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An Echo In The Bone And Othello Analysis

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Dennis Scott’s “An Echo in the Bone” and William Shakespeare’s “Othello” both highlight ways through which playwrights from different historical contexts explore similar issues. G.B. Harrison states that, “Shakespeare is the most universal of all writers because he is the wisest; that is he can understand and sympathise more than other men. He can see the whole picture of humanity and recreate it so that men of every kind, country, creed and generation understand.” Renu Juneja writes that Scott’s play is about, “the necessity to understand the present in terms of the past. The present yields no meaning without the past.” Therefore despite the differences in time and space the playwrights are able to convey similar issues within their plays. Shakespeare’s “Othello” is set within the 1600s in Venice during a time of Christian domination; whereas Scott’s “An Echo in the Bone” is set between the 18th – 19th centuries in Jamaica during a period of traditional African practices. Both Shakespeare and Scott explore similar universal issues of racism, betrayal, revenge, death and marginalisation through the use of animal and colour imagery, dramatic irony, soliloquys, language and irony. In Shakespeare’s “Othello” the universal condition of racism is explored through the use of animal and colour imagery. According to Mary Ann Frese Witt, “black and white ironically and symbolically deciphers the inner and outer natures of both Othello and Iago.” This is noticed of Othello when he

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