Sexual and racial politics in Walcotts Goats & Monkeys.

Walcotts poem Goats & Monkeys is his tribute to Shakespeare and the language that he has weaned on. He explores the identity crisis a man faces who is black in skin and white in mind. To do this he uses the character of Othello and traces his relationship with Desdemona to highlight the stark contrast and the sense of other that Othello faces. The poem critiques the society that is still not ready to accept a black Othello as a white Desdemonas lover and the poet realizes that transgressing the rigid social norms is as impossible as transgressing divine laws. Animal images engulf the poem with the man repeatedly presented in the role of the beast. Walcott plays with the contrasts of color in his smoky hand and her charred marble throat. Othello represents all of Africa/ the other which is both enticing and repulsive, that must remain alien, for the social law halves the world. Walcott employs racial stereotypes in his poem in drawing analogy between whiteness of Desdemona & light and on the other hand comparing Othello with the dark ominous night. But Walcott also alludes to the fact that Othello might be bestial or savage, not because of his race alone, but because of the sexual angst that he suffers from, being a black man who feels insecure, uncertain of white love. Walcott attacks the social stereotyping practiced by the white Venetian society that honours Othellos military valour but cannot accept him as a suitor/ husband of a white woman. The native must know his place and if he dares to transgress then he must become the victim of the hellish labyrinth of his mind. Desdemona who hardly emerges from a symbol shares the fate which has befallen women perceived in male created art. The white woman is a common symbol in modern Black Literature. She frequently becomes a bloodletting to release the black hero from the agony of attraction to White culture & power, a sacrificial figure and a cause of savage mutilation of the black man himself. The white woman easily becomes the arena for the working out of the black mans racial/ cultural identity, or a target for hostility that is not released on the white man. In other words she functions as the sexual political symbol. The desire of the male artist is contradictory wherein he wants the woman to be chaste yet voluptuous, pure yet passionate. She thus becomes the symbolic manifestation of the combination of the contradictory sexual & racial attitudes of a man. The woman symbolizes the white culture and power that causes Othello to see he as an ape, a horned beast( alluding to the fear of succumbing to cuckoldry). Othello universalizes the male sexual anxiety, although his sexual angst is primarily dependent on his racial position. Othello is then the barbarous one, an uncivilized

savage. Othellos suffering is intensified for he kills what he loves most. The black moor is victimized twice. First he is the victim of a society that can accept his prowess in war but not his presence as suitor-husband to a white lady. Secondly, this prejudice breeds in the General a jealousy and lack of faith emphasized by his own insecurity and the lack of courage in his own convictions. Walcott on one hand is sympathetic towards Desdemona and Othello, but on the other there is a sense of repugnance. The reference to the handkerchief, which becomes a mobile symbol to determine a womans chastity, describes how a womans integrity can be judged on flimsy grounds. A mere fragile evidence acts as a catalyst to cause the downfall of the star crossed lovers, and heightens the fact that man cannot undo what fate decrees. Othello both serves the Venetian society as a General, as well as rebels against the same society by crossing interracial boundaries all for the desire of a white woman. Othello thus becomes both the insider as well as the outside. He is victimized not just by the society, but also even by his own self. His is the dilemma of a black man trying to both assimilate and maintain his identity in a white society. Walcott in revisiting Shakespeares play interrogates t he racial and social stereotype. The poem instead puts the onus of the womans fate on her passivity, lacking cognizance of reality. Thus the racial and social angst of a poet black in skin, white in mind seeking recognition in a white world, takes recourse in his succumbing to gender stereotyping.