Saturday, November 28, 2020

Lecture Video #10: Blaming Othello

The last video! Watch this 18-minute video on Othello and respond with a comment below. This will serve as an introduction to your Final Paper (in the post beneath this one). 



14 comments:

  1. I thought that Iago was the one to blame for the "tragedy" of Othello. He just kept making excuses to end Othello and Desdemona's marriage because he loved her and didn't like the fact that Othello was black and married a white woman. He was drilling suggestions into Othello's brain and that's what made Othello jealous of Desdemona talking about Cassio and such. Desdemona may have not slept with Cassio, but she probably did feel guilty that Othello had found out about her possibly having a crush on Cassio.

    -Brittney Taylor

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  2. Monica Guajardo:
    Hands down Iago is to blame. From the start he was hell bent on ruining Othello because he was black. He was in a higher social class than Iago, Cassio and others but did not have the full privileges like a white man did. Obviously Iago could not take that. When a white woman fell in love with Othello he just had a hay day. We see this in Act 3 with the handkerchief and him implanting doubt into Othello about Desdemona's love for him. If Iago wasn't racist, the play could have gone differently.

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  3. Lago is the blame for Othello not trusting his wife. He’s was trying to sabotage their marriage from the start. Out of jealousy and racism. He was Othello’s tragedy. I don’t think Lago is completely to blame. Yes he did plant the seed in Othello’s head. But he didn’t place the pillow in Othello’s hand. That’s 100% Othello’s fault. I think the tragedy of Desdemona was Othello. Her death was because her husband couldn’t trust her. He may have been influenced by others but no one physically made him kill her. That’s all him.

    Emily Pitts.

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  4. From the beginning of the book is quite blatantly obvious Iago hates Othello and Iago is definitely at fault and the reason for the tragedy of Othello. He made up lies and spread them because Othello is black and because he despises Othello for taking Desdemona from him because Iago loves Desdemona but Desdemona is in love with Othello. He also hated the fact that Othello is black and Desdemona is white so he believes they shouldn't be together. Iago was putting thoughts in to Othello's head that made Othello jealous of Desdemona talking about Cassio and such. Desdemona didn't actually cheat on Othello but she did feel guilty that Othello had found out about her possibly having a crush on Cassio. Sadly, Desdemona's death only happened because her husband couldn’t trust her. Othello fell into Iago's tricks and thoughts that influenced the death of killing Desdemona but no one physically made him kill her. Unfortunately, it was purely Othello's fault for giving into Iago's tricks. So Iago mainly at fault and Othello is at fault for acting on the lies he hears.

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  5. I definitely believe that Lago is to blame. Nothing would have happened in this book if he had just stayed in his lane and cared about himself. He got jealous and used race and manipulation to cause this tragedy to happen. Lago wanted everything that Othello has, and he had the mindset, "if I can't have this, then no one can." Yes, Othello made the tragic act, but it is Lago's fault that any of this happened in the first place.

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  6. William Carter

    From the start, Iago really dislikes Othello because Othello "stole his girl", and Iago is the one at fault here in the first place. Iago is a womanizer and a liar because he has been spreading lies about Othello being a black moor and Desdemona is in love with Othello. Iago has the thoughts of, "That's my lady and no one else's.", and he is just jealous of the love between the two. If he had just been happy with Othello's love of Desdemona and found a different girl, none of this would have happened. Othello may have acted on some of Iago's lies, but the rest is 100% Iago's fault.

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  7. I truly believe Iago is to blame for the whole running list of people that had to die in the last act of the book. He was immediately plotting to ruin Othello's marriage from the start because he saw a high ranked black man who was once enslaved by the white people, and he knew he could conjure up a plan for him to not trust them again. He has motive, because Roderigo is giving him all of this fortune for Othello and Desdemona to not be together, but gets so wrapped up in lies that both of them die, as well as Emilia. Iago is constantly whispering in Othello's ear and making him doubt the things he thought he knew, and he was not the only one at the time who was saying these things. Othello, knowing what has happened to him in the past, and hearing from several sources that his wife will be unfaithful to him, naturally, gets jealous. That's when Iago begins to plant the handkerchief, have a false conversation with Cassio to make it seem like Cassio did sleep with Desdemona and is joking about it, and then tells Othello that he will kill Cassio while Othello kills Desdemona. You can say Othello's jealousy was the reason they are both dead, or preconceived ideas and prejudices, but ultimately, nothing would have been accomplished if Iago didn't plant everything right in the spot that it did not need to be.

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  8. Throughout the story of Othello, there is one character who is constantly manipulating characters to follow his will, that character being Iago. I believe Iago is most responsible for the tragedy that occured. That being said, there ae plenty of characters who let themselves be completely played by Iago. Many of the characters let Iago "rule" them by letting him exploit their weaknesses and insecurities. A great example of someone Iago "played like a fiddle" would be Othello. Othello lets his deceitful servant, Iago, manipulate his mind to a point where he does not even trust his wife. This example shows just how manipulative Iago is throughout the play. Iago, from the beginning of the story, plots to ruin Othello's marriage. Iago does this simply for the fortune he would gain from Roderigo. The blame can be put on multiple characters, however, I argue that Iago is the character MOST responsible for the tragedy of Othello.

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  9. I believe Lago was to blame for Othellos death considering at the begining of the story he was wanting to sabotage their marriage. We could tell from the begining what he planned on to achieve from the little clues Lago said. For example, Since we could tell Lago was jealouse type by the way he was wanting to stir things up from the get go. Once he saw a black guy could be considered higher class than him thats when he deiceded he wants to ruin Othello and Desdemona marriage. Lago is a great joker in the book. He is good at manipulating and persusading people do his task for him without even asking.

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  10. I think Lago was to blame for the tragedy because he caused so many riffs with people with his plots and sabotaging things. I think if you have someone like Lago that does this things in a story, then many things fall apart and connect with one another because of that one thing that Lago had did. It is kind of like dominos, so I think Lago was the one to blame.

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  11. I think we can find fault in all of these characters and within those faults we become aware of their individual flaws. These characters show us what might be their reasons as well, but I believe Iago is clearly most at fault. His actions were clearly malicious and his reasons were for self benefit. From the very beginning Iago is characterized by intending to wrong people for his own gain, pride, or his own greed even. At first I though Othello was to blame as he was the one who had done the deed and he was the one that was overfilled with jealousy, but I believe there are some reasons to excuse him, while Iago's actions where fueled by inexcusable reason if any reason at all. Iago had bad intentions from the get-go.

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  12. Matthew Throneberry

    I believe lago was the one who ruined what could of been the happy ending. He was full of hatred and thought he was wronged so he caused nothing but trouble for everyone. He believed his girl was taken from him by Othello, who he considered beneath him in the social class. Lago was so blinded by rage that he manipulated everyone to his will. Since the beginning he started off with bad intentions and it continued throughout the book.

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  13. Iago is the blame for the tragedy. I think that he is definiatly had this plan to ruin everything form the beginning. From telling her father the Othello had "taken" her. To all the little and big plans that he had made in-between to ruin his life and his relationship. If it wasn't for the things that he had done and the chaos he caused than her death would have never happened.

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  14. I'll blame Lago for this tragedy. Lago manipulated his ways just to make Othello believe his wife was having an affair with Cassio. If Lago wasn't evil, Othello wouldn't have killed his wife, Emelia wouldn't have any reason for stealing Desdemona handkerchief in the first place.

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Final Exam Paper, due by December 9th

The Final Exam paper is pasted below if you missed class on Tuesday (or simply lost it). Note the due date: no late papers will be accepted ...