Although I hit most of my points in my essay, I read back over my outline and quotes and found that these ideas I either did not mention or did not get to elaborate on enough.
-Evil's prescence in Kurtz is mirrored by God and his followers. Too often we hear of Christians killing for God in the Crusades, Klu Klux Klan, even our quest in Vietnam and Salem witch trials. So Kurtz murdering those spies in his camp was not very unsound when you compare it to other christian activities. In Vietnam we were fighting to prove that God and Capitalism was the way.
- Evil's prescence in the Godfather: Don Vito and Michael have an omniscient characteristic to them. They just know what is happening around in the world. God has that same characteristic according to Christianity. Maybe there is a reason why he is called the Godfather. Somebody else must have seen this same correlation. Don Vito is also respected, worshiped, and potentially vengeful. He just wants his followers to be loyal to him as he fights the evils. God is like Don Vito in his destruction of Sodom and Gamora when he destroyes the city for their bad ways that did not include worshipping him. Don Vito has this same action toward Charlie Fontain's Director. Killing his horse is like destroying his life. Plus God and the Godfather allow evil in the world to exist. Both allow killing, gambling, and prostitution. If either one really cared, could they complete erradicate these evils from the world? I don't think they want to because it would destroy their need. It is in their self interest to keep these evils in the world so people come to them for protection.
- Evil's Strategy: Iago tempts Othello just as Lord Henry tempts Dorian Gray. Lord Henry gives Dorian the ideas and from there Dorian like Othelllo just paints his own gruesome picture of sins. God does the same thing. He gives us this book of truths, the Bible, and leaves us to fend against evil ourselves. Adam and Eve are told that evil has entered into the garden but God leaves them to fight it themselves. Once they eat the fruit which god put there in the first place, they did all the work to destroy themselves. Satan just had to give Eve the idea to eat the fruit. We live in a world of choices and rarely are we forced to do anything. We normally choose in one way or another. God works in another way too. God gives us the ideas of good so we strive to put up this great image of goodness, yet we still contain evil. So many times the peers forget that everyone is evil inside. There are just different amounts of good and evil. In this way, Basil is God and Lord Henry is Satan. God paints the picture of goodness: our potential goodness that we can have. Then Satan comes in and gives us the ideas to start destroying this image. We slowly make our picture uglier and uglier. As Bradley says ," Iago is not simply a man of action; he is an artist..." (93). Iago, Lord Henry, and Satan are their own artists just like Basil. They just use dark colors. Artists help us make an image of ourselves. They put the image into our thoughts. Basil tries to put an image of beauty and virginity into his picture of Dorian but Lord Henry paints dorian a different picture of a gruesome sinner. God paints a picture of us as angels in heaven but Satan makes a portrait of us as sinners in hell. Iago was a brilliant artist who creates an image completely new. No one would think of Othello as a murder and jealous man, but Iago sees the painting in his head. Then he just uses his power over Othello to paint the image and set it into Othello's mind. With these two images in our head, we make the choice of which image we are going to portray in life. The artists just give us the idea.
- Evil's stratgey: God sends Gabriel to tempt Adam and Eve to loyalty just as Satan works to gain Adam and Eve's loyalty to evil. The Cold War is a perfect comparison to this situation in the Garden of Eden. Capitalism and Communism fight for the loyalty of Africans, Vietnamese, and Koreans. Natives just have to pick the lesser of two evils.
-Conclusion: History proves the difference between Good and evil because the victor writes history. Capitalism is better because Communism didnt survive. So since I was created in god's image and since we are capable of evil(morrow 216), I am evil. The image I see in the mirror is a paiting of reality: the combination of my two paintings of good and evil Nathan. People are not good unless there are other evil people around. If everyone was good like Martin Luther King Jr., then he would not be remembered. With this in mind, the evil of the world helps define time( Morrow). We would not remember history unless there were great events of Good vs. Evil. no one cares about Eve's gardening. they care about her fall to evil's ideas.
I finally got the ideas I had wanted, and I just started writing. The grammar is probably pretty rough.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
I had a dream
Did anyone else think that Heart of Darkness was very similar to the idea behind Inception. I am thinking specifically where Marlow says that he had his "choice of nightmares," and I think the movie is based on this same idea. When the movie comes to the final scene where the dreidel does not fall, I think this is a perfect example where Cobb decides he wants to live in a certain dream with his kids. We are left to decide if reality is a dream or not. I think the "reality" we see throughout the entire movie is not a dream, but its the one Cobb chooses. It's his nightmare.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Restrain Evil
If characters such as Iago despise those who have a lack of restraint in their emotions, then they must be suicidal. Iago hates Roderigo because he cannot control his love for Desdemona, and our super villain hates Cassio because he cannot restrain himself with wine. Yet when Iago unleashes his full wrath he is not restraining himself at all. He is taking full pleasure in his game with all of his puppets. So why do villains never look in the mirror at their own behavior. I guess they believe they are restraining themselves to their limit but I think they could moderate themselves a little more rather than go off killing generals.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
To Everyone
Should start reading exams today, Thursday. Check your WA email for more details. I am commenting here on Nathan’s blog about how the exam went. I really would like for you to blog while the exam and the semester lingers. I’ll allow a day or so after New Year’s to review your thoughts. They’ll be easier to remember if you’ll blog them.
Good luck on history and science exams!
CC
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Exam Vent
Overall, I wrote the ideas I had planned in my essay and used most of the quotes that I had planned. However, I spent an extensive amount of time reading about my subject, and in the end, I didn't get to convey many of the ideas. When I wrote my outline, I left most of the thought for the moment I was in the exam because I knew I couldnt write it all down and memorize it before hand. During the exam at the hour mark, I had just finished writing about my first topic, the presence, and realized I needed to pick up the pace. Then, it became a mad sprint for couple minutes that probably didn't make perfect sense or flow well. By the end, I focused on what I really wanted to write about. There were so many more connections I could have made and I could have used way better concrete examples and support
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Othello quotes
Nostbakken, Faith. Understanding Othello: A Student’s Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Ed. Claudia Durst Johnson. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000.
1. Despite malice lurking in his heart, he cloaked with proud and valorous speech and with a specious presence the villainy of his soul (9).
2. Othello provides the play’s emotional focus as a man of stature who rises and falls from greatness (19)
3. Iago is the intellectual focus as the manipulator who convinces his victims to respond and act in certain ways (20).
4. The end – whether it be money, ambition, or personal gains – can justify the means, whatever cruel and inhuman actions are required (22).
5. Iago, as a consummate plotter and schemer who sometimes appears to be in control of everyone’s actions and responses on stage (6)
Potter, Nicholas. Othello Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008.
6. He takes delight in showing us just how casually wicked he is. He is lightly but determinedly vindictive (54).
7. But if ‘black’ is not ‘white’ the ‘white’ is not ‘black,’ and so ‘black’ is not ‘not-black’ and ‘white’ is not ‘not-white.’ In other words they need each other to define themselves (42).
Bloom, Harold. An Essay by Harold Bloom. Othello. By William Shakespeare. Yale: Riverhead Books, 1998.
8. The love of power, which is another name for the love mischief, was natural to man (205).
9. Othello was everything to Iago, because war was everything; passed over, Iago is nothing, and in warring against Othello, his war is against ontology (209).
10. He will die under torture, silently, but he will have left a mutilated reality as his monument (209).
11. Othello, the skilled professional who maintains the purity of arms by sharply dividing the camp of war from that of peace (208).
12. [Iago’s] web has all of war’s game like magic, but no place in it for Emilia’s honest indignation (221).
13. [Othello] presents himself as a living legend or walking myth, nobler than any antique Roman (222).
14. Othello’s warlike fullness of being was in part another emptiness (242).
15. By working so close to his victim, Iago becomes the Devil-as-matador (242-243).
1. Despite malice lurking in his heart, he cloaked with proud and valorous speech and with a specious presence the villainy of his soul (9).
2. Othello provides the play’s emotional focus as a man of stature who rises and falls from greatness (19)
3. Iago is the intellectual focus as the manipulator who convinces his victims to respond and act in certain ways (20).
4. The end – whether it be money, ambition, or personal gains – can justify the means, whatever cruel and inhuman actions are required (22).
5. Iago, as a consummate plotter and schemer who sometimes appears to be in control of everyone’s actions and responses on stage (6)
Potter, Nicholas. Othello Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008.
6. He takes delight in showing us just how casually wicked he is. He is lightly but determinedly vindictive (54).
7. But if ‘black’ is not ‘white’ the ‘white’ is not ‘black,’ and so ‘black’ is not ‘not-black’ and ‘white’ is not ‘not-white.’ In other words they need each other to define themselves (42).
Bloom, Harold. An Essay by Harold Bloom. Othello. By William Shakespeare. Yale: Riverhead Books, 1998.
8. The love of power, which is another name for the love mischief, was natural to man (205).
9. Othello was everything to Iago, because war was everything; passed over, Iago is nothing, and in warring against Othello, his war is against ontology (209).
10. He will die under torture, silently, but he will have left a mutilated reality as his monument (209).
11. Othello, the skilled professional who maintains the purity of arms by sharply dividing the camp of war from that of peace (208).
12. [Iago’s] web has all of war’s game like magic, but no place in it for Emilia’s honest indignation (221).
13. [Othello] presents himself as a living legend or walking myth, nobler than any antique Roman (222).
14. Othello’s warlike fullness of being was in part another emptiness (242).
15. By working so close to his victim, Iago becomes the Devil-as-matador (242-243).
PL quotes
Lewis, C.S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
1. In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige. P.96
2. A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers – including even his power to revolt. P. 96
3. What we see in Satan is the horrible co-existence of a subtle and incessant intellectual activity with an incapacity to understand anything. P.99
4. Heaven understand Hell and Hell does not understand Heaven. P.101
5. Satan is already wilting under the doom of Nonsense – that his brain is already in process of decay. P.79
Waldock, A. J. A. “Satan and the Technique of Degradation.” Milton Paradise Lost: A Collection of Critical Essays. Louis L. Martz. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1966.
6. Each great speech lifts Satan a little beyond what Milton really intended. P.86
7. Satan’s character as made up of aesthetically harmonious qualities – of qualities that match. P. 85
8. In a true Hell, the damned have come to the end of their road. P. 96
9. Each of them is like a man who has just sold his country or his friend and now knows himself to be a pariah. P101
Bush, Douglass. “Characters and Drama.” Milton Paradise Lost: A Collection of Critical Essays. Louis L. Martz. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1966.
10. Satan would certainly have been an ineffectual villain if he had not had magnetism enough to sway a host of followers. P. 111
11. Satan sees only a conflict between himself, the world conqueror, and a temporarily superior force; he cannot see that it is a conflict between good and evil. P. 114
Steadman, John M. “Satan and Oratory.” John Milton’s Paradise Lost: Bloom’s Notes. Ed. Harold Bloom. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996.
12. His fall is itself a visible and tangible sign of his degradation in more than one respect: political and moral, physical and metaphysical. P. 67
13. Satan is already degraded for the moment he first makes his appearance, even though he does his best to disguise the fact from his fellows and himself. P. 67
14. Satan as orator – as rhetorician and as sophist – is just as heroic as the earlier portrait of Satan as martial combatant. P. 68
15. Satanic heroism is….the perversion of all heroic values that we have admired. P. 65
1. In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige. P.96
2. A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers – including even his power to revolt. P. 96
3. What we see in Satan is the horrible co-existence of a subtle and incessant intellectual activity with an incapacity to understand anything. P.99
4. Heaven understand Hell and Hell does not understand Heaven. P.101
5. Satan is already wilting under the doom of Nonsense – that his brain is already in process of decay. P.79
Waldock, A. J. A. “Satan and the Technique of Degradation.” Milton Paradise Lost: A Collection of Critical Essays. Louis L. Martz. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1966.
6. Each great speech lifts Satan a little beyond what Milton really intended. P.86
7. Satan’s character as made up of aesthetically harmonious qualities – of qualities that match. P. 85
8. In a true Hell, the damned have come to the end of their road. P. 96
9. Each of them is like a man who has just sold his country or his friend and now knows himself to be a pariah. P101
Bush, Douglass. “Characters and Drama.” Milton Paradise Lost: A Collection of Critical Essays. Louis L. Martz. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1966.
10. Satan would certainly have been an ineffectual villain if he had not had magnetism enough to sway a host of followers. P. 111
11. Satan sees only a conflict between himself, the world conqueror, and a temporarily superior force; he cannot see that it is a conflict between good and evil. P. 114
Steadman, John M. “Satan and Oratory.” John Milton’s Paradise Lost: Bloom’s Notes. Ed. Harold Bloom. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996.
12. His fall is itself a visible and tangible sign of his degradation in more than one respect: political and moral, physical and metaphysical. P. 67
13. Satan is already degraded for the moment he first makes his appearance, even though he does his best to disguise the fact from his fellows and himself. P. 67
14. Satan as orator – as rhetorician and as sophist – is just as heroic as the earlier portrait of Satan as martial combatant. P. 68
15. Satanic heroism is….the perversion of all heroic values that we have admired. P. 65
Friday, December 10, 2010
Othello Quotes
Othello Quotes
Adams, John Quincy. “Misconceptions of Shakespeare, upon the Stage.” Notes and Comments upon Certain Plays and Actors of Shakespeare (1864): 217-28. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism 4. Ed. James Henry Hacket. Charleston: Charleston Publishers, 1864. 217-28
1. “Whatever sympathy we feel for the sufferings of Desdemona flows from the consideration that she is innocent of the particular crime imputed to her, and that she is the victim of a treacherous and artful intriguer. But, while compassionating her melancholy fate, we cannot forget the vice of her character… her fondling with Othello is disgusting. Who, in real life, would have her for a sister, daughter, or wife?”
Auden, W.H. “The Joker in the Pack.” The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (1961) 246-72. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 136
2. “I am inclined to think that the story Iago tells Roderigo about his disappointment over the lieutenancy is a deliberate fabrication. One notices, for example, that he contradicts himself. At first he claims that Othello had appointed Cassio in spite of the request of three great ones of the city who recommended Iago, but then a few lines later, he says
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
Not by the old gradation where each second
Stood heir to the first.”
Cassio Character Analysis. October 3. 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/michael-cassio.html
3. “Cassio is the kind of guy who likes to put women in one of two categories – virgin or whore. When he talks about Desdemona, we can tell that he sees her as a kind of secular Virgin Mary.”
Desdemona Character Analysis. October 3. 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/desdemona.html
4. “whether Cassio's fight really prevents any sex at all that night – is less clear. But Bloom argues that what makes Othello's jealousy so tortuous is that the only way he can figure out if Desdemona is actually cheating with him or not is to have sex with her. If she's still a virgin, she's been faithful. But, Bloom suggests, Othello just can't take the pressure of sleeping with his wife and realizing in the act that she's not a virgin”
Emilia Character Analysis. October 3, 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/emilia.html
5. “Emilia is the only one that Iago underestimates – and she's the only one who ultimately can bring Iago down… Iago, who is so good at predicting and manipulating other people's behavior, only fails to understand one person – the person he should have known best.”
Gardner, Helen. “The Noble Moor” Proceedings of the British Academy (1955): 195-98. Rpt. In Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 48
6. “The tragic experience with which this play concerned is loss of faith, and Iago is the instrument to bring Othello to this crisis of his being. His task is made possible by his being an old and trusted companion, while husband and wife are virtually strangers, bound only by passion and faith”
Goddard, Harold C. “Othello.” The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951): 461-65. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 37-38, 39
7. “The psychology of Iago is that of the slave-with-brains who aspires to power yet remains a slave at heart… We are led to conjecture that some situation or event in Iago’s life that produced a profound of injustice or inferiority”
8. “He is perhaps the most terrific indictment of pure intellect in the literature of the world- “pure intellect,” which, as Emerson said. “is the pure devil”
Granville- Barker, Harley. “Iago.”Prefaces to Shakespeare: Fourth Series (1945): 167-69. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 33.
9. “He is a passionless creature… Shakespeare admits neither love nor lust into Iago’s composition, nothing so human… Even his hate is cold”
Harold, Bloom. The Invention of Human. Riverhead: Riverhead Trade, 1999. 422-433
10. “The character of Iago… belongs to a class of characters common to Shakspeare (sic), and at the same time peculiar to him – namely, that of great intellectual activity, accompanied with a total want of moral principle, and therefore displaying inself at the constant expense of others, and seeking to confound the practical distinctions of right and wrong, by referring them to some overstrained standard of speculative refinement.”
Jordan, Hoover H. “Dramatic Illusion in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly (1950): 148-51. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 34-35.
11. “But what of Iago? Can Othello be absolved for not uncovering his true nature … The crux of the argument in reference to him, therefore, is whether such a man in actuality can sink rapidly to a frightful degeneration. If possible, then excuse for Othello and the others may be sought. If not possible, that is, putting the matter another way, if he has been habitually knavish behind an honest front, Othello, Emilia, and most of others must be extremely dull indeed for not having detected the duplicity.”
Pollard, David. “Iago’s Wound.” Othello: New Perspectives (1991): 89-96. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 78
12. “Like Cassio, Desdemona holds a place close to Othello that Iago experiences as personal displacement… she possesses a reputation for “honesty”- with all of that word’s ambiguity- which contends with Iago’s own. The task becomes, therefore, for masculine “honesty” to find means to discredit its feminine counterpart.”
Rosenberg, Marvin. “In Defense of Iago.” Shakespeare Quarterly 6 (1955): 145-58. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 113
13. “Iago was really the jealous one- and he had a right to be jealous. The unsuspected infidelity was a fact; Othello’s part in it explained why Othello himself should have been so ready to suspect his own wife of adultery.”
Sewell, Arthur. “Character and Vision.” The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951): 461-65. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 41
14. “Othello and Iago <…> characterize by their imagery the worlds they engage and in which they live … Othello’s world is dynamic and he is, in a sense, the creative center of it. He creates his world from moment to moment, and it may be said in him that mind and nature are one. Iago, on the other hand, lives in a static world, in which men’s characters are catalogued and their behaviors predicted. Othello’s is a perceptual, Iago’s a conceptual universe.”
Sitwell, Edith. “Iago.” New Writing and Daylight 7 (1941): 141-42, 145. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 33
15. “Sometimes he even tries to emulate their feelings, the speech born from these,- as when he pretends to himself, and to Emilia, that he knows jealousy (but even then the pretence breaks down, and we see the face behind the mask: it is that of Pride)”
Adams, John Quincy. “Misconceptions of Shakespeare, upon the Stage.” Notes and Comments upon Certain Plays and Actors of Shakespeare (1864): 217-28. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism 4. Ed. James Henry Hacket. Charleston: Charleston Publishers, 1864. 217-28
1. “Whatever sympathy we feel for the sufferings of Desdemona flows from the consideration that she is innocent of the particular crime imputed to her, and that she is the victim of a treacherous and artful intriguer. But, while compassionating her melancholy fate, we cannot forget the vice of her character… her fondling with Othello is disgusting. Who, in real life, would have her for a sister, daughter, or wife?”
Auden, W.H. “The Joker in the Pack.” The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (1961) 246-72. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 136
2. “I am inclined to think that the story Iago tells Roderigo about his disappointment over the lieutenancy is a deliberate fabrication. One notices, for example, that he contradicts himself. At first he claims that Othello had appointed Cassio in spite of the request of three great ones of the city who recommended Iago, but then a few lines later, he says
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
Not by the old gradation where each second
Stood heir to the first.”
Cassio Character Analysis. October 3. 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/michael-cassio.html
3. “Cassio is the kind of guy who likes to put women in one of two categories – virgin or whore. When he talks about Desdemona, we can tell that he sees her as a kind of secular Virgin Mary.”
Desdemona Character Analysis. October 3. 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/desdemona.html
4. “whether Cassio's fight really prevents any sex at all that night – is less clear. But Bloom argues that what makes Othello's jealousy so tortuous is that the only way he can figure out if Desdemona is actually cheating with him or not is to have sex with her. If she's still a virgin, she's been faithful. But, Bloom suggests, Othello just can't take the pressure of sleeping with his wife and realizing in the act that she's not a virgin”
Emilia Character Analysis. October 3, 2010. http://www.shmoop.com/othello/emilia.html
5. “Emilia is the only one that Iago underestimates – and she's the only one who ultimately can bring Iago down… Iago, who is so good at predicting and manipulating other people's behavior, only fails to understand one person – the person he should have known best.”
Gardner, Helen. “The Noble Moor” Proceedings of the British Academy (1955): 195-98. Rpt. In Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 48
6. “The tragic experience with which this play concerned is loss of faith, and Iago is the instrument to bring Othello to this crisis of his being. His task is made possible by his being an old and trusted companion, while husband and wife are virtually strangers, bound only by passion and faith”
Goddard, Harold C. “Othello.” The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951): 461-65. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 37-38, 39
7. “The psychology of Iago is that of the slave-with-brains who aspires to power yet remains a slave at heart… We are led to conjecture that some situation or event in Iago’s life that produced a profound of injustice or inferiority”
8. “He is perhaps the most terrific indictment of pure intellect in the literature of the world- “pure intellect,” which, as Emerson said. “is the pure devil”
Granville- Barker, Harley. “Iago.”Prefaces to Shakespeare: Fourth Series (1945): 167-69. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 33.
9. “He is a passionless creature… Shakespeare admits neither love nor lust into Iago’s composition, nothing so human… Even his hate is cold”
Harold, Bloom. The Invention of Human. Riverhead: Riverhead Trade, 1999. 422-433
10. “The character of Iago… belongs to a class of characters common to Shakspeare (sic), and at the same time peculiar to him – namely, that of great intellectual activity, accompanied with a total want of moral principle, and therefore displaying inself at the constant expense of others, and seeking to confound the practical distinctions of right and wrong, by referring them to some overstrained standard of speculative refinement.”
Jordan, Hoover H. “Dramatic Illusion in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly (1950): 148-51. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 34-35.
11. “But what of Iago? Can Othello be absolved for not uncovering his true nature … The crux of the argument in reference to him, therefore, is whether such a man in actuality can sink rapidly to a frightful degeneration. If possible, then excuse for Othello and the others may be sought. If not possible, that is, putting the matter another way, if he has been habitually knavish behind an honest front, Othello, Emilia, and most of others must be extremely dull indeed for not having detected the duplicity.”
Pollard, David. “Iago’s Wound.” Othello: New Perspectives (1991): 89-96. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 78
12. “Like Cassio, Desdemona holds a place close to Othello that Iago experiences as personal displacement… she possesses a reputation for “honesty”- with all of that word’s ambiguity- which contends with Iago’s own. The task becomes, therefore, for masculine “honesty” to find means to discredit its feminine counterpart.”
Rosenberg, Marvin. “In Defense of Iago.” Shakespeare Quarterly 6 (1955): 145-58. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 113
13. “Iago was really the jealous one- and he had a right to be jealous. The unsuspected infidelity was a fact; Othello’s part in it explained why Othello himself should have been so ready to suspect his own wife of adultery.”
Sewell, Arthur. “Character and Vision.” The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951): 461-65. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 41
14. “Othello and Iago <…> characterize by their imagery the worlds they engage and in which they live … Othello’s world is dynamic and he is, in a sense, the creative center of it. He creates his world from moment to moment, and it may be said in him that mind and nature are one. Iago, on the other hand, lives in a static world, in which men’s characters are catalogued and their behaviors predicted. Othello’s is a perceptual, Iago’s a conceptual universe.”
Sitwell, Edith. “Iago.” New Writing and Daylight 7 (1941): 141-42, 145. Rpt. in Iago. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992. 33
15. “Sometimes he even tries to emulate their feelings, the speech born from these,- as when he pretends to himself, and to Emilia, that he knows jealousy (but even then the pretence breaks down, and we see the face behind the mask: it is that of Pride)”
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Hitler's Youth
Marlowe is surprised in The Heart of Darkness by how normal the savages look. How unstrange they appear. Isn't evil supposed to look and seem different? The Devil has red horns and a pointy tail- so why can't it be that easy to spot evil in everyday life. I think the tragedy of Hitler's Youth was that the children were not able to recognize the wickedness of what they were doing, saying, and whom they were praising because they knew no better. Satan in Paradise Lost ponders whether it can " do [Adam and Eve] onely stand/ By ignorance, is that the happie state”(Milton, IV. 518-519). The Hitler Youth live in the happy state of ignorance, not knowing the evil that surrounds them in around every campfire and in every tune they gleefully chant. It is palpable, but their ideas of good and evil are manipulated and reversed. With so many interpretations of evil, who really is to say what's right and what's wrong?
Hitler's Youth
The most recurrent phrase that I heard during the video was how clever the Nazis were with the propaganda within the Hitler Youth. After the video was finished, I had to agree: the cleaver things that the Nazis made sure were either present or absent throughtout the whole thing greatly influences one's subconcious.
Liz's comment on how the Hitler Youth did not mention that any of these activities were for Hitler (at least in the beginning) is probably the most important example. Hitler had everyone believe that the Hitler Youth was created to make young boys into proper Germans, instead of his true purpose of trying to implant his ideals into society through the youth and later on create an army. This initial purpose made the program seem not just harmless but beneficial to the young boys of Germany; when they started saying that their activities were for Hitler, it didn't matter then because the vast majority of boys had already joined and were blindly following the organization, and any parents that spoke out against the organization or Hitler were reported to the Gestapo by their own children if they were in the Hitler Youth.
Also, a great portion of the still-shots were of that young, innocent-looking boy saluting Hitler which we see as the most frightening picure; however, back then, that was a picture of what was considered the "perfect German" saluting Hitler who the Germans thought of as a man who had/ was helping Germany out of the great depression that followed after WWI and was restoring Germany back to its original glory. This image would have been seen as positive by the Germans back then.
In addition, the way the Nazis taught the boys many military-like maneuvers (such as ducking down in the grass to hide and then popping up) by hiding them as games was also very cleaver. Hiding something that closely resembles basic training for today's army as a summer camp for the boys in the Hitler Youth is just another example of how clever the Nazis were.
Liz's comment on how the Hitler Youth did not mention that any of these activities were for Hitler (at least in the beginning) is probably the most important example. Hitler had everyone believe that the Hitler Youth was created to make young boys into proper Germans, instead of his true purpose of trying to implant his ideals into society through the youth and later on create an army. This initial purpose made the program seem not just harmless but beneficial to the young boys of Germany; when they started saying that their activities were for Hitler, it didn't matter then because the vast majority of boys had already joined and were blindly following the organization, and any parents that spoke out against the organization or Hitler were reported to the Gestapo by their own children if they were in the Hitler Youth.
Also, a great portion of the still-shots were of that young, innocent-looking boy saluting Hitler which we see as the most frightening picure; however, back then, that was a picture of what was considered the "perfect German" saluting Hitler who the Germans thought of as a man who had/ was helping Germany out of the great depression that followed after WWI and was restoring Germany back to its original glory. This image would have been seen as positive by the Germans back then.
In addition, the way the Nazis taught the boys many military-like maneuvers (such as ducking down in the grass to hide and then popping up) by hiding them as games was also very cleaver. Hiding something that closely resembles basic training for today's army as a summer camp for the boys in the Hitler Youth is just another example of how clever the Nazis were.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
What is the difference?
The idea that stuck in my mind during the video about the Hitler Youth program was I would love to join. This program is so much like Boy Scouts except a little more physical in the war simulations. My question is where does the difference come in to play? I believe our opinions are immensely affected by propaganda. It is often said that history is written by the victors, and this is a prime example. The activities and the principles that the Hitler Youth embodied (for the most part) were no different than wrestling practice, Boy Scouts, or ROTC. However, the Hitler Youth produced soldiers for the Third Reich which had horrible motivations. Yet our domestic programs in the US train teens for the army, too. As a society, we have been inundated with information of the Nazi's plans so anything in concordance with the party was bad. This is not true. While the Hitler youth forcing kids to join, separating them from their families, and taking part on Crystal Night was wrong, the program was good in parts. It encouraged autonomy in adolescences which is a natural progression. It helped outdoor skills and physical fitness. Plus it promoted unity among males in local areas. Those evil looks we see are no different then the pictures you would see of camping trips or the Scout festival over the summer. In no way does membership in the Hitler Youth make all these boys evil. It's just unfortunate that the outcome for such a program was negative. With all the propaganda in the world, it is hard to decide if we really are seeing the truth.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Hitler's Youth
Some words the Nazi leaders used to convince the German people to follow them caught my attention. Over and over again, I heard do this for the flag and do that for the flag. Sometimes they said do this for the future of Germany. You are the future of Germany.
They never directly said do this for Hitler. I found that interesting. They were never directly told to do something because Hitler said so either, if I remember correctly. Hitler is their leader and certainly receives threats or faces hardships. Yet, I feel like Hitler was creating these perfect German robots to build and protect his strength, power, and dominance over the world. He certainly was not getting beaten to the point of needing a doctor's appointment by his friends.
Part 2.
While watching the video, I couldn't stop thinking about how similar marching band is compared to the Hitler's Youth Program. We wear uniforms, march together, play together, and do almost everything together. We have section leaders, field captains, equipment managers, uniform managers, and drum majors all filled by young high school students. We are even supposed to knock bystanders down, or at least to the side, if they attempt to run in between our ranks. We say we are ONE band ONE sound. We completely rid ourselves of individuality, but that's an important part of being a marching band. We cannot have band members slumping around in whatever they want and expect respect or a positive image. It's very disturbing to realize the similarities, to realize how close good and evil are. Just a slight tweak and something important to learn and act upon is dangerous. It is strange and very clever because marching band and other similar activities are considered great activities to learn important skills by employers and colleges.
Boy Scouts, Color Guard, ROTC groups, athletic teams.
They never directly said do this for Hitler. I found that interesting. They were never directly told to do something because Hitler said so either, if I remember correctly. Hitler is their leader and certainly receives threats or faces hardships. Yet, I feel like Hitler was creating these perfect German robots to build and protect his strength, power, and dominance over the world. He certainly was not getting beaten to the point of needing a doctor's appointment by his friends.
Part 2.
While watching the video, I couldn't stop thinking about how similar marching band is compared to the Hitler's Youth Program. We wear uniforms, march together, play together, and do almost everything together. We have section leaders, field captains, equipment managers, uniform managers, and drum majors all filled by young high school students. We are even supposed to knock bystanders down, or at least to the side, if they attempt to run in between our ranks. We say we are ONE band ONE sound. We completely rid ourselves of individuality, but that's an important part of being a marching band. We cannot have band members slumping around in whatever they want and expect respect or a positive image. It's very disturbing to realize the similarities, to realize how close good and evil are. Just a slight tweak and something important to learn and act upon is dangerous. It is strange and very clever because marching band and other similar activities are considered great activities to learn important skills by employers and colleges.
Boy Scouts, Color Guard, ROTC groups, athletic teams.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Exam Thoughts
Note that I've added a new category: EXAM THOUGHTS. Please use this to post your thoughts while preparing for the exam OR later while processing the exam experience after it's over. GOOD LUCK ON THE EXAM! HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY SEASON, WITH A MERRY CHRISTMAS ALONG WITH A WONDERFUL 2011!!
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