- Research
- Illegal Search and Seizure, Due Process, and the Rights of the Accused: The Voices of Power in the Rhetoric of Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker
- The Judge’s Voice: Literary and Legal Emblemata
- Power and the Trial: The Tension Between Voices and Silence
- Voice, Authority and the Law in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
- Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
- Celsus and Chatwin go Walkabout
- Representing the Unrepresentable: Making Law Anyway?
- Book Reviews
- Gary Watt: Dress, Law and Naked Truth. A Cultural Study of Fashion and Form
- José Calvo González: Direito curvo
