1985- Healthy Confusion -
A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this “healthy confusion.” Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the “pleasure and disquietude” experienced by the readers of the work.
Othello
what is this prompt even asking?
ReplyDeleteI looked up the word "disquietude" and it means a feeling of uneasiness. So I believe what it is asking is how does the play both entertain and make the reader feel uneasy. While the play certainly entertains, ( I it has jealously, tears, blood, its like an episode of the Real Housewives, but where the men are the whiny ones and there's more death how could that not be entertaining?!?) What I'm left uneasy about is the how stupid most of the characters are. Like how could one man be manipulated so far into this jealous rage that a bunch of people end up dead?!?
DeleteThe entertaining part could also be uneasy because yeah there's a mediocre swordfight and stabbings, but the the gore and violence also envokes a sense of uneasiness due to the fall of feminism to a patriarchal society, and it seems like no one really cared about the lost lives. They just transferred the power to Cassio and moved on with their lives by putting this incident behind them.
DeleteI agree with both of you on this. I think that I'm most uneasy about the complete obliviousness of the characters to Iago's plans. It's entertaining to see how easily they can be fooled, yet it's also unsettling to think that people today are probably just as easily manipulated. I like Erika's point of finding the violence entertaining, yet also unsettling, for no one seems to care about the rising death and injury toll.
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