An Analysis Of A Syrian Refugee In William Shakespeare's 'Othello'

How could the text be read and interpreted differently by a Syrian refugee in Switzerland and a native Swiss?

People with different backgrounds and cultures may read the same text and yet react to it in a completely different way. William Shakespeare’s play, ‘Othello’, can be interpreted in many different ways. A native Swiss and a refugee from Syria for example, would interpret the text differently, largely due to Switzerland’s modern western culture compared to Syria’s Muslim culture. Switzerland is deeply rooted in western European culture, valuing democracy and humanitarianism. There are urban intellectuals that see immigration as positive, however there are also many people that see it as a danger to Switzerland’s unique culture (Jud,

In Syria the husband is the head of the household and women are meant to honour and respect him (Tanford, n.d.). This would result in him interpreting parts of Emilia’s dialogue as very disrespectful to her husband since she seems to have a sharp tongue. This would be especially evident in the way Emilia talks to Iago in Act 5.2 and in the second part of act 4, scene 3 (Honigmann, 1997). Some of the dialogue in that excerpt such as ‘Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know their wives have sense like them’ to a refugee from Muslim culture would seem offensive to husbands as it seems that Emilia may be threatening the husbands that don’t treat their wives well. A native Swiss however would come to a different conclusion after reading this excerpt. In Switzerland like many other western nations equality is very important issue (Gender equality around the world: the best and worst countries, 2015). This means that they would interpret the dialogue as women who are unfairly treated trying to stand up against their oppressors. Since Desdemona was struck by her husband a short while earlier and Emilia is generally not treated that well by Iago, it would be perfectly reasonable to a Swiss that the women are standing up against this sort of treatment. This all shows how the dialogue of the women, especially Emilia would be read and interpreted differently by the

Syrian culture is based on honour and shame, while many western nations have cultural characteristics based on innocence and guilt (Weir, 2007). This means in Syria you aim to be honoured and respected by the community, when however something goes wrong you lose this honour and this is very shameful. In the context of Othello it would mean that his wife cheating on him would be very shameful, to the refugee this would explain the rather extreme reaction of Othello. In Syria, although it is illegal, honour killings are still very common. Honour killings is a husband killing a wife that has cheated on him. Since in Syria such an occurrence would not be too uncommon, they might understand why someone would kill their wife to preserve their honour. The innocence-guilt based culture of Switzerland however does not justify Othello’s behaviour. Swiss believe that even if you have a disloyal wife you still maintain your own innocence and that only the wife should feel guilt. This would mean that usually a divorce is the worst that could happen because of this and killing the wife would under no circumstances be acceptable. This all shows how Othello’s act of killing Desdemona would lead to different reactions by a Syrian refugee in Switzerland and a Swiss native after having read and interpreted the text. The refugee might find it more justified because a disloyal wife would be