How Are Othello and Blanche Dubois Alienated in Their Societies?
‘Compare the ways in which alienation of individuals from their societies is presented in the two texts you have studied.’
George Bernard Shaw once said that ‘conflict is the essence of drama’, and if that is true, then the plays Othello and A Streetcar Named Desire would thus be rife with drama, as conflict in inexorably presented by the two respective playwrights, Shakespeare and Williams, through the alienation of individuals from their societies. This creates constant conflict and friction within the plays as the relentless efforts of their ‘outsiders’ is constantly pushed back by an even greater force that rejects them from being a part of society. In each of these plays, there are common literary devices that each playwright uses to bring about this alienation, with the most obvious of them being the juxtaposition of the characters to other characters and to their ‘newfound’ homelands, as well as the imagery and words that the other characters use against them or to describe them (with diction and its various forms also being an overarching factor that achieves this effect of alienation). . In the very first scene of the play, Iago already plays on Othello’s ‘otherness’ towards Brabantio, purposefully making jabs at Othello’s race, giving him a reason to disapprove of his daughter’s new marriage by painting a vile picture of what Othello will do to his daughter in ‘you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse’. The bestial imagery invoked by Iago is only further propagated throughout the play in which he constantly uses Othello’s skin-colour to give others a reason to distrust him.
The most obvious way in which the alienation of individuals is presented in the two plays are the juxtaposition of the ‘outsider’ to their new surroundings, namely Othello the Moor from Othello and Blanche Dubois from Streetcar. For Othello, the Moor general is considered an outsider to everyone in Venice, where the play is set, simply because he is of African
George Bernard Shaw once said that ‘conflict is the essence of drama’, and if that is true, then the plays Othello and A Streetcar Named Desire would thus be rife with drama, as conflict in inexorably presented by the two respective playwrights, Shakespeare and Williams, through the alienation of individuals from their societies. This creates constant conflict and friction within the plays as the relentless efforts of their ‘outsiders’ is constantly pushed back by an even greater force that rejects them from being a part of society. In each of these plays, there are common literary devices that each playwright uses to bring about this alienation, with the most obvious of them being the juxtaposition of the characters to other characters and to their ‘newfound’ homelands, as well as the imagery and words that the other characters use against them or to describe them (with diction and its various forms also being an overarching factor that achieves this effect of alienation). . In the very first scene of the play, Iago already plays on Othello’s ‘otherness’ towards Brabantio, purposefully making jabs at Othello’s race, giving him a reason to disapprove of his daughter’s new marriage by painting a vile picture of what Othello will do to his daughter in ‘you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse’. The bestial imagery invoked by Iago is only further propagated throughout the play in which he constantly uses Othello’s skin-colour to give others a reason to distrust him.
The most obvious way in which the alienation of individuals is presented in the two plays are the juxtaposition of the ‘outsider’ to their new surroundings, namely Othello the Moor from Othello and Blanche Dubois from Streetcar. For Othello, the Moor general is considered an outsider to everyone in Venice, where the play is set, simply because he is of African