#but desdemona had emilia in her corner and othello killed them both

[fallenrocket]

Whenever I read Much Ado about Nothing, I think about how, really, the only thing protecting Hero from Desdemona's fate is her good fortune to have been written in a comedy.

[terranoctis]

willow

After some casual catching up on work this afternoon, I took some time to myself to do things I enjoy. Oddly enough, this enjoyment consisted of educating myself on the most random array of subjects. I spent time reading a slew of news articles, watching documentaries, learning history, and consuming Shakespeare. I like to learn things of varying topics because it helps me think about how I want to shape the world I’m writing. History and enjoying stories of different mediums informs me, and makes me reflect on how I want to understand the world. In general, I simply want to understand things more because there are a myriad of topics I still have much to learn about. 

One of the first things I took a dedicated interest in today was the politics of Lebanon and how it culminated in part from the Lebanon Civil War. This was a result of the recent events in Beirut. Similar to why I chose to start learning Arabic a few years ago, I wanted to understand more about the culture and history of the Middle East. How did the Lebanese government become this entity that had done its people so wrong, according to everything I had been reading this past week? My delve into history today was that same feeling I had a few years ago. I specifically remember the Yemeni-Syrian humanitarian crisis of 2015 because it was around the exact time I decided to learn Arabic and took time to educate myself on that situation.   

Just like when I learned the Arabic language, and in part, introduced myself to Middle Eastern culture, I felt there were many things put into perspective once I took the time to learn. Learning about the Middle East puts into perspective sometimes how tailored the education and news cycle we get in the US is towards a Western perspective. When I was talking to my friend yesterday, he wasn’t even all that aware of how the negligence of the Lebanese government lead to Beirut’s explosion. I might not have either if I hadn’t recently started regularly reading news from foreign correspondents. The whole week has been terrible from news articles I’ve been reading, and it makes me hurt for all the people who live in Lebanon. My Arabic professor was from Beirut, and to witness her city, that she so lovingly described to us, be destroyed... I can’t fathom at all how she’s feeling now. Was she there? Is her family okay? I don’t know and that thought scares me too. There isn’t anything I can do to make anything better, but I want to understand, because it’s only when we learn history that we collectively understand as humans and be better where possible. 

It is an understatement to state that Lebanon’s recent history in the past fifty years or so is fractured and fraught with factions. My understanding is still minimal and I’ll likely have to read significantly more on the Middle East to even comprehend its complexities. Moreover, as all history goes, it’s not possible to learn about one country without understanding how the politics of another country affected it. The Lebanese civil war is a testament to that in how Palestine, Israel, and Syria played their parts. It was much bloodshed though, from my research into it. In this part of the world, our bloodshed and factional discord almost seems incomparable to what Lebanon has lived through. I wouldn’t wish that history on any nation, let alone any city like Beirut that was a battleground for warring factions. 

But I digress. I could go on about history for awhile if I wanted to. This blog is more for my collection of thoughts. Take my thoughts with a grain of salt as I still have much to learn, and I confess to being more ignorant than I wish to be in such topics. Nonetheless, the Lebanon Civil War made me think quite a bit about how I also wanted to write war as well, considering the backdrop of one of my stories exists during a civil war. 

I went on to watch a documentary on the Fyre festival. After some heavy history reading and documentary-watching, it seemed only appropriate to learn about something more seemingly inane. I had only tangentially learned about the music festival previously from the people I grew up with and their knowledge of it on social media. To learn about the entirety of the situation more in-depth though explained to me more about how tragic and terrible the whole festival was. The insanity that occurred because those in charge weren’t willing to own up and take responsibility for it was immense. It’s sad to see how people will take others for advantage, and it’s sad how a group of people can be driven to a point of no return because they are in way over their heads. It’s a different history to learn, and one that should be learned due to the way the online world and social media can drive an idea or break it. We live in a world now that thrives in some part by appearances online--and in the same breath, shuts something down online by mob mentality. It’s a different kind of history to learn, but something very fitting for this modern day and age. The advent of online networking and marketing, along with the appeal of social media has changed the world entirely... and this disaster of a festival is one of its textbook cases on how good and bad social media can be for one concept.

From there, I ended up watching a stage production of Othello put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Othello is one of the more widely read plays by Shakespeare that I have not ever once read, so I thought it would be interesting to experience it as a stage production first rather than in text first, as I have experienced most of his other plays. The production itself is quite a fascinating take on a Shakespearean play. Having not read the text, but understanding Shakespeare themes, the production cast both Othello and Iago as black men. This definitely lead to some race discussions and tensions that may not have been relevant with different casting... and I loved that it did that, particularly in conjunction with Cassio’s role as a white lieutenant. 

I can’t say it’s my favorite Shakespeare play, but I do think it’s one of the most sympathetic and well-written takes from Shakespeare on the female experience in a poor relationship. This may have been in part to how Desdemona and Emilia were acted, but there is something chilling about how Othello goes into a rage over his jealousy. The women are left to the mercy of this rage and to the mercy of all these men’s jealousies and manipulations concocted around them. Even the third woman in this play who is made a farce of with Cassio is sympathetic, because we witness Cassio seeing her as nothing more than someone to pass his time with. Cassio is quick to degrade her verbally when she becomes jealous. Emilia is manipulated by Iago as his wife to steal Desdemona's glove. Othello is known as a noble man and we see this up until he’s manipulated into a corner. 

But even Othello’s noble character doesn’t excuse his rage towards Desdemona in the privacy of their own home. It shows a man at his worst being a violent and jealous man--and an abusive significant other. For all that Iago is the manipulator, it also paints Othello as a man who can justify murder and more because he believes he was wronged. It’s power and abusive privilege at its worst in someone who is supposed to be a noble man, regardless of misunderstandings. As a woman watching the play, it was less about Iago’s manipulations for me, though he is a fascinating character. This play was the progression of a loving husband like Othello becoming an aggressor to Desdemona. It was about Iago killing his wife Emilia because she didn’t serve his purposes. 

It was also haunting to me that the only happy or peaceful moment the women have in the second half of the play is alone with one another, in the privacy of a bath, singing a willow song about a woman who was in love and whose love was lost in her significant other. It is a sad moment that foreshadows Desdemona’s death, but softly, also one of the happier moments the women have in the play with just the two of them together. There’s a kinship there that I don’t think I’ve quite seen in other Shakespeare plays between two women and how they recognize they’ve both been at the mercy of men, and their loves. They’ve been scorned as the woman in the Willow song. Just as Emilia helped her husband, and Desdemona loved her husband wholeheartedly, they’re just singing willow, willow, willow... Emilia’s monologue during this scene, which gives credence to how powerful women’s feelings can be in spite of how their husbands fail to recognize it, was probably my favorite monologue in the entire play. And the way it contrasts with Desdemona’s dejected rejection of that concept because of her sadness towards her husband makes it one of my favorite scenes in the entire play.

Othello is titled after the main character, and it is an apt portrait of a man who is driven to a jealous rage. But as it paints him, it also paints what and Iago have done to everyone around them. Iago may be the Machiavellian villain, but I think Othello is a villain in his own right as well. The people who suffer the worst fates are the women in this. It’s definitely a Shakespearean tragedy, and I’m not surprised necessarily in how that played out. Yet, there’s a lot to read into from how the stage production presented these characters and the unstated elements that aren’t verbalized outright. Somehow Othello seems relevant when you think about it through the lens of how some abusive relationships come into existence and in light of how quick people may be to slander women when you believe ill of them. In that regard, in its depiction of women and relationships, this play may be one of my favorite to analyze in regards to the topic of women in Shakespeare’s plays. 

In other words, I’m still a lit nerd. 

I went on quite a dive today into topics that interested me. I suppose it’s a cultured dive. It makes me happy though and I’ve drawn some ideas for things I’ve already been writing. Writing this out also helped me formulate my thoughts more. It’s my dream to read and educate myself more as I please, and it’s nice to just have a whole day to do that between errands. I love that. I love just learning what I want to learn about in the context of the world around me. It brought me back to days when I would spend reading Shakespeare for fun and set myself to reading specific authors like Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, or Ursula Le Guin. Or reading mythology from different cultures. Maybe a part of me misses being in school, but I also know that I like just educating myself as I please. Things like this also make me a better writer.

I suppose I’m an old soul. I just like stories...and history is a story in itself.