Othello's Character Flaws

Throughout most of the early acts of the play, Othello is described as an innately honest and sincere character. He is noted for being very trustworthy and being capable of seeing the good nature in all people.

What astonished me was the negative development that was occurring in Othello's character. He made a complete shift towards the opposite, trusting no one except the one man who shouldn't be trusted. He has gone from an honest and caring character to a despised, untrusting, and vile character as seen by his treatment of Desdomena.

It is through this extreme character development that the reader is able to recognize the genius, intelligence, and quick thinking of Iago. Despite the his immorality and evil driven actions, one can not be impressed by the intelligence he utilizes to trick so many, including his own wife and the general of an army. He manages to trick all of the characters into believing that he is the only trustworthy man when in fact he is the one not to be trusted. Iago performs almost impossible tasks with his manipulative wits and therefore he becomes a character that is both admired and loathed by the audience.

Allusions and Assumptions

Throughout Othello, Shakespeare leaves out actions but alludes to them or hints to the fact that they may have happened. This occurrs fairly often in the first two acts, with the eloping of Desdomena and Othello, the attraction of both Roderigo and Iago, and the offstage drunkeness of Cassio. All of these events seem to be important to the overall plot of the story, yet are for the most part unannounced by Shakespeare. It appears that it is Shakespeare's intention to make the audience think, by picking up mentioned details and placing them into the complex plot that he is building. Therefore, with a complex plot and unspoken details holding weight, the reader and/or viewer is unable to sit idly by and mindlessly enjoy Shakespearian plays, rather they must actively concentrate to fully appreciate the beauty in these works.

Iago and Evil

I found Iago's soliloquy to be a fairly profound look into the evils of his character. He uses many excuses such as suspicions that he slept with his wife, to justify his intent to kill Othello. Yet none of these excuses seem like plausible reasons to murder an apparently innocent character. One point of this soliloquy that I found to be very interesting is where Iago takes the positive attribute of the Moor having "a free and open nature, thinks men honest" and utilizes this positive attribute as an opening to hurt the Moor. Therefore because of these reasons, the reader is able to deduce that Iago is an evil character by nature, and he is not able to justify his plan to kill Othello with such weak and unsupported excuses.

My own story

Augustine reflects on his life and the many epiphanies in which he experienced. In the process of making my digital story I did not realize the true impact of some of my experiences. I learned that this lesson that had more of an impact on my life than I had previously expected. The story I chose had a monumental impact on my life yet I did not give credit to the strength of my story. My perspective has changed since the onset of this project and I now know that I do have a story to tell.

Flickr

So far my favorite part of this assignment has been the oppertunity to gather some amazing photography from Flickr. I have been so engrossed by the entire of process of choosing photos because I feel that every photo must have an immediate connect to what is being said. With this thought, I was forced to refocus my paper in a way to cooperate with the excellent photography I am pulling from the internet. At this point in the process, I feel that the hardest part will be matching these two seperate ideas and bringing them together into one.

Desire. Good vs Bad

Throughout the Confessions of Augustine, desire is inherently linked with evil and suggestive of other negative connotations. Although the desires that Augustine emphasizes are portrayed as bad, I believe that Augustine is also filled with desires of the most pure. In Confessions, desire is linked with negativity because Augustine speaks only of his desire for woman, vanity, and pleasure. It is because of his modesty and constant self imposed pressure that Augustine never speaks of his insatiable desire for knowledge or his longing for the love of God. Augustine refrains from calling these positive aspects desire, but the truth is that he longs to find truth in God, whether acting as a skeptic or not, he none the less tirelessly searches for the answers.

It is true that Augustine is filled with the insatiable desire for things unholy, but that is not to discredit the positive role of desire in the other portion of his existence. Desire acts as both a positive and negative catalyst in the life of Augustine and therefore desire is neither wholly good nor evil, but both.

"Seek what you seek, but it is not where you seek it. You seek happiness of life in the land of death, and it is not there. For how shall there be happiness of life where there is no life?"

We established that this appears to be the central dogma of this book, which truly portrays why Augustine's actions are as scrutinized as they are. Throughout Confessions, Augustine seeks pleasure and truth in the wrong places, whether they be in vanity or in superficial things such as lust (often misconstrued with love). The "happiness of life" which Augustine so treasures and struggles so strongly to attain is not in these temporal places, however, they are found only in a true union with the Lord. Augustine realizes this yet is distracted his earthly desires and urges. Through ignoring the temporal truths that he finds in satisfying his desires, he can attain to a sincere relationship with God and therefore put his woes to rest and Augustine will find the happiness of life.