Cosmopolitan Vision of Home, Subjectivity 55Phillips’s approach in the “Othello” narrative clearly attempts to
guide the reader’s moral judgment of the character, putting beyond
doubt the fact that “Othello” is virtuous and sympathetic. Not
only is he romantic and passionate, he also exhibits good grace and
reserve, at one point taking a prostitute up to his rooms strictly to
practise his Italian Venetian, paying her for the trouble but refusing
any other services.
Perhaps a more significant aspect of the protagonist’s personality
that prompts our sympathy emanates from his sense of social justice,
with the character exuding an apparently liberal sensibility vis- à -vis
inequality and oppression. While perambulating around the out-
skirts of the city, “Othello” comes across the Jewish ghetto, which,
unlike the refulgent environs near the Doge’s palace, is a dark, filthy
place, where “not a single article of clothing [hangs] from a window,
and not a single window [is] ajar to allow a little breeze to penetrate”
(p. 130). He is repulsed by the blatant discrimination that the Jewish
residents face and describes their houses as “oppressive [... ] hovels”
(p. 131). This denunciation of the Venetian ghetto fits into a broader
and more sophisticated conception of the city’s sociocultural failings
he articulates in the narrative, and which appears to testify to the
character’s development of a critical cosmopolitan vision.
On first arriving in the city, he is struck by its “overwhelming
beauty,” which he emphasizes through a series of photic images,
describing the streets and canals as bearing the “celestial gift of light”
(pp. 121–122). He also stresses that during “the setting of the winter
[sun,... ] light was held rather than reflected [by its canals]” (p. 123).
Another impressive aspect of Venice, he notes, is its sheer affluence,
which is projected through its “flamboyant and lavish displays of
[... ] wealth [that stir] hostility and envy into the heart of visiting
dignitaries” (p. 117). However, he soon learns that the Jewish mon-
eylenders who inhabit the squalid ghetto sustain the material wealth
of Venice’s upper classes, providing them with the much-needed
liquidity to bankroll business ventures and fund the city’s expensive
army. As Christians were not permitted to engage in “usury,” the
Jews fulfill what the former consider an unpalatable but necessary
function. They are “tolerated” but live under strict and exclusionary
rules and kept under curfew in a shuttered community that is all too