Iago

While reading the tragedy of Othello, I cannot help but think how incredibly brilliant, yet evil the great villain, Iago, is. Out of all the works of literature I’ve read/watched over my life span, I have never encountered such a dynamic character as Iago. The way he contorts people’s emotions and thoughts is stunning. He can do this because of the many masks he wears. He acts polar opposite from person to person. Iago feeds people what they want to hear and systematically controls their train of thought to cater to his every desire. Even when people question whether or not Iago is cheating them, he turns on them and makes them doubt themselves, and eventually leads them back to his control.

            The prime example of Iago’s superb psychological understanding is in his handling of Othello. Othello is Iago’s superior, and Iago despises him with every fiber in his body. This hatred stems from Othello not promoting Iago within the ranks of the Venetian army. For this, Iago desperately wants to bring Othello down. This is where his masterful mind control comes into play. Over the course of the play, Iago continues to suck up to Othello, causing Othello to fatally trust him. Also throughout the play, Iago begins to plant the seeds of doubt in Othello’s mind. His successfully leads Othello to believe his wife is cheating on him. Iago is able to do this through his situation manipulation. He is able to make things appear differently from what they are, just like his own personality.

Towards the end of the play, Iago leads Othello to believe Cassio, Othello’s lietenant, is cheating on Othello with his wife. He does this by placing a hankerchief, which Othello gave to his wife as a gift, in Cassio’s room, leading Othello to become suspicious and jealous. Due to his burning envy and fear, Othello misunderstands a conversation between Iago and Cassio. Othello believes they are discussing his wife, when really they are discussing Cassio’s significant other. Not only that, Othello, based of the misunderstood conversation, is convinced Cassio is sleeping with his wife. Iago’s superior control of the situation, relationships, and knowledge of human emotions leads to this tragic misunderstanding. He completely manipulated Othello’s thinking, and controlled him to do his wishes. Simply amazing. What beautiful, savage intelligence.

Domestic Tragedy

Today, Mr. Delacruz explained to us a project we will have to do in the near future. It is based off the play, Othello, and he is asking us to make a video about the different critical perspectives in relation to this famous play. My group—Courtney, Jordyn, and I—chose the domestic tragedy approach. The reason we chose this is because it was not one of the original perspectives we learned about in the beginning of the class. We felt it would be interesting to discover more about this unknown viewpoint, and how it relates to Othello.

             When I looked up the domestic tragedy perspective, I was surprised by the amount of information I got! There was a ton of stuff to look at, however, it was not what I was expecting. A domestic tragedy is a tragedy that involves middle to lower class protagonists. It directly contrasts the likes of classical tragedies in which high - ranking people in society fall, thus making it more dramatic. A domestic tragedy is not as dramatic, and doesn’t involve characters of high class. After reading these definitions, I was tragically confused. How can this relate to Othello? Both characters are high up in society. Othello is a vital piece to the Venetian army, and Desdemona comes from a very wealthy and powerful family. How is this right? I pondered this for a few long, drawn out minutes. Imust be looking at the wrong term, or maybe I misinterpreted it, because I thought a domestic tragedy insinuated something to do between husband and wife, or something to do with the family structure. I suppose this is because of the popular crime shows with all of the domestic violence episodes. I have been tragically misled!  I need some clarification from the all-knowing Mr. Delacruz.

How To Be Happy

1)   Exercise

2)   Sleep more—you’ll be less sensitive to negative emotions

3)   Move closer to work

4)   Spend time with friends and family

5)   Go outside

6)   Help others—100 hours a year is the magic number

7)   Practice smiling

8)   Plan a trip, but don’t take one

9)   Meditate

10)                   Practice gratitude

Yesterday, Mr. Delacruz gave us a motivational Monday about how to be happy. He read us an article that gave 10 scientific ways to be happier. Out of the ten, there are a few that I can work on, and hopefully I will be happier day to day! One is smile more often. It seems silly to me, but I think there is some merit in it. Although, we might not be happy at the time we smile, the action might compel us to be happy because of the force of habit that usually comes with a smile. When we are happy, our muscles contour our mouth in an upward half moon—also known as a smile. This force of habit and association with positivity must be why simply smiling makes us happier—it dips into our association with smiles and happy times.

            Another thing I really need to work on is sleep! The amount of sleep I get per night is a direct result of my productivity throughout the day. If I do not procrastinate as much throughout my day, I would most likely be able to get to bed at an earlier time. I have a lot to do, but I also spend a large portion of time on social media and other distracting outlets. Hopefully getting more sleep will increase my mood.

            I am presently in the middle of attempting to go skiing this weekend, which coincides with number eight on the list. Due to some of my friends, who are mentally incapacitated at planning things, I will probably ending up staying at home on Saturday. While I know I will not end up frolicking in the snow this weekend, it is still nice to think about going. Daydreaming about skiing is a nice escape. It’s amazing how simply thinking about a trip can bring so much happiness. It is like taking a trip, yet without actually escaping. Let’s just hope this skiing adventure actually comes to fruition!
           In this specific post, I concentrated my efforts on sentence variety. I worked on peppering my paragraphs with numerous sentence varieties. I good example to look at is the final paragraph. I mainly use simple and complex sentences. I began with multiple complex sentences, along with some appositives. Because some of the sentences were longer, I decided to add some shorter sentences, hence the multiple simple sentences. I focused on the variety because it makes my writing more fluid. 

War Poetry

Today in class, Stephen and Miciah gave a riveting presentation about poems dealing with war. I never thought I would laugh so hard during a presentation about death and destruction, but Miciah was obnoxiously, unintentionally comical. Despite the laughs the duo created, they spoke about very intensive poems. One of the poems that caught my eye was War Means whose author is escaping my memory at the moment. This poem was very ironic and straightforward. Throughout the poem, repetition was blatantly obvious. Almost every line began with “War Means”. The lines, “War Means death / War Means destruction / War Means fire,” shows the abundance of repetition in War Means.

Another reason this poem sparked my fancy was the irony. The poem begins with how awful war is, and all the tragedy that comes along with it. This view is directly contradicted with the last line, “To surrender and give up / War Means peace” displays the irony in War Means. I don’t agree with this theme. How can war mean peace? Yes, at the end of the fighting, one side prevails, thus technically implying there is “peace”.  Look at North Korea and South Korea. War within the peninsula is over, yet they are bitter enemies. War can sometimes mean peace, but lingering animosity jeopardizes that. It is wrongful to assume treaties mean peace.

The other poem that snagged my attention was Grass by Carl Sandburg. One of the characteristics of this work I appreciated was the point of view. Instead of the story being narrated by humans, it was told from the perspective of the grass. The line, “I am the grass; I cover all,” backs up this creative point of view. The real culprit of my liking of Grass is not the point of view, but the theme. Grass discusses how as time passes, people forget the horrors of war. We learn about war, but we will never be able to fully experience it. This is illustrated in the line, “Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” This specific line demonstrates how humans tend to forget about important events in history, or at least we cannot comprehend the magnitude of it. Sandburg represents this message in a compelling way in Grass.
In this specific post, I really tried to incorporate quotes effectively into my writing, which was one of the biggest things I wanted to improve on. My usage of quotes in this post shows I am on the right track. I don't have any "floating quotes". I successfully explained the relevance of each quote to my argument. I simply did not stick the quote in there and not write what it is doing there. The best example of this are the last few lines of the third and final paragraph. I begin to talk about how humans are unable to grasp the horrors and severity of war. I back my claim up with a quote from one of the pomes read by explaining how that quote supports my ideas. The progresses my interpretations of the poem, Grass.

Presentations & Death

            While listening to Joellen’s and Lexi’s presentation today, my ears perked up when Joellen began to talk about how, when we near death in our lives, or really in every facet in our life, we should accept, and be dignified in death because it is the one thing every human will experience. No matter who you are, you will die. From Oprah to the homeless man in Detroit, everyone will die. At this juncture, I made a connection to a past experience. When I visited Rome, my family and I went to the Capuchin Crypt where all the decorations were made of bones from monks that had died. It was a grim scene. Chandeliers, fireplaces, picture frames, pictures, etc. were all made of real human bones. Despite the initial shock, it was really quite beautiful in terms of the message it presented. Within the crypt was a plaque that read, "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be..."

            This quote embodies one of the points Joellen was trying to get across: everyone dies. The phrase from the Capuchin Crypt essentially means at the end of the day, when we all die, the playing field is equal, no matter how rich or poor you are. An additional theme that can be derived from the message in the Capuchin Crypt is the idea of carpe diem, which means to live in the moment. Because death is the looming known, yet unknown event in our lives, we should spend our days living in the present instead of fixating on past or future events. It is a very powerful concept. Carpe diem doesn’t mean to go paint the town red, but simply implies to focus on what is occurring around you.

            One of the Joellen’s points I disagreed with was when she said we should try to die on our own terms, and to die with dignity. The reason I diverged from her on this particular point is because we NEVER know when we are going to leave this life. For all I know, it could be tonight or tomorrow in fourth hour. We will never know when our final moment is going to be so to say we should die on our own terms is a bit improbable. As humans, we can never control when our own body or an outside force decides to end our life, except for suicide, of course.