24 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2024
    1. 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

      Firstly, sort of an allusion to Adam and Eve, since Eve is built of Adam, so what Adam has is inherited or learnt by Eve. Secondly, she is one of the first characters to accept their vices, and therefore be immune or unbelieving to the devil (Iago's whispers). She sees him not as a honest man.

  2. Mar 2024
    1. Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio,My advocation is not now in tune.

      The fact that Desdemona is sometimes represented as divinity, as a guardian angel, shows that the fact that Othello is rejecting her advocation shows he is falling into his devil, into his inner Iago -- he is losing touch with God, with righteousness (while ironically thinking he is doing the right thing by being civil)

    2. Nay, yet there’s more in this.I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings,As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughtsThe worst of words

      Iago has not elaborated or said much, it is Othello who is prying deeper and deeper into "knowing" what he should not, into peering into something that would disturb his peace. This connects to Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. It is then Othello's fault for looking for answers to his suspicions which he confirms with confirmation bias.

    3. O thou invisible spirit of wine, ifthou hast no name to be known by, let us call theedevil!

      Iago forced the drinks on him, and therefore he is the "devil" and yet, Iago has done nothing but let normal events carry out, because the devil is in Cassio himself, and in everyone. Does the wine signifying Jesus's blood mean anything for this?

    4. Perhaps he sees it not, or his good naturePrizes the virtue that appears in CassioAnd looks not on his evils. Is not this true?

      He will eventually turn on Cassio, so he will see his evils, but he not until the end will see Iago's evils, because perhaps Iago is a part of each, and pride is what covers them from accepting and admitting their inner evils.

    5. Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward meFor making him egregiously an assAnd practicing upon his peace and quietEven to madness.

      Have the moor thank him for his own destruction -- because it is him who will destroy himself and simply the ignition of his motivations that drives him to do so.

    6. without the which there were no expectation ofour prosperity.

      "Our prosperity signifies that he is both sidling up to his characters in his grand puppet show and actually a integral part of them literally. He has the same motivations as each of the characters, only he is helping all of them achieve their most sinister goals

    7. Doyou find some occasion to anger Cassio, either byspeaking too loud, or tainting his discipline, or fromwhat other course you please, which the time shall morefavorably minister

      Notice Iago doesn't actually do anything terrible. He is simply the whisper in each's ear that causes the storyline to unfold in whatever manner -- he is barely a presence. In this case, he is the inner devil (on the shoulder) of each of the characters.. no?

  3. Jan 2024
    1. At the same time, there is a slither of light that penetrates the dark narrative. Although the protagonists have all led fractured, traumatic lives, they never succumb to the impending desire to give up. Guts embodies stubborn perseverance, and through his struggles, the reader learns to cling onto hope.

      Throughout the dark narrative, there is a slitter of light. They never give up.

  4. Sep 2023
  5. May 2021
    1. For several moments he had had the feeling of being back in a nightmare which had recurred from time to time throughout his life. It was always very much the same. He was standing in front of a wall of darkness, and on the other side of it there was something unendurable, something too dreadful to be faced. In the dream his deepest feeling was always one of self-deception, because he did in fact know what was behind the wall of darkness. With a deadly effort, like wrenching a piece out of his own brain, he could even have dragged the thing into the open. He always woke up without discovering what it was: but somehow it was connected with what Julia had been saying when he cut her short.

      the nightmare of the wall of darkness, self-deception

  6. Oct 2016