For January’s MOR, Rachel Samson and I are reading Othello by William Shakespeare! So far Othello is really interesting to me. I was honestly expecting it to be super boring because it’s just another play, but I think the premise is actually pretty interesting. I kind of think that Iago has a right to be mad that Othello promoted Cassio since he pointed out that Cassio doesn’t really have any experience. I don’t think Iago should really be like super duper mad, but he does have a fair point. One thing that I noticed throughout the beginning portion of the play was that even though we don’t meet Othello right away, you still side with Othello even though you don’t know him. Like, right from the beginning I knew Iago and Roderigo were bad guys and that Othello was probably good, even though the only picture that we get of Othello in the beginning is the negative one painted by Iago and Roderigo. Roderigo says to Brabantio, “(As partly I find it is) that your fair daughter / At this odd-even and dull watch o' th' night… To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor” (I.I.119-123). Roderigo and Iago speak so badly about Othello amongst themselves and to Brabantio that Othello should seem like not a nice guy, but to me it just makes Iago and Roderigo look bad. What do you think? Did you think that Othello seemed like a bad guy from Iago and Roderigo’s descriptions of him, or did you think that the way Iago and Roderigo talked about Othello just made them seem like the bad ones? Anyways, I’m excited to see how this little adventure that they’re going on overseas will play out. It seems like Iago has some sort of plan to make Othello think that Cassio will be flirting too much with Desdemona, which I’m sad about because I honestly really like Desdemona. I think Othello and Desdemona’s relationship will suffer and I am sad about that because I think Desdemona is a really strong and loving character and I want her and Othello to stay together. But it is a tragedy so I feel like things will not end with them together.
