Interracial relationships are taboo all over the world, however they garner more attention and censorship in western societies, as it is damaging to the pride of white Europeans to see a love between people they have always been institutionally taught are less than human. When interracial relationships do forge, society will see that they split, whether it be physical or psychological. Specifically in Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago and thereby society sought to destroy the interracial relationship between Othello and his white wife Desdemona, in an attempt to take a black man out of power. While in Nadine Gordimer’s “Home” it is society itself that causes Teresa to contemplate her priorities, would her family come first, or the anxieties of her …show more content…
In fact, Shakespeare establishes the taboo of interracial relationships in the first scene of the play when Iago tells Brabantio that Desdemona has been “stolen” by Othello: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!” (Shakespeare I. i. 97-98). By referring to Othello as a black beast, and to Desdemona as a pure, white and innocent creature, Shakespeare establishes the definitive binary between the two races. Shakespeare’s society of Venice in the late sixteenth century is no outlier in wanting to prevent interracial relationships, as a majority of the contemporary United States does as well. The correlation can be seen in an article for the Chicago Tribune, in which numerous interracial couples in the Chicago area reported being harassed for their partner’s race. These harassments can occur in various forms, as one couple reported a bartender mistook a couple for a server and a bride at their wedding (McCoppin). The harassment interracial couples report today is age old as society does not want interracial people together, like in Othello, where White people like Brabantio are afraid to let people of color into their lives and