Reconstruction Vol. 14, No. 3

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Isolated Spaces, Fragmented Places: Caryl Phillips's Ghettos in The Nature of Blood and The European Tribe / İ. Murat Öner and Mustafa Bal

Abstract

This study focuses on Caryl Phillips's deviant Othello character in The Nature of Blood and his transformation and perception of and in the ghettoized space of Venice in a geocritical scope. Geocriticism provides us with genuinely unique approaches to explore real-and-fictional space of Venice in The Nature of Blood (a fictional work) and The European Tribe (a non-fictional work), and other literary and non-literary materials. Interdisciplinary methods of geocriticism also help us analyze the cartographies and continuously changing spatial relations and discover unseen power correlations by using various cultural discourses such as architecture, philosophy, sociology, and geography. By applying geocritical methods of 'multifocalization,' 'polysensoriality,' and 'stratigraphic vision' into the text in the lights of the geocritical concepts of 'spatiotemporality,' 'transgressivity,' and 'referentiality,' we delve deep into analyses of explicit and implicit references, allusions, and connotations attached to the ghettoized space of Venice in The Nature of Blood and The European Tribe.

Keywords: Caryl Phillips, geocriticism, ghetto, Venice, Othello, The Nature of Blood, The European Tribe, transgressivity.

<1> Caryl Phillips's exploration of human condition in The Nature of Blood stretches through different parts of history offering the readers a complex spatiotemporal, chronologically nonlinear and fragmented narration. Phillips builds his narration on two undeniable European enterprises: racism and the Holocaust. He further merges these concepts with the spatial dimensions of isolation. His choice of locales - such as ghettos - is even more significant for the narration of The Nature of Blood; as Ledent also suggests each space in The Nature of Blood is "suggestive of the characters' experience," and, to be more precise, each space echoes "characters' isolation" (2002, p. 150). As Westphal suggests that literature and the mimetic arts reveal the unseen potential of space-time somewhere between reality and fiction, which he calls 'third space' (2011, p. 73), Phillips, in The Nature of Blood, creates "ghettoized spaces" as examples of this third space. Phillips further personifies the isolation, if not segregation, of these ghettoized spaces in the characters of Eva Stern - a Jewish character who survived the Holocaust, Malka - a black Jew who migrated to Israel from Ethiopia, and the commandant of the Venetian army - a black African, or Othello as we infer from Phillips's direct references to Shakespeare's Othello; additionally Phillips has also acknowledged using pastiche as a narrative technique in his narratives to "send [the reader] back to the original source to find out more" (qtd. in Eckstein, 2001). Phillips's Othello, unlike Shakespeare's, recounts his arrival in Venice, narrates his explorations of Venice, Venetians, Venetian language and customs, and his marriage to Desdemona, and finalizes his story with his arrival in Cyprus. We should also note that the Shakespearean Jew, Shylock also lingers in the ghettoized spaces in The Nature of Blood as well as in Venice and in Othello's account. Phillips also supports this argument by creating Jewish characters (Eva, Stephen and Malka) in The Nature of Blood as primarily Jews have been considered archetypical of the ghettoized existence. Shylock's existence like Othello's is that of a deviance in the striated space of Venice, hence, very much relevant in our argument. Phillips weaves the fragmented narration of The Nature of Blood between these deviant characters' individual stories in spatiotemporal oscillations, articulating the communal experiences of a people in these characters' persons, and creating a discourse of "a multi-spatial collective memory." He makes his statement about the post-effects of these collective and historical experiences through Eva Stern's inner speech with a spatiotemporal undertone: "A human river of shattered lives. Passing houses that had become our prisons and our tombs" (1997, p. 198).

<2> In this study we will only be focusing on Phillips's Othello and his transformation and perception of and in the ghettoized space of Venice in a geocritical scope. Geocriticism provides us with genuinely unique approaches to explore real-and-fictional space of Venice in The Nature of Blood and other literary and non-literary materials. Interdisciplinary methods of geocriticism also help us analyze the cartographies and continuously changing spatial relations and discover unseen power correlations by using various cultural discourses such as architecture, philosophy, sociology, and geography (Tally, 2013, p. 113 - 114; p. 140).

<3> Westphal erects the theoretical foundations of geocriticism on three concepts: firstly, 'spatiotemporality' which emphasizes that places have to be recognized "in a temporal depth in order to uncover or discover multilayered identities," and stresses, "the temporal variability of heterogeneous spaces" as "globality implies polychrony" (Geocritical Explorations, 2011, p. xiv). Secondly, 'transgressivity' which includes "all aspects of border crossings" which come with movement; one may not transgress if he conforms to "the traditional definition of a code, a compendium of norms and benchmarks" (Geocriticism, 2011, p. 45). Westphal further notes on the inevitability of transgression at an individual level: "Transgression is somehow the result of an oscillation, little attributable to a singular, individual responsibility but more like continental drift, the shock of geological plates" (p. 46) and "as in Deleuze's deterritorialization process, permanent fluidity is the characteristic of representations and consequently, of identities" (Geocritical Explorations, 2011, p. xv). Thirdly, 'referentiality' which notes that all textual spaces intertexually relate to other spaces in literature and reality (Geocritical Explorations, 2011, p. xv; Geocriticism, 2011, p. 75 - 84).

<4> Geocriticism also renders three approaches to the text; firstly 'multifocalization,' which emphasizes that creating the literary space requires many different points of view in order to avoid "individual bias or stereotyping," and, therefore, in this study, various resources ranging from tourist guides to historical accounts are used to investigate the literary space of Venice; secondly, 'polysensoriality,' which states that space may not be perceived only by vision, other senses provide important input to evaluate different spaces; thus, it is significant to indicate how a space appeals to different characters, and their sensory impressions of a given space in a convergent form; and 'stratigraphic vision,' in which the topos is understood to contain several meaning levels, and is deterritorialized and reterritorialized (Tally, 2013, p. 142), therefore, literary space of Venice, we suggest,contains many levels of interpretation, for instance, the Rialto bridge contains various images and connotations as a striated space. Westphal also promotes the usage of non-literary texts including tourist guides and the advertising rhetoric of travel brochures for geocritical analysis (Geocriticism, 2011, p. 121).

<5> The word 'ghetto' was presumably first used in 1562 by Pius IV as a generic term for the settlements where Jews throughout Italy were separated from the rest of the population until the middle of the nineteenth century, and initially it did not hold a negative connotation (Debenedetti-Stow, 1994; Wirth, 1927; Michman, 2011, p. 20 - 22; McGregor, 2006, p. 208). The foundation of the first ghetto in Venice was based on the zeal for the hatred of Jews and pragmatic economic reality of Venice (Finlay, 1982, p. 141; McGregor, 2006, p. 276). Holderness adds that the ghetto, providing the protection Jews needed, also played a spatial role for Jews to flourish their cultural identity within their community (2010, p. 41). Bassi maintains that, even though the ghetto isolated them in Venice in its structural framework, Jews in the Venetian ghetto enjoyed some sort of autonomy and self-governance, and the ghetto provided them with the dynamism which the Jewish identity has always been evaluated with. Roth, on the other hand, states that Shakespeare fictionalized a known reality in Shylock's character in The Merchant of Venice (1933, p. 148-156). Shylock, confirming the constant repression against Jews in Venice, delivers his famous speech in 3.1 in The Merchant of Venice: "…He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies - and what's his reason? I am a Jew" (43-46).

<6> Even though ghettos used to refer to the spatial isolation of Jews in Venice and Nazi Germany, today we may associate the term with any space where isolation and segregation occurs. Hence, if a group of people is considered 'deviant' due to their racial, social or religious backgrounds and segregated from the community in sundry ways in a place, that place in question may be viewed as ghettoized. Ghettos, which previously were imposed on people, might also be shaped deliberately either by a class of people because of their fear of unacceptance or exploitation by others or by an elitist group who wish to segregate themselves from the average members of the society (Madaj, 1968, p. 65). Primary feature of a ghetto is the spatial segregation of a group of people, which also appeals to Foucault's concept of the heterotopias of deviation. Foucault's heterotopias of deviation are places such as rest homes, psychiatric hospitals, and prisons, which cage deviants of a society; Foucault, placing the elderly between the heterotopia of crisis and the heterotopia of deviation, points to the their deviant characteristic as old age and idleness (2008, p. 18).

<7> Phillips in The European Tribe points to the tall structures of the Venetian ghetto along with its synagogue, bakery, kosher shops and tiny streets surrounding a large square (p. 52 - 53). In the same work, Phillips's description shows that his contemporary ghetto features "predominantly white working-class areas" with "red disposal pipes, yellow-stripped façade," "skylines broken up by twenty-four-storey blocks of flats," and "dog shit all over the play grounds so parents can't send the kids out to play, and within a month someone has been stabbed" (p. 3). Such polysensorial description by Phillips incorporates three features of a ghetto space: crowd- considering the size of the blocks, filth and crime. All these three ghetto traits, one way or another, are applicable to any isolative space in The Nature of Blood whether it be Venice, Venetian ghetto, ghettoized cities, Cyprus, concentration camps, or Israel.

<8> In The Nature of Blood, Othello's observation of the ghetto includes the windowless structures of the buildings, and how Christian guards who protect the gates leading into the ghetto, and two boats which patrol the island in the surrounding canals (Phillips, 1997, p. 129). Othello also notices how the ghetto lacks the Christian elements that Venice has in abundance: "…the complete absence of shrines, madonnas, carved crosses, or images of saints" (p. 130). Other features of the ghetto, in Othello's words, include "filthier alleyways," "oppressive tall hovels," "damp staining walls" and "poverty" (p. 130). Katz confirms that the architectural structure of the Jewish quarters in the Venetian Ghetto with small windows and bolted doors would protect the rights of Christians "from the unwanted views of the Other," and she also states that the Venetian authorities even "legislated fenestration constrictions for religious outsiders" (p. 133). Thus, window closure was required in the Jewish Ghetto. However, these restrictions or precautions were not considered as hardship by the Jews of the Ghetto, as these provided them with the security they needed. Even Spanish and Portuguese Jews considered the Venetian Ghetto as a heaven where they could practice their religion with relative ease (Phillips, 1997, p. 129; McGregor, 2006, p. 277).

Figure 1. Venetian Ghetto

<9> Ghettoized spaces manifest an intrinsic transgressive quality. Transgression, in Westphal's definition, occurs when "a code or rite" is contravened (Geocriticism, 2011, p. 43). He further suggests that transgression necessitates a closed and striated space and a will to penetrate, which the state apparatus assumes as a crime; or in other words, transgression requires those who contravene and those who attest to the contravention. The state apparatus, hence, determines how these rules are to be "applied, disregarded, or violated." These rules may include "the code of hospitality," "the contact zone between social actors" and they are regulated by explicit rules, and feature "a shared rhythm, a spatiotemporal correlation" (Westphal, Geocriticism, 2011, p. 42 - 43). Westphal also suggests that transgression is supposed to be defined by "a minimum set of defining criteria [as] there can be no transgression without the contravention of a code or rite" (2011, p. 43). He states that "[i]n the absence of a common rhythm, transgression is inevitable," and he continues, "[i]n certain cases, transgression is massive, becoming a deliberate intrusion- hence war, a vast state transgression," pointing to disparate nature of transgression (p. 43).

<10> Westphal also uses "epistrata" - a term he borrows from Deleuze and Guattari - to identify the borders of the tolerance for transgressions. In other words, epistrata is the narrow gap between the action and the transgression, or "the margin of tolerated deviance" (2011, p. 42). This margin in Venice on a vast and spatial scale is the ghetto; the Venetian ghetto functioned as an epistrata through which the Jews were allowed to live in Venice. The ghetto was an in-between space where deviants within their tolerated limits could dwell within the encompassing striated space of Venice. However, diverse social institutions possess "different thresholds of tolerance for deviation from a norm" (Bonta & Protevi, 2004, p. 82). Thus, the Venetian Ghetto stands out as having a different level of tolerance towards its so-called deviants or others than the isolative space of Israel and the ghettos of Nazi Germany or Nazi concentration camps, which we may consider as some of the most radical isolative and ghettoized spaces ever, also as shown in The Nature of Blood.

<11> In the case of Venice, Jewishness was the transgression. McGregor asserts, while Jews were confined and forced to live in the ghetto, the key to full acceptance into the society for Jews was solely through conversion into Catholicism and a total break-up with Jewish community, which indicates a different transgression or border crossing through deterritorialization into a new faith. Converts could fully assimilate into Venetian social and economic life; however, this also carried certain hazards if they attempted to contact their old cycles or return to their old faith. Reverting to the old faith could be punishable by death (McGregor, 2006, p. 216). As depicted in The Merchant of Venice in 4.1, Shylock was forced to convert into Christianity - as proposed by Antonio in return of his property, which was confiscated by the state of Venice, as a form of repentance for his transgression:

So please my lord the Duke and all the court

To quit the fine for one half of his goods,

I am content, so he will let me have

The other half in use, to render it

Upon his death unto the gentleman

That lately stole his daughter.

Two things provided more: that for this favour

He presently become a Christian (The Merchant of Venice 4.1.376-83)

At this point, concentrating on Othello and how Phillips uses the referentiality of the text will be of much use for the development of our argument. As Westphal notes, "fiction has a mimetic relationship to the world [and] the representation fictionalizes the source from which it emanates" (Geocriticism 2011, p. 75). The intertexual retelling of Othello's story, as Whitehead notes, is important in that it has premonitional effects of how the story ends for the reader of The Nature of Blood (2004, p. 91). Intertextual text, Whitehead further suggests, assumes that the reader has onset knowledge of the destiny of the characters the text refers to, and it can widen the view of critical researches with possible new meanings, and it can also suggest alternative outcomes for the original text (2004, p. 91).

<12> Westphal states that representation is "re-presentation," and revises "the source in a new context" (Geocriticism 2011, p. 75). The reader knows Othello's ultimate destiny; thus, Phillips in The Nature of Blood fictionalizes the passage leading to his eventual demise, in Whitehead's terms, using "intertextual resistance [to] racism" (2004, p. 91). Whitehead believes that the determining factor of Othello's downfall is the Venetian society and latent racism within the society (p. 91 - 92). This assumption does not undermine but strengthens the traumatic role of transgressive space that drives Othello to isolation in The Nature of Blood. Eventually, the experience of isolation in the ghettoized spaces leads Othello into a social and psychological transgression or border crossing. In other words, Othello physically moves from "the smooth space" of his African homeland into "the striated space" of Venice, and this movement leads him into a transgression, as Tally observes in Deleuze's concept of nomads: "Deleuze's nomads continually map and remap, altering spaces even as they traverse them. They are in Deleuze's language, forces of deterritorialization, unsettling to a greater or lesser extent the metric ordering of space that is subject to the power of the state" (2013, p. 136). Smooth space, as Deleuze and Guattari notes, is 'the nomad space' where the war machine develops - noting that Othello is a general in the Venetian army - and striated space is 'the sedentary space' where the space is instituted by the state apparatus; thus they are not of the same nature, and they do not communicate with each other in the same way (2005, p. 474 - 475). Othello initially defines himself with the smooth space, which produces "the war machine" (p. 355), with the undertone of transformation he has experienced: "I, a man of born royal blood, a mighty warrior, yet a man who, at one time, could view himself only as a poor slave…" (Phillips, 1997, p. 107 - emphasis added).

<13> Holderness states that the Venetians hired foreign mercenaries for their army to avoid military dominance of any leader over the city-state (2010, p. 90). Venice, in McGregor's term, was a company town; the system the Venetians developed guarded the city against any dynastic ambition, and the city was based on trade, and all administrative and military personnel served Venice temporarily (2006, p. 87). Othello in The Nature of Blood also confirms that "the republic preferred to employ the services of great foreign commanders in order that they might prevent the development of Venetian-born military dictatorships" (Phillips, 1997, p. 116). Venice and Othello conform to the concepts that Deleuze and Guattari propose in A Thousand Plateaus: "The State has no war machine of its own; it can only appropriate one in the form of a military institution, one that will continually cause it problems. This explains the mistrust States have toward their military institutions, in that the military institution inherits an extrinsic war machine" (2005, p. 355). The principles of the mixture of smooth and striated spaces are not symmetrical, and cause a passage from one to the other, according to entirely different movements (Deleuze & Guattari, 2005, p. 474).

<14> Venice as a place of continual passages of 'smoothness' and 'striation' causes continual transgression for the deviants and nomads of the society as we see in the characters of Othello and Shylock. Deleuze and Guattari strengthen this theory: "The maximum deterritorialization appears in the tendency of maritime and commercial towns to separate off from the backcountry, from the countryside (Athens, Carthage, Venice)" (2005, p. 432). Othello's observations of the city show us that he is captivated by the sheer force of this striation which Venice produces: "Nothing in my native country had prepared me for the splendor of the canals… The magnificence of the buildings that lined the canals overwhelmed my senses" (Phillips, 1997, p. 107). The transition from the nomad space to the sedentary space intensely affects him, and he firstly reacts to this passage in the trajectory of Eurocentric cartographic segregation between the centre and the periphery: "I had moved from the edge of the world to the centre. From the dark margins to a place where even the weakest rays of the evening sun were caught and thrown back in a blaze of glory" (Phillips, 1997, p. 107). Interestingly, Amin in Eurocentrism points to the period of Renaissance when Eurocentric consciousness in the European mentality began to take its current form that emphasizes European superiority (2009, p. 154). Othello monitors the contradictory cues of striation, which Venice presents itself, and wishes "to hold these various images close [to his] dark bosom," and disregards the spatial hints given by the labyrinth of Venice: "I soon came to understand that, behind gaudy façade, much of Venice was quite different from the pretty city of the watercolour. But this caused me little concern…" (Phillips, 1997, p. 109). More, Othello decides to dress in Venetian fashion, which indicates that he strengthens the transgression through cultural adaption, as well. He confirms that, even though the exotic displays of other cultures are tolerated in Venice, "such stubbornness [is] unlikely to aid one's passage through society" (Phillips, 1997, p. 120 - emphasis added). Othello willingness to be accepted into the Venetian society is manifest, although he feels that this passage is not feasible. With his marriage to Desdemona, however, he irrationally assumes that the conditions are different, as these quotations exemplify:

My complexion was a feature that was unlikely to aid me in my attempts to attract admiration (Phillips, 1997, p. 143).

I wondered if my new costume might convince some among Venetians to look upon me with a kinder eye (p. 122).

And now to be married, and to the heart of the society. I wondered how such a change could be wrought in a man's life, and in so short a period (p. 144)

<15> Deleuze and Guattari, defining striated spaces with fabrics they produce, present a certain number of characteristics: intertwining and intersecting vertical and horizontal, mobile and fixed elements, and delimited, closed on at least one side, shapes such as circular or cylindrical figures implying closed spaces, and finally a space of this kind has a top and a bottom (2005, p. 475). They further assert that smooth space is not homogeneous and it is the space of the smallest deviation (p. 371). Thus, we may assume that transgression occurs on a smaller scale. Deleuze and Guattari describe the striated and smooth spaces with a metaphor; they state that:

[…] the needles produce a striated space; one of them plays the role of the warp, the other of the woof, but by turns. Crochet, on the other hand, draws an open space in all directions, a space that is prolongable in all directions - but still has a center. A more significant distinction would be between embroidery, with its central theme or motif, and patchwork, with its piece-by-piece construction, its infinite, successive additions of fabric (2005, p. 476).

Similarly, Venice as a striated space produces continual transgression within her own architectural fabric of 'water' 'canals' - two words used together also indicate the continual passages and movements of smooth and striated spaces, as Deleuze and Guattari note (2005, p. 334), and the transgressive and deterritorializing nature of Venice with her vertical and horizontal bridges controlled by the state apparatus. Deleuze and Guattari state that bridges and roadways are directly related to striation and the control mechanism of the state apparatus (2005, p. 365).

<16> McGregor states that the Venetian bridges were multi-functional; for instance, the Rialto Bridge, dividing the Grand Canal into two parts, obstructed the ocean vessels to pass further into the lagoon; thus, goods had to be transferred to smaller ships and the Rialto market was located exactly at this point (2006, p. 217 - 218). Beard draws attention to the similarities of Pompeii and Venice; both cities are similar in the sense that, while Venetian bridges pragmatically served the merchants of the city, "stepping stones" in the streets of Pompeii did not just provide pedestrians with safe crossing from one pavement to the other one, but it also enabled the owners of the carts, which had standard axle sizes, to run the monopoly in Pompeii, by leaving the carts of the visitors, which had different axle sizes, outside the city gates (Beard, 2009, p. 53-54; McGregor, 2006, p. 217-218). Venetian bridges similarly provided the spatial controlling of the flow of the goods through the canals, which also exemplifies the transgressive cycles of striated and smooth spaces: "If canals were the emblems of the city's openness to commerce, bridges were the valves that controlled the flow of goods. Land-based people think of bridges in just the opposite way-as links between places separated by water. For the water-minded Venetians, however, bridges were erected as obstacles" (McGregor, 2006, p. 217, emphasis added). It is worthy quoting Deleuze and Guattari once again to show how eighteenth century bridges were erected under the control of the state apparatus, and how the striation bridges imposed was strengthened by the same control mechanism:

Is Anne Querrien right to find yet another echo of the same story in the case of bridges in the eighteenth century? Doubtless, the conditions were very different, for the division of labor according to State norms was by then an accomplished fact. But the fact remains that in the government agency in charge of bridges and roadways, roadways were under a well-centralized administration while bridges were still the object of active, dynamic, and collective experimentation. Trudaine organized unusual, open "general assemblies" in his home. Perronet took as his inspiration a supple model originating in the Orient: The bridge should not choke or obstruct the river. To the heaviness of the bridge, to the striated space of thick and regular piles, he opposed a thinning and discontinuity of the piles, surbase, and vault, a lightness and continuous variation of the whole. But his attempt soon ran up against principled opposition; the State, in naming Perronet director of the school, followed a frequently used procedure that inhibited experimentation more than crowning its achievements. (2005, p. 365, emphasis added)

<17> Othello's observation of the Rialto Bridge in The Nature of Blood shows the transgressivity and striation in the very fabric of Venice. As he observes the surrounding area from the bridge's vantage point, his description takes a polysensorial turn, which also reflects his own isolation along with the spatial control mechanism of the state apparatus. Henry James in Italian Hours also describes the Rialto Bridge as a place where one's polysensorial perception would function all at once: "All one's senses indeed are vigorously attacked; the whole place is violently hot and bright, all odorous and noisy" (2004, p. 118, emphasis added). As Westphal puts it "seeing and hearing work in concert helps to discover meaning in the text" (Geocriticism, 2011, p. 131), Othello's observations help us analyze the mental isolation he feels along with the physical isolation which Venice imposes upon him. In the following quotation, the italic words manifest how Phillips uses sensorial references to create narrative fluency in the transitions or concurrent border crossings of smooth and striated spaces:

I dressed quickly and soon found myself on the wintry Rialto bridge, from whose vantage-point I was able to watch a lean cat scurry noiselessly into a blind alley. I had grown extremely fond of the city under the moon, for it was at such moments that I truly appreciated the full grandeur of her silent majesty. Only the occasional tolling of bells trespassed upon the night, but their song, together with the sister sound of water swirling and sighing, created the most wondrous accompaniment to the silence. And then, of course, there was the moonlight, which produced spellbinding patterns as it struck the water, illuminating buildings here, and withholding its light there. (Phillips, p.121, emphasis added)

As Deleuze and Guattari categorize the air, the sea, and the earth as smooth spaces (2005, p. 362 - 364), we conclude that all concepts related to smooth and striated spaces also show such qualities. Thus, as the Rialto Bridge itself is striated "by the fall of bodies, the verticals of gravity, the distribution of matter into parallel layers, the lamellar and laminar movement of flows" (Deleuze & Guattari, 2005, p. 370), all the structural components of the bridge and all concepts related to the bridge are also striated; such as the control mechanism, the flow of the goods, the connection of the lands. Similarly in the extract, all the words related to the air, the sea and the earth such as "moon,""moonlight," "light" and "illuminating" indicate smoothness, while some words such as "alley," "the city," "buildings" point to the striated structure of Venice. While "vantage-point" echoes the controlled structure of the city by the state apparatus, "tolling of bells" resonates the rhythmical movements of the boats, just as "boat" represents striation on water's smooth body; and "patterns," "alley," and "buildings" which limit the flow by its intertwining and intersecting vertical and horizontal elements are striated (Deleuze & Guattari, 2005, p. 475). These transitional cycles of striation and smoothness also reflect Venice in the trajectory of deterritorializing and reterritorializing forces; the same forces by which Othello is compelled to transform himself.

Figure 2. The Rialto Bridge

<18> Urban structure of Venice can also be compared to human body which, as Frichot notes, being both fluid and hard, is smooth and striated in the cycles of deterritorialization and reterritorialization as it enters the power relations; when the relations of power are manifested in an oppressive character, striating the body, the body tends to act inharmoniously (2007, p. 173 - 174). Hence, on a micro level, the very fabric of Venice leads Othello into a deterritorialization through mimesis, and then it is accompanied by compensatory reterritorialization. Bonta and Protevi state that humans, being rule-followers as well as free agents break codes, and reform new patterns that are new codes for others (2006, p. 34). Similarly, Othello considers certain passages in a society where Jews are ghettoized due to their 'deviance': "I had often wondered if a marriage of the finest of my customs with their Venetian refinements might not, in due course, produce a more sophisticated man. Or, if not this, perhaps such a conjunction of traditions might at least subdue the portion of the ill-feeling to which my natural state seemed to give rise" (Phillips, 1997, p. 120).

<19> Delueze and Guattari exemplify the process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization with the relationship of an orchid with a wasp:

The orchid deterritorializes by forming an image, a tracing of a wasp; but the wasp reterritorializes on that image. The wasp is nevertheless deterritorialized, becoming a piece in the orchid's reproductive apparatus. But it reterritorializes the orchid by transporting its pollen. Wasp and orchid, as heterogeneous elements, form a rhizome. It could be said that the orchid imitates the wasp, reproducing its image in a signifying fashion (mimesis, mimicry, lure, etc.) (2005, p. 10).

Similarly, as also indicated in the original text by Shakespeare, Othello, with his stories of valiance, of exotic lands, and of slavery, lures Desdemona ; hence, he deterritorializes by reshaping himself in a form that appeals to Desdemona. The exotic stories are used in the same way the orchid forms an image as "a tracing of a wasp" which attracts the wasp:

Her father loved me, oft invited me,

Still questioned me the story of my life,

From year to year - the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed. (Othello 3.1.128-31)

<20> In The Nature of Blood, Othello also declares that these stories are really appealing to Desdemona: "…she wished to know principally of my adventures as a soldier and of many dangers to which my life had been subjected. She listened intently, and I spun some truthful tales…" (Phillips, 1997, p. 133). Consequently, Desdemona reterritorializes herself on the image Othello has created for her, as indicated in Shakespeare's Othello:

… These things to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

But still the house affairs would draw her hence.

Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,

She'd come again, and with a greedy ear

Devour up my discourse. … (Othello 1.3.145-50)

Desdemona is deterritorialized, becoming "a piece" in Othello's "reproductive apparatus," and they form "a rhizome" with their marriage - Deleuze and Guattari use this botanic term to point out the rootlessness and unpredictable expansion of rhizomes. May further states:

[…] It can shoot out roots from any point, leaves and stems from any point. It has no beginning: no roots. It has no middle: no trunk. And it has no end: no leaves. It is always in the middle, always in process. There is no particular shape it has to take and no particular territory to which it is bound. It can connect from any part of itself to a tree, to the ground, to a fence, to other plants, to itself" (2005, p. 133 - 134)

Othello mimics the image of a Venetian, and becoming, as Phillips puts it "a figment of a Venetian imagination" (1997, p. 182). We assume that the term "rhizome" befits the transformation Othello has gone through; Othello and Desdemona form a rhizome with "no roots," "no particular shape," and "no particular territory" they are bound to. We should also remember the original text by Shakespeare and Brabantio's foreshadowing warning to Othello which also points to deterritorializing and reterritorializing transformative characteristics of Othello - Desdemona relationship: "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. / She has deceived her father, and may thee (Othello 1.3.293-94).

<21> Furthermore, Othello in one case in The Nature of Blood confesses his inability to fully comprehend the real nature of Venice and Venetians; he thinks to himself about his awkward situation, at the same time observing his sleeping wife in "wintry reflections" and "whispered echoes" of Venice: "In her chastity, loyalty and honour, she is the most un-Venetian of women, yet is there some sport to this lady's actions? I am familiar with the renowned deceit of the Venetian courtesan, yet I have taken a Venetian for a wife. Has some plot been hatched about me? I am a foreigner. I do not know" (Phillips, 1997, p. 106)

<22> Phillips in Othello's narration uses the polysensorial images to reveal the true nature of Venice. As Tuan confirms in Topophilia that our responses to visual inputs are different from other sensorial inputs in that seeing makes the world around us more objective than other senses (1990, pg. 9 - 11). However, olfactory sense triggers memories in the cortical vastness of the human brain. Describing Venice as he approaches to the port on a boat, Othello also uses olfactory cues together with visual ones, and creates polysensorial images. Othello comes to Venice on a spring day, and he gives a description of the city-state in such a way as to uncover her façade:

I approached by water and found myself propelled by the swift tides across the lonely empty spaces of the forbidding lagoon. I stepped out and observed the grey choppy seas, the high arch of the sky, and low horizons to the monasteries, forts and fishing villages for the surrounding islands. Above me, the sails and flags snapped in the damp Venetian wind, and then, to our side, I spied a boatman hurrying back to the city ahead of the oncoming storm, with swallows flying low and skimming the water to either side of his unsteady vessel. As we neared the city, the air became warm and moist, and its smell somewhat like the breath of an animal (Phillips, 1997, p. 106 - 107, emphasis added)

This description explicitly confirms that Othello moves from his smooth space into the striated space of Venice, and allows a voluntary reterritorialization and transgression into the ghettoized space of Venice. Othello's movement on the sea is also indicative and foreshadowing of the striation he faces in Venice, as Deleuze and Guattari note: "the sea is a smooth excellence, and yet it [is] the first to encounter the demands of increasingly strict striation" (2005, p. 479). Similarly, this extract is mixed with words indicating smoothness such as "water," "tides," "seas," "high," "sky," "horizons," "winds," "lagoon," and striation, such as "monasteries," "forts," "villages," "islands" and "vessel." Hence, their mixture creates a transgression in the text as well. As noted before, of Phillips's description of a ghetto, Othello also describes Venice with olfactory references to filth and bad smell with some undertones to the real characteristics of this place, such as "whose sluggish canals were choked with refuse" (Phillips, 1997, p. 115), "the canal about this place smelt putrid, and I clasped a handkerchief to my nose and mouth" (p. 146) and rumoured crimes by "braves [who are] armed with a coat of mail, a gauntlet upon their right hand and a short dagger, were known to lurk by the waterside and attack passing strangers" (p. 133).

<23> Othello achieves his utmost tactile sense of Venice through his marriage to Desdemona: "She proved, as I had hoped, an eager, if somewhat naïve partner, but what she lacked in knowledge she made up for in the softness of her touch" (Phillips, 1997, pg. 147). This passage indicates that Othello has felt Venice in the most tactile way possible, which also reveals that the true nature of Venice is not its soft touch, noting Phillips's intertexual use of Shakespeare's Othello as a pastiche, and Othello's imminent downfall in the original text.

<24> To conclude, Othello, as Ledent suggests, disregarding the warnings of the Jewish ghetto as the spatial monument of how Venice, and Europe deals with 'others' like him (2002, p. 142), condemns himself to his own demise through spatial transgression or border crossing, which leads him into a further social isolation, and makes him more vulnerable for Iago's deceitful plots as the original text proposes. Phillips creates a warning passage in The Nature of Blood for Othello by combining the smooth space of "an African river" with the striated space of "a Venetian canal" to indicate the very nature of Othello's downfall, and the passage suggests that he has not only transgressed against himself through this border crossing, but also his nomad land, his African wife and his son:

My friend, an African river bears no resemblance to a Venetian canal. Only the strongest spirit can hold both together. […] Did you truly ever think of your wife's soft kiss? Or your son's eyes? Brother you are weak.A figment of a Venetian imagination. While you still have time, jump from her bed and fly away home. Peel your rusty body from hers and go home. No good can come from your foreign adventure. (1997, p. 182, emphasis added)

Note

An earlier version of this study was presented at CELLS - Conference on English Language and Literary Studies: "GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN" - Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Language, Literature and Culture, held in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 6-8, 2013.

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Figures

1. Descouens, D. (2013). Campo de Ghetto Novo, Venezia. Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/.

2. Beck, C. (2011). A view of the Rialto Bridge in February 2011. Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/.

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