Challenges & Opportunities of Teaching Othello

A sixteenth-century Shakespearean tragedy of jealousy, manipulation, and murder that seems to anticipate the history of US race relations? That’s a whole lot of literary drama and social commentary packed into a five act play.

Aside from all the usual perks of teaching Shakespearean drama in the classroom – the inherent poetry in every play, the skillful plotting and character development, Shakespeare’s experimentation with genre, his self-referential commentary on Elizabethan theater, and his mind blowing insights into human nature (we could go on and on but we won’t) – Othello gives teachers a chance to explore some pretty tough questions about the relationship between Othello’s status as a black foreigner and his downfall from a noble general to a “savage” killer.