How Does Iago Use Racial Epithets In Othello

Your house, the place you grew up in. It once was an empty building, void of life, but now it is so much more. It’s the crib where you cooed and shook a pastel rattle, where the word “ma-ma” slid out of your mouth. It’s the room where your eager face, gently lit up by Christmas lights, saw your new teal bike. It’s the drive-way, where you scraped your knee running toward your dad to welcome him home from work. It’s the table, where you sat with your parents, cracking algebraic code and discussing theology. It’s the pillow that soaked-up tears from broken friendships and silenced 3AM laughter. It’s the metal griddle, where you learned about your great grandparents while making traditional Norwegian food. A house is more than just a building, but a place filled with memories, a place that
Shakespeare writes about an African, Othello, who is called “thick-lips” and “lascivious moor” (I.i.42,76). It is true that Othello is from Africa and could be considered a moor, but he never displays any sort of inappropriate sexual desires. Iago slings these racial epithets (and many others) toward Othello to undermine his personhood and to mock characteristics that are the heart of who Othello is. Iago does more than insult Othello’s appearance, but undermines the history and culture of Othello – his entire life and upbringing. Racial epithets are also used by characters in Heart of Darkness. The native “outsiders” were called “black bones”, “bundles of acute angles”, “dark thing[s]”, and “unhappy savages” (Conrad 21, 19, 20). The words labeled human beings as empty objects and substances without families, cultures, or histories. Author, Coates, experienced similar labels, sharing, “we were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization” (12). People defined “outsiders” by their appearance to objectify and undermine their personhood, to strip them of their worth and