• About
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   Institutional Repository Home
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Institutional Repository Home
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Institutional RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartmentThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartment

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Desiring blackness: sexuality, race, and feminine will in the 1623 Folio Othello

    Mendoza, Kirsten Noelle
    : https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/etd-06242014-083619
    http://hdl.handle.net/1803/12686
    : 2014-06-24

    Abstract

    Othello by William Shakespeare exists in two early printed versions, as a 1622 Quarto and a 1623 Folio. Despite their differences, they have only recently been regarded as two distinct plays worthy of their own interpretations. While critics have discussed the intertwining ideologies of morality and color, Leah Marcus expands upon the existing scholarship by arguing that the Folio includes textual variations which far more explicitly racialize Othello as a black Moor. In this thesis, I argue that the Folio’s intensified racialization of Othello and increased voyeuristic descriptions of female sexuality specifically function to demonstrate not only the Venetian community darkening and victimizing Desdemona, as suggested by critic Laura Bovilsky, but Desdemona’s active desire to be blackened. This text depicts Desdemona claiming a paradoxical virtuous blackness that balances her rebellion against her father with acts of submission and underscores her transition from a virginal daughter to a sexually mature and rhetorically persuasive woman. The polarizing syllogisms that differentiate white virginity from black promiscuity cannot reconcile Desdemona’s transgressive assertions. When Othello accuses her of adultery, the Folio intimates her momentary loss of faith in the erotic and liberating potential of blackness. However, in her utmost state of abjection, Desdemona realigns herself with the dark other by representing her inner state through the rhetoric of the Barbary maid. In the rejection of her native hue, Desdemona manifests the complexities of a womanhood that is inherently othering and necessarily darkening, a complexity that asserts her feminine will through her desire for blackness.
    Show full item record

    Files in this item

    Icon
    Name:
    Mendoza.pdf
    Size:
    492.6Kb
    Format:
    PDF
    View/Open

    This item appears in the following collection(s):

    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations

    Connect with Vanderbilt Libraries

    Your Vanderbilt

    • Alumni
    • Current Students
    • Faculty & Staff
    • International Students
    • Media
    • Parents & Family
    • Prospective Students
    • Researchers
    • Sports Fans
    • Visitors & Neighbors

    Support the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries

    Support the Library...Give Now

    Gifts to the Libraries support the learning and research needs of the entire Vanderbilt community. Learn more about giving to the Libraries.

    Become a Friend of the Libraries

    Quick Links

    • Hours
    • About
    • Employment
    • Staff Directory
    • Accessibility Services
    • Contact
    • Vanderbilt Home
    • Privacy Policy