Iago's Soliliquies

I am not a huge fan of the way Kenneth Baranagh stares directly at the audience.  I know thats how he does it in the play sometimes, but I don't like it on the film.  It feels a little to dramatized. I think I would like it a lot more if he would just talk to himself. 

Iago's Reaction

I forgot to mention this in class, but when we watched the video in class today I noticed something that I thought was comment-worthy. At the beginning of the scene we watched, you see Cassio and Iago standing after Cassio's demotion. When Cassio goes down on his knees and wails at the thought of what he's done, it seemed to me that, for a second, Iago sort of looked like he was contemplating whether or not he thought it was worth it to comfort Cassio. I'm probably wrong about that, but it was something I noticed and didn't mention in class, and IT'S BEEN BOTHERING ME. Did anyone else notice that??

Everything goes Iago's way

I really really enjoyed this play as a whole. I found it very easy to keep reading because a good amount of interesting action was always taking place. I liked Shakespeare's style of building up all of the reader's suspense and thoughts until the very end when everything kindof works out all falls into place. Certainly alot of things all happened in the last act....but I liked this. About Iago...I think that he is very clever because throughout the whole play he is really just using each of the characters and really turning them all against eachother. Everyone in the play may be a little gullible until the ending, but I think that is what makes Othello so good. Iago takes advantage of everyone's trusting attitudes and really uses them to make himself look like the good guy....even though he obviously isn't. I think that Iago knew that eventually in the end everything was going to crumble down once people started realizing what was going on; however, I think this is how Iago intended it to be. He knew that he was probably going to get caught in the end, yet still took the chance to ruin everyone else's lives. I think that is what makes Iago a true villain.

Othello Thoughts

What a great way to end the week!  Excellent comments on the play that we will continue to explore.  If you have any leftover thoughts, please post them.  Ms. Robinson is also monitoring our posts to see if we can get email alerts.  Have a good weekend!

Shakespeare makes me depressed

Well, I just finished the play and basically I am depressed. I am extremely upset Desdemona died, even though I knew it was coming. I am glad that Othello and Rodrigo died though. I wish that Othello would have had to suffer a bit more for what he did to Desdemona. I feel like he understood he got tricked...then immediately killed himself. I am not even sure if he really truly understood what happened.
For some reason I don't think the pacing of the events in this play worked for me. I realize that Shakespeare's tragedies all unfold very rapidly, but this one didn't feel right.
It also makes me really sad that Barbantio died because of Desdemona and Othello, especially since there marriage ended up so horribly.
Also I may have misinterpreted this, but I think Othello had a line right before he killed himself saying he would see people in heaven....thats annoying because he should definitely go to hell, at the very least purgatory.

Iago is Hardcore

I actually find it somewhat funny that Iago is constantly in the room when people are talking about him. It's like those cliche moments when someone does something bad, doesn't tell anybody, and then feels like they just look so guilty when their friends are talking about it with them. I mean people are constantly calling him a jerk or the devil, and he is standing right there hearing these things said. Somehow he STILL manages to live with himself even when he knows people think these things about him!

A really bad Iago

I don't know if you guys watch the office, but there's an episode where Andy tries to get Michale to fire Dwight.  The joke is that Andy is doing a really bad job of what Iago does, but Michale is too trusting and incompetent to figure out that he is scheming.