25:38 Othello

Day 25 of 38:38
Othello

Why does everyone always talk about Iago having no motive for what he does to Othello? It seems to me that he suffers from the fault that he is determined to give Othello. Iago is obsessed with sex. I remember three instances where he mentions someone else sleeping with his wife. That's quite frequent. He is beaten in jealously only by Master Ford! This play has a lot of talk about sex, which is so interested seeing we are reading it shortly after Measure for Measure.

Iago is, without a doubt, the consummate actor in all of Shakespeare. Even Richard III doesn't come close. R3 might brag about how he can change his face and fool and trick people, and he does to a certain degree, but many people know the entire time just how awful he is. Nobody knows this about Iago. Everyone loves him. He's called honest and good. No one even has a clue. He's got them all fooled, and not just the thick characters, but the smart ones too.

Emilia is quite fascinating in that respect. She seems brilliant and sassy and like she doesn't take crap in some of her lines, but then she is completely oblivious to the actual nature of her husband. I've not yet seen Othello on the stage but something tells me there are a lot of possibilities for playing Emilia and Iago's relationship. I find it very interesting that he's so concerned with her fidelity. And she, before she has that liberating speech about how women can act just like men do, says "Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for it." This seems to undercut the liberation, as she is saying she would cheat on Iago if it would prove profitable to Iago. And then no one seems more surprised than Emilia about what Iago has done. When she puts two and two together she repeats the question "My husband?" four times. She is literally in shock (granted, some of that shock is due to the fact that she had an unknowing hand in the scheme).

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Favorite Female Character:
Emilia
Favorite Male Character:
Iago

Laugh out loud:

"That's what she said!":
Iago Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

How insulting:
Emilia I will be hanged if some eternal villain
Some busy and insinuating rogue
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office
Have not devised this slander.

Shakey loves his meta:

Oh, misogyny:
Well, the word whore occurs 12 times, and the word strumpet 10 times.

Boys are silly:
Emilia 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food.
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.

Favorite Moment/Line:
Emilia But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or, say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell,
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is; and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth; is ’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too; and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then, let them use us well; else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.