When Otherness Becomes Fatal: A Postcolonial Study of William Shakespeare’S Othello, the Moor of Venice

As an adroit playwright, william shakespeare wrote numerous remarkable plays and created many memorable characters that, even after four centuries, are still the topic of many scholars’ debates. these perpetual debates affirm jonson’s words that shakespeare is “not of an age, but for all time.” hence, modern-day readers and critics acknowledge ben jonson’s famous praising of the bard and study shakespeare’s plays from different perspectives. in this respect, i will study one of shakespeare’s most controversial tragedies, othello, the moor of venice, based on postcolonialism theories. in the course of this paper, at first, i will examine the eponymous black-skinned character of the play in the light of edward said’s orientalism to depict how venetian see othello. next, i will adopt homi bhabha’s theories of hybridity and mimicry to discuss how othello’s new diasporic and traumatized identity is shaped in the interaction between him and venetians, as well as his past slavehood and his present noble stature. i will conclude that no matter how much othello tried to mimic and imitate venice inhabitants to became one of them, they never stopped to look at him as an exotic orient other. therefore, he is almost the same as them, but not quite. thus, othello’s otherness and his ambivalent identity shaped his low self-esteem and insecure personality that led to his tragic flaw, that is jealousy, and, consequently, his tragic ending.