Images of white identity in Othello

The present essay continues the inquiry in my contribution to the Routledge volume on Hamlet. The two essays were planned as interconnected parts of the same overall project-namely, to rethink the transition from Hamlet to Othello by concentrating on race and thus expanding my earlier focus on gender in Patriarchal Structures in Shakespeare 50 Drama (1985). The general problem that the study of race in Shakespeare confronts is how to move beyond a narrow approach restricted to black characters. In quite different ways, both Hamlet and Othello offer opportunities for broadening the scope ofthe analysis of race.