After only reading the first two acts of Othello it is clear that Iago is one very manipulating, scheming, and perplexing character in Shakespeare’s play. Iago is simply a villain in the play; however, he plays a huge role and has an effect on just about every situation throughout the play “Othello”. Iago is constantly trying to tear Othello and Desdemona’s relationship a part along with stirring up issues with Roderigo and Cassio for no obvious reason. Although Iago has a reputation for being an honest, well-trusted individual he is very sneaky and manipulating by going behind multiple characters’ backs and talking about one another in order to turn them against each other. Iago himself even states,” I am not what I am” (I.i.65). He acts as if he is helping each of them but really he is destroying relationships, marriages, and friendships in order to get what he wants. We even see the other characters go to Iago for advice, specifically Roderigo when he asks Iago, “ What should I do?…”(II.iii.310). The fact that everything he does is very sneaky and by not knowing his motives behind his actions makes Iago a very perplexing character as well. Iago truly makes the whole play very confusing and interesting, you never know what he will do next or what he is thinking. It seems as if he goes around stirring up drama between each character just for the fun of it, we never really know why he does it or why he supposedly hates Othello. The biggest effect that Iago has in the play is on the main character Othello because one of Othello’s flaws is being gullible and too trusting; therefore, Iago really hurts Othello because Othello trusts Iago with everything.
I really enjoyed reading Langston Hughes poems, especially “I, Too”. “ I, Too” has a main theme of Hughes focusing on the black culture and the discrimination that they faced day in and day out. However, he knew that even though he was looked down upon that he was still an American who should be treated equally. We see this sense of hope no matter how he was treated all throughout the poem and the title “ I, Too”. He demonstrates his sense of hope when he states, “I, too, will sing America.” Stating even though I am being looked down upon I will be treated as American one day. We can also see his strong and happy spirit, that he is not going to let others bring him down when he says, “ They send me to eat in the kitchen/ When company comes,/ But I laugh,/ And eat well,/ And grow strong.” , which just shows that even though they set me a part and call me different I am still happy and have hope for the future. Additionally, he goes into what tomorrow will be like as if he is dreaming of the future when he says, “ Tomorrow,/ I will be at the table/ When company comes./ Nobody’ll dare/ Say to me,/ “ Eat in the kitchen,”/ Then.”. He is very confident in the fact that one day he will be treated equally and it bothers him so much that he dreams of it until the day it happens. He also is very resentful sounding towards the white Americans because of the way they treat him and he says, “ Besides,/ They’ll see how beautiful I am/ And be ashamed—/ I, too, am America.” We not only notice that he feels the Americans will be ashamed when he becomes an American for the way they treated him as an outcast. We also notice that at the beginning of the poem he says, “ I, too SING America” and now it has changed to past tense “ I, too, AM America which really expresses his hopes, dreams, and confidience that he will become an equally treated American. The tone and attitude of the poem is very hopeful and confident sounding and as if he trying to prove Americans wrong. The poem seemed more of oral tradition than anything else, like he is just speaking or venting to himself or someone else.
Emily Dickinson’s poems were much more likeable to me rather than the other poems we have read so far by Donne and Shakespeare. Personally, I believe that Dickinson’s poems were easier to read to because of the less formal writing that Dickinson has throughout her poems. However, although they were easier to read and easier to get an idea of what they were talking about; they were still hard for me to understand and hard to make connections with the deeper meanings, such as the metaphors and different punctuation she uses. All of Dickinson’s poems are related to death, isolation, and mortality. Also from most of all of her poems we can see she struggled with being isolated and kept to herself, away from everyone else. One poem that I understood the most out of Emily Dickinson’s poems was “ I felt a funeral, in my brain”. Overall, in this poem, I can see a gradual downhill movement from a sane/normal thinking human into a insane/abnormal human. She makes this obvious in the first line of her poem when she states, “ I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” describing that her brain was diminishing. As the poem goes on she relates the “Mourners” of the “Funeral” as her thoughts attending the “Funeral”. She describes the actions as the thoughts, “Mourners”, treading all over her brain and then “taking a seat” as if the thoughts were sinking in, making sense to her brain, and about her thoughts were about to burry her. Later on the poem the sounds and repetition that occurs in the poem builds up momentum and a faster pace as the ”Boots of Lead” were weighing down in her mind and the “ Plank in Reason, broke,/ and I dropped down, and down—“ symbolizing that her thoughts had buried her and she was now in complete isolation.
Reading, understanding, and making deep connections in poetry is not my strongest point in English/literature. In order for me to understand poetry I always have to read it multiple times and also get additional outside help and ideas from others. Once I read it a few times and when I hear others ideas they have then my wheels start turning and I can start making some connections on my own. Overall, the most trouble I had this week reading Shakespeare’s sonnets where understand his language and diction. Not knowing much about the atmosphere, history, or language back in Shakespeare’s time it is hard to understand some of the connections and such that he makes in his sonnets. Reading and analyzing poetry is not easy for me. Therefore, I usually read it at least once or twice to get the main idea down. As I continue to read the poem multiple times after that I read it a little more closely and deeper each time. Towards the end of it I have read the poem line by line and thinking each word and its meaning through. As I am reading I have to remind myself constantly to keep an open mid because I often catch myself close minded and not very open to bigger and deeper meanings, allusions, or irony that could be in the story. For just some of the main things that I look to analyze in the poem, other than meanings of words, is the tone, diction, and theme that the poem has within it. Being able to analyze poetry own my on is difficult for me and not something I really enjoy, however, I am learning how to understand poetry by paraphrasing.
I really enjoyed reading the poem “ Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you” by John Donne because I can connect to the speaker of this poem. The speaker is expressing his/her desire for god to not only “knock” on their heart but to tear it down to help him/her to break free from the sinful human nature. We can see the speaker’s desire and humbleness for god to help him/her break free within the title and first sentence of the poem when it says “Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You/ As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend./ That I might rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend…make me new” ( 1-4). He/she does not only want God’s corrective, gentle help, but he/she wants God to break him/her down harshly in order to make the speaker a new person, not for their own good but for the glory of God. The speaker feels as if he/she is no longer capable of helping him/her-self out and that the only thing to do is to have God break him/her down to start over, to be re-made. We see the passion and seriousness of wanting to break away from the sinful nature when the speaker says, “ But am betrothed unto Your enemy;/ Divorce me, untie or break that knot again” (line 10-11) . He feels trapped and overtaken by God’s enemy, sin, and wants God to “divorce” him from sin. The speaker also asks God to, “ Take me to You, imprison me..” (line 12). Again, I really enjoyed this poem because I can relate to how this speaker feels overtaken by sin and needs God to intervene with His strength and power. The tone of the whole poem is expressing frustration and realization of own weaknesses, but yet the tone seems promising because the speaker knows where to turn to and where to find hope and peace.
Ernest Hemingway’s “ A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is very short, simple, and realistic story, but holds much truth especially in a deeper meaning. The old man and the older waiter can both relate to each other because of their age, what they have been through, and what they are still going through. However, the young waiter is quite opposite because of his age he does not understand near as much about life and the obstacles that are possibly waiting ahead for him. The old man in the short story is looking for a place to go because he is lonely and he needs a clean, well-lighted place to relieve himself and fill that emptiness that invades his life. Likewise, the old waiter completely understands why the old man comes and wants to stay late hours at their café because he too is lonely and wants a clean and calm place to go instead of going home to an empty house. The young waiter shows his selfishness and inconsideration for the older men by wanting to close the café early, rushing home, and by his comments of wishing death on the old man. Although the young waiter may have a perfect life, full of love and people to spend it with he does not realize that he too could be in their shoes years down the road. He one day could be lonely, empty, and looking for a place to feel safe and worth something. Age in this short story is very crucial because it shows us how highly younger generations think of themselves, how selfish they can be, and how little they know about life. On the other hand, this short story shows us older generations suffer and how they no far more than we know just through experience. Younger generations go through and view life in different ways than older generations. Hemingway also portrays life as nothing when he substitutes “ nada” for many words throughout while he is praying, which is also showing how he felt in life, just like the old men in his story. All the older men now viewed life as empty and nothingness, unlike the younger generation.
Kate Chopins’ short story “The Storm” has different, significant settings that occur throughout the story , therefore, they also impact the theme and plot within the story. Broadly speaking we can tell that this short story was not set in modern times because of the lifestyle that these families lived. Specifically noticed in the story is that they did not have automobiles because they rode horses for transportation. For example, “ Alcee rode his horse…” Also Calixta mentions how she was sewing and taking clothes down from hanging outside. Although both of those duties/chores are still done in that way today, we more commonly see people buying clothes and drying them in a dryer. Another broad setting we see is the use of French language such as, “ Dieu sait” and other French names, expressing the homeland for some of the characters in this short story. We also see smaller, more focused, settings such as the store and the home of Calixta and Bobinot. The main setting of the story is at Calixta’s while she is home alone, but not for long. As the day comes to an end a bad storm brews up and causes Alcee, a man she was previously in love with, to stop in as the storm passes. As time went on they began to reminiscence on their past love for each other starting off in the gallery and gradually moving through the house as the storm progressed, and then they ended up in her bed at the worst part of the storm. The storm obviously plays a huge role in the story and especially for the setting because if it was not for the storm then Calixta’s husband and son would have been home and Alcee would not have had an excuse to stop. On a deeper level, the storm also gets more intense as their feelings for one another did. The storm could also show the mess ups and mistakes that Calaxita and Alcee had going on in their lives. The highest peak of the storm was at the high peak of their affair and them committing adultery on their spouses. Likewise, as the storm disappears so does Calixta and Alecee’s feelings and relationship.
All throughout “Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator claimed he was not mad, however, after reading this short story I found it very hard to believe that this character was not mad. The narrator asks at the very beginning of the story, “…but why will you say that I am mad?” He honestly believe that there is nothing wrong with him all because he is “calm” and “wise” with the ways he went about to murder this man. For example he says, “ Hearken! And observe how healthily—how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.” He also states, “ You should have seen how wisely I proceeded..” On the other hand, the very first statement that the narrator makes is, “ True! —nervous —very, very nervous I had been and am..” The narrator not only brought himself to doing this awful act, but he found pleasure in it and chuckled at the thought that the man was clueless about the narrator standing in his room and plotting to kill him. That is what really makes me believe that this character was crazy, mad, and ill. Additionally, I do not see why only a “vulture eye” would cause the narrator to want to murder a man who he says has never done any harm to him and was someone he loved. He had to be ill, mad, or have some psychological problem. The narrator not only tells his own thoughts and feelings, but he also mentions feelings and thoughts of the old man by saying, “ Presently I heard a groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror..” He says that comment out of his own experience because he also says that he knew that sound because it had happened to him before. Right before and after he murdered the old man the sound of the heart started to cause the narrator to be overwhelmed with anxiety which encouraged the murder and what made him confess to the police what had been done. When he had first committed the murder he described himself in ways that he seemed calm and content with what he had done, however, after a while he began to hear the beating of the heart. As time went on he described the situation as agony. It was the pounding of the heart got to him and he grew pale, paced the floor, gasped for breath, and went crazy which shows that he was ill and crazy throughout the story.
In the story, “A&P”, by John Updike, Updike really focuses on social statuses, human nature, and society. I believe that Updike uses examples in this story that relate to our human nature and society that we have today. The main character and narrator, Sammy, overall demonstrates both human nature and our society. Sammy closely observes and “judges” just about everyone who walks through the doors of the store, A&P, where he works. Likewise, everyone judges others in one-way or another in our society today. Sammy also demonstrates his human nature for males by being lustful, interested and attracted to females in any and every way possible. He goes into great detail about all of the observations he made about these girls just as any male would be thinking. However, the story also points out that Sammy was not the only guy in the store who’s attention was stolen by these girls. It mentions that every male’s attention was caught, married or not, which also relates to our society in that we do have different social statuses who can all be lustful and attracted to girls at some point, but they handle the situation differently. For example, Sammy liked what he saw and tried helping the girls out, whereas, Lengel confronted them of their inappropriate attire and asked them to change. That also demonstrates our society in showing human nature of lustfulness, however, we have different ways handling it often based off of their social status and morals. Likewise, the three girls also demonstrated human nature by the way they represented themselves and made it known that they were looking for attention, which many girls strive to do through their provocative outfits. Additionally, with the girls walking in, in bathing suits could be assumed that the girls do not care and are not trying to follow what society says or any social rules. In all with these examples and demonstrations given, Updike illustrates how our society is and how we are with human nature. Our society is very judgmental of others and we often assume things by the way people dress and act. Also, we as individuals are all affected by human nature in that we are all selfish and lustful.
MorganSouth 