Othello the Negro

Sawyer, Michael E.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-98575-6_4

Michael E. Sawyer²

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Abstract

This chapter relies upon a close reading of several texts: Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice, Melville’s Benito Cereno, and Ellison’s Invisible Man. The philosophical framework in this section is established by the thought of Sartre, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Lacan that are employed to assemble an account of the phenomenology of subaltern beings and their revolutionary ambitions.

This is why a “thought” about the body should really ponder the body, be a feeling of its weight, and, in that, a touching, playing-displayed in accord with a reality.

Jean-Luc Nancy , Corpus

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Notes

1.
Nancy. p. 7.
2.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick.
3.
Malabou, Catherine. The Heidegger Change: On the Fantastic in Philosophy. SUNY: 2011. p. 201.
4.
Malabou. p. 202.
5.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton: 1957. p. 49.
6.
Ibid.
7.
The French word dépouillée is translated here as “bare,” but the connotation of the term is more akin to “plucked clean like the feathers from a chicken” or even a “depilatory” as in something capable of removing hair. This insight is indebted to a series of essential conversations with William Balang-Gaubert, Lecturer in French and Haitian Creole at the University of Chicago.
8.
The French word une rampe is translated here as “ramp” to emphasize this reading’s understanding of this passage to be pointing to a place from which recovery is launched.
9.
Peau noire, masques blancs. p. 6.
10.
Gordon, Lewis. “Through the Hellish Zone of Nonbeing: Thinking through Fanon, Disaster, and the Damned of the Earth”. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Knowledge. V, Special Double-Issue, Summer 2007. p. 10.
11.
Peau noire, masques blancs. Points: 1952. p. 6.
12.
Ibid.
13.
Ibid.
14.
Ibid. pp. 6–7.
15.
Ibid. p. 8.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Harper: 2008. p. 27.
18.
Ibid. p. 41.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Ibid. p. 277.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid. p. 425.
23.
Ibid. p. 435.
24.
Ibid. p. 433.
25.
Ibid. p. 169.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Ibid. p. 237.
28.
Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981–1982. Picador: 2005.
29.
Ibid. p. 205.
30.
Ibid. p. 206.
31.
Ibid. p. 207.
32.
Ibid. p. 206.
33.
Here Foucault is referring to Seneca’s Letter 6 to Lucilius where he proposes that “[i]t’s incredible, I feel I am now making progress. It is not just an emendatio (correction). I am not content with mending my ways; I have the impression that I am being transfigured (transfiguari)” (Foucault p. 212).
34.
Ibid. p. 212.
35.
Ibid. pp. 212–213.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Ibid. p. 208.
38.
Ibid. pp. 213–214.
39.
Ibid. p. 218.
40.
Ibid. p. 249.
41.
Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–1982. Picador: 2005. p. 252.
42.
Ibid. p. 255.
43.
Ibid. p. 256.
44.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Harper Perennial: 2008. p. 284.
45.
Ibid. p. 285.
46.
Ibid. p. 286.
47.
Ibid. p. 288.
48.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press: 2008. p. 112.
49.
I owe this insight to a series of conversations with William Balang-Gaubert of the University of Chicago.
50.
Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs. p. 6.
51.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existential Theory of the Ego. Hill and Wang: 1960. p. 33.
52.
Ibid.
53.
Ibid. p. 34.
54.
Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks. pp. xiv–xv.
55.
Sartre. The Transcendence of the Ego. pp. 40–41.
56.
Ibid.
57.
Ibid. p. 43.
58.
Ibid. p. 41.
59.
Ibid. p. 44.
60.
Ibid.
61.
Ibid. p. 45.
62.
Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks. p. 90.
63.
Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks. p. 91.
64.
Sartre. Transcendence of the Ego. p. 60.
65.
Ibid.
66.
Ibid. 116f 21.
67.
Ibid. pp. 60–61.
68.
Ibid. pp. 61–64.
69.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice. Act I, Scene 3. Lines 378–382.
70.
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works: Second Edition. Editors: Wells, Stanley and Taylor, Gary. Oxford: 2005. p. 880.
71.
Othello: Act I, Scene 3. Lines 63–64.
72.
Ibid. Act I, Scene 3. Lines 89–94.
73.
Ibid. Lines 126–130.
74.
Ibid. Lines 131–137.
75.
Ibid. Lines 147–168.
76.
Ibid. p. 169.
77.
Aesthetics p. 578.
78.
Ibid.
79.
Phenomenology §652 p. 583.
80.
Ibid. §653 p. 583 (my italics).
81.
Ibid. §658 p. 590.
82.
Ibid. §668 p. 600.
83.
Cavell, Stanley. Disowning Knowledge: In Six Plays of Shakespeare and his essay on Othello. Cambridge: 1987. p. 138.
84.
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Norton Critical Edition: 1999. p. 11.
85.
Othello. Act III, Scene 3. Lines 387–393.
86.
Ibid. Line 133.
87.
Ibid. Lines 347–365.
88.
Hedrick, Donald. “Distracting Othello: Tragedy and the Rise of Magic”. PMLA. 129.4 (2014). p. 665.
89.
James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins. p. 154.
90.
Ibid. p. 157.
91.
Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks. p. 1.
92.
Ibid. p. 2.
93.
Ibid. p. 1.
94.
Fanon. Peau noire, masques blancs. p. 51.
95.
Hachures /ˈhæʃʊərz/ are an older mode of representing relief. They show orientation of slope, and by their thickness and overall density they provide a general sense of steepness. Being non-numeric, they are less useful to a scientific survey than contours, but can successfully communicate quite specific shapes of terrain. They are a form of shading, although different from the one used in shaded maps (Wikipedia).
96.
Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks. p. 45.
97.
Ibid.
98.
Othello. Act I Scene 1: Lines 86–91.
99.
Ibid. Act I Scene 2: Lines 18–20.
100.
Claude Nordey, L’homme de coleur, Coll. Présences, Plon., 1939.
101.
Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks. p. 63.
102.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology. Citadel: 1956. p. 212.
103.
Othello Act III Scene 3: Lines 443–444.
104.
http://melvillesmarginalia.org/tool.php?id=31
105.
Ibid. Act III, Scene 3. Lines 387–393.
106.
Melville, Herman. Benito Cereno. Melville’s Short Novels: Norton: 2002. p. 34.
107.
Ibid. p. 35.
108.
Grandin, Greg. The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World. Metropolitan Books: 2014. p. 211.
109.
Ibid. p. 197.
110.
Ibid. p. 152.
111.
Melville (Benito Cereno). p. 35.
112.
Ibid. p. 36.
113.
Ibid.
114.
Ibid. p. 38.
115.
Ibid. p. 45.
116.
Ibid. p. 90.
117.
Rogin, Michael Paul. Subversive Genealogy: The Politics and Art of Herman Melville. Knopf: 1983. pp. 212–213.
118.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, or the Whale.
119.
Melville (Benito Cereno). p. 42.
120.
Rogin. p. 90.
121.
Ibid. p. 65.
122.
Frank (editor). p. 290.
123.
Melville (Benito Cereno). p. 93.
124.
Ibid. p. 37.
125.
Ibid.
126.
Deleuze, Giles. Difference & Repetition. Columbia: 1994. p. 110.
127.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grove: 2008. p. 89.
128.
Frank. p. 282.
129.
Melville (Benito Cereno). p 96.
130.
Ibid. p. 91.
131.
Ibid. p. 59.
132.
Ibid. p. 63.
133.
Ibid. p. 40.
134.
Melville (Benito Cereno) p. 35.
135.
Ibid. p. 58.
136.
Ibid. p. 71.
137.
Ibid. p. 39.
138.
Ibid. pp. 46–47.
139.
Ibid. p. 55.
140.
Freeburg, Christopher. Melville and the Idea of Blackness: Race and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century America. Cambridge: 2012. p. 127.
141.
Melville (Moby-Dick). pp. 211–212.
142.
Freeburg. p. 141.
143.
Melville. (Benito Cereno) p. 84.
144.
Ibid. pp. 115–116.
145.
Melville (Benito Cereno). p. 39.
146.
Ibid. p. 95.
147.
Ibid. p. 65.
148.
Ibid.
149.
Ibid.
150.
Ibid. p. 90.
151.
Ibid. p. 50.
152.
Ibid. pp. 82–83.
153.
James, C.L.R. Mariners, Renegades & Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In. Dartmouth: 2001. p. 112.
154.
James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. p. 286.
155.
Forrest, Leon. Lecture “The Mystery of Meaning in Melville’s Benito Cereno.” 1981 Allison Davis Lecture, Northwestern University. pp. 7–8.
156.
Ibid. pp. 9–10.
157.
Grandin. p. 92.
158.
Forrest. p. 6.
159.
Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. Penguin Classics: 1977. pp. 96–98.
160.
Forrest. p. 7.
161.
Melville (Benito Cereno). p. 50.
162.
Ibid.
163.
Ibid.
164.
Ibid.
165.
Ibid. p. 20.
166.
Forrest. p. 17.
167.
Melville(Benito Cereno). p. 50.
168.
Ibid. p. 97.
169.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Vintage Books: 1995. p. 264.
170.
Du Bois. Souls. p. 40.
171.
Ibid. p. 11.
172.
Ellison. p. 33.
173.
Ibid. pp. 34–35.
174.
Ibid. p. 36.
175.
Ibid. pp. 43–44.
176.
Ibid. p. 40.
177.
Ibid. pp. 16–17.
178.
Here Ellison adds Greek Tragedy to the text, the allusion to the plays assigned by Woodridge, and stands it on its head. The author’s target here is Sophocles and his Oedipus Rex. Rather than the classical formation of the Oedipus complex, Ellison plants the desire in the psyche of the fathers, the Founder and Trueblood, for their daughters.
179.
Ibid. p. 43.
180.
Ibid. p. 51.
181.
Ibid. p. 53.
182.
Ibid. p. 69.
183.
Sekyi-Otu, Ato. 1996. Fanon’s dialectic of Experience. Harvard. p. 103.
184.
Ellison. p. 3.
185.
Ibid. pp. 3–4.
186.
Ibid. p. 4.
187.
Ibid. pp. 4–5.
188.
Ibid. p. 6.
189.
Ibid. pp. 6–7.
190.
Ibid. p. 8.
191.
Ibid. pp. 8–9.
192.
Ibid.
193.
Ibid. pp. 10–11.

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Michael E. Sawyer

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Sawyer, M.E. (2018). Othello the Negro. In: An Africana Philosophy of Temporality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98575-6_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98575-6_4
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