인종담론과 성담론 : 『오셀로』와 『안토니와 클레오파트라』의 경우

Racial and Gender Discourses in Othello and Antony and Cleopatra

This paper discusses racial and gender discourses in Shakespeare’s Othello and Antony and Cleopatra and investigates both the stereotypes applied to representing others such as Othello, Desdemona, and Cleopatra and the historical backgrounds which made the stereotypes possible. Shakespeare’s way of representation of racial and gender differences will be discussed, too. In Shakespeare's time, blackness suggested negation, dirt, and evil, and the black skin denoted depravity and sexual perversion. In Othello, Othello's darkness is “the visual signifier” of his otherness. Iago, the major racist in the play, constantly verbalizes the discourse of a racial prejudice against Othello. Iago's generalization about the black as a devil or a monster is a prime example of racist discourse. Othello is represented as a monstrous racial other in the Venetian society. Furthermore, the play reflects the fear of miscegenation. It was unnatural and fearful for the white man to imagine the union of a black man with a white woman in the period. Iago and Othello, two major misogynists in the play, present the discourse of a misogynist. They reveal the male prejudice against women and apply the male norms in their treatment of Desdemona. Iago's generalization about women as whores is a prime example of the misogynist position against women: women in Venice are all whores to him. Cleopatra is represented as a dangerous racial other in Antony and Cleopatra. Philo, a Roman general, constantly reveals a racial prejudice against Cleopatra, regarding the Egyptian woman as a whore or a witch. Pompey calls Cleopatra a witch who ties up Antony with her witchcraft and “the charms of love.” Antony calls her a “triple-turned whore” who has betrayed him and “a false soul of Egypt” or an “enchanting queen.” Shakespeare’s Cleopatra reflects the cultural prejudice about Egyptians. Nevertheless, he did not fully agree with racial and gender discourses of his time. In the play, he reveals the negative image of the white male Roman hero, Antony, who is falling in love with the enemy of Rome, Cleopatra, and who fights against his own country. Furthermore, Shakespeare allows the voice of a racial other, Cleopatra, to resist the authority of Rome. He represents Cleopatra as a powerful and clever woman who gains control over Roman heroes. She ties up Antony with masquerading and blurs of gender boundaries when she wears Antony's sword. Shakespeare was influenced by racial and gender discourses of his time, but he was skeptical about those discourses. In representing Desdemona, he never took up the position of a misogynist; he magnifies the residual Renaissance discourse of misogyny presenting its negative aspects. Othello is represented as an other victimized by the racial prejudice of the White, and Cleopatra as an other victimized by the racial and colonial discourses of the Romans. Shakespeare did not fully agree with those dominant discourses revealing the negative images of the male sexists and the white racists.