Othello 1

Day 1

Today I find myself in the third quarter of my senior year and once again I am being punished with Shakespeare. This is the third reading and today I found myself bogged down with the boredom and gloom that might overtake any second semester seniors mind. This is a torture of a different kind for me. Othello truly brings me to my knees at the mercy of the unfamiliar diction and perilous footnotes. You see, my first encounter with Shakespeare was with Mrs. Striby back in 09' and I really had no reason to take the class very seriously. I learned the plot and aced the test. But this Othello, it has much more to offer. The constant dialogue in this opening act had me constantly rereading in order to fully comprehend what was all happening at once. So far I find the most interesting aspect of the play the concept that Othello himself is a man of seemingly good character and honest words, while on the other hand, the remainder of the men appear extremely quick to judge and plot against Othello. Is this racism yet? I'm not entirely sure about all of them, but Iago comes of as extremely racist against Othello despite his constant comments about how that is really an unimportant detail in the grand scheme of things. Iago displays a large amount of arrogance in the last little speech that he gives to the crowd when he basically tries to think of ways to get Othello's girl to hook up with Cassio. I don't even know much about Cassio but I really hope he doesn't follow Iago's advice. I understand that this is a tragedy and that Iago is the, "Greatest villain of all time," and even, "Pure evil," but come on. Every Shakespeare play I read ends horribly.  Really the last line, "Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light,"(I.i.384) just hints that Iago seriously just got the big spatula out to give the pot a good old mixing.