blog post #3 - moral pyromaniac?

In Othello, Shakespeare strips bare the moral structure of civilized society, exposing the primordial struggle between good and evil. In the author's twisted battle of lust and desire, the fallacies of human nature are his strongest weapons. By author, I mean not Shakespeare but Iago.

From imagery to setting to language, Shakespeare clearly reveals the play's overarching shift from refined to primitive. The scene opens in the royal beauty of Venice; by Act V, it has descended into the chaos of war-torn Cyprus. Running perfectly parallel to the change in language, the change in language conveys the growing subconscious tension. While the first Acts are dominated by flowery monologues and rythmic meter, the later ones are characterized by hurried speech and flagrant urgency.

At the deepest layer of imagery and metaphor, the play's language shifts from allusions of romance to allusions of despair. These two emotions are, of course, interrelated and brilliantly played off each other throughout the play. To provide adequate detail of this transformation, compare Iago's raunchy comparison of sexual relations to a garden with Othello's sensationalization of the events as a deep and dark ocean.

By tearing into readers' consciences with well-placed literary devices, Shakespeare allows Iago to fuse with the inner soul as pure evil. Every moral construct has no bearing by the end of the play. Iago becomes the ultimate moral relativist, ignoring any universal sense of right and wrong. Instead, he capitalizes on all the other characters' morality, pitting them against each other with nearly Satanic mastery.

In doing so, Iago controls humanity. He tears apart the fabric of society at the behest of his pyromanic anger. He deconstructs glory and honor and reputation, all to satisfy his own personal desires.

In doing so, Iago is controlled by humanity. Though on the surface he conquers hearts and minds, his own soul lays in ruin, torn apart by the same emotional complexes he exploited in others.

blog post #1 - time stood still as these words were conceived...if only time existed to begin with

These are a few of my favorite quotes, literature style...

A particular revelation on the life of the mind, from Plato's famous cave allegory:
"Come then, share with me this thought also: It isn't surprising that the ones who get to this point are unwilling to occupy themselves with human affairs and that their souls are always pressing upwards, eager to spend their time above, for, after all, this is surely what we'd expect, if indeed things fit the image (coming into the light from the cave) I described before." - The Republic

Possibly the greatest opening setences of any novel ever:
"I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. However, I don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me. I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine and doctors. What's more, I am also superstitious in the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicine. (I'm sufficiently educated not to be superstitious, but I am.) No, sir, I refuse to be treated out of wickedness." - Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And as a credit to this class, here's my perspective on time, spoken by Tralfamadorian:
"I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is." - Slaughterhouse Five

blog post #2 - fate's so relevant, it's nearly irrelevant

As Oedipus follows his destiny to the dire end, Sophocles emphasizes his vain efforts to resist the influence of "The Fates." Connecting to the rest of Greek lore, this theme of human weakness in the face of Gods reverberates throughout the play. With literary devices like dramatic irony and paradox at his disposal, Sophocles twists readers into a conclusion that can not only be predicted, but expected, from the onset.

From a post-modern perspective, this Greek mythological approach, replicated for centuries, assumes too much about the human perception of time. Along with other Ancient World literature, Greek drama establishes a linear storyboard, where one event leads to the next. After a century of quantum physics and spacial relativity, we've finally realized that this concept of time is merely sensual with no real logical foundation.

I tend to side more with the school of Vonnegut, who in Slaughterhouse Five portrays time as scattered parallel events. Even moment simulateously happens, happened, has happened, and will happen. From this perspective, the human idea of fate is inconsequential, as no clear set of events leads to the next. On the same token, the future has already been determined, similar to the prophecy of The Fates, but it's not really the future at all. It's already taken place.