Last week in class we discussed Act 4 and we talked about how Iago controls Othello by making Othello think about his insecurities: being a moor, being older than Desdemona, and not knowing much about women. I think that Iago is very clever because he is able to find and bring up Othello's flaws without him noticing. Iago reminds me of the movie The Devil's Advocate starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. Al Pacino is the devil in the movie and Reeves is his son, but he doesn't know until the end of the film. Al Pacino sends him a great job offer and Reeves accepts and flies to New York to work for an important law firm. Al Pacino, like Iago, knows Reeves weaknesses one being that Reeves has never lost a court case and he doesn't plan on losing ever. Al Pacino just silently controls him without him noticing. For example, Al Pacino, being the devil, makes Reeves' wife start seeing demonic and strange things around the house, when Reeves tells Al Pacino that his wife is going crazy Al Pacino tells him to quit an important case that Reeves is working on. Al Pacino knows what Reeves' reaction will be because he doesn't quit, Reeves tells Pacino that he doesn't want to quit the case because if he quits and his wife gets better he will hate her for him quitting. Al Pacino pokes fun at Reeves throughout the movie saying things like,"you can't always win" while laughing. I think that Al Pacino's character is very similar to Iago, making him the devil. Iago knows almost exactly what the reaction of the people he is controlling will be, except at the end when he is forced to kill Emilia because she was going to uncover his plan and is forced to improvise his plan, unless Iago also planned that as well.
Act 5 is the final act and it is when Iago's plan unravels and the tragedy of Othello begins to unfold. First Roderigo attacks Cassio, wounding him, but since it is dark nothing can be seen so Iago kills Roderigo and acts like he is trying to save Cassio. Othello walks on stage and hears Cassio screaming and thinks that Iago already began his plan to kill Cassio and Desdemona, so Othello has to do his part and kill Desdemona. Othello kills desdemona twice, I think that when he kills Desdemona he is imagining that she was still alive and he had began to go insane because of jealousy. One thing that strikes me as odd when I was reading the story was that after Graziano and Lodovico capture Iago they take him back to Othello, Othello stabs Iago wounding him but Iago still manages somehow to stab Emilia. Did they let Iago keep his sword on him when he was captured? I'm not sure if i missed that part, but if they let him keep his sword then I think there is something strange about that. I also think that Othello should have personally killed Iago by torturing him instead of killing himself, but maybe Othello was already crazy and brainwashed by Iago.
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I love the idea of Iago as the Devil. It certainly fits.
ReplyDeleteSome stage notes indicate that Othello carried a concealed dagger, and that's what he uses against Iago. We could also argue that he takes a sword from one of the guards or that they do actually let him keep the sword he had. Like I said in class, there's a lot of leeway for some of what happens in this story.