The real tragic flaw in Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists is that the characters are not privy (in the full ripening of dramatic irony) to the fact that they are but players, actors, and they need not take their roles seriously at all — maybe just change characters completely and shed the oncoming doom.
However, like us, the players remain asleep to this key, this unlocking of their full potential — limited by imagination alone. (Moreover, the roles themselves are adored, the carefully crafted egos, skilfully induced immortality in temporary personas.)
And so, they are led — usually by the rope of attachment — to their doom, typically destroying others along the way.
God, I love a good tragedy.
#OthelloFan #Macbeth
So many lessons. So many illustrations. Especially self-destruction through self-preservation.
How do I write this now? How now, my Lord, after all that’s become of us?
How do I tell you what’s become of me?
I’ve been sun-kissed and wave-licked I’ve been rolling in the dirt I’ve slapped a horse’s ass, cherry picked and I’ve spit creek water to the earth
I’ve seen snakes in grass and long thin worms, and sometimes chubby slugs the forest yields such photographs beetles, spiders, bugs
Moths and butterflies have pressed me with silken, pollened wings while no bee nor wasp has ever stung me as the dog-day cicada sings
A cricket symphony has often put me ‘lone to sleep under starry skies, dry eyes wake damp with dew out here I do not care to weep – a tear outside was never shed, except those I shed with you
If I never loved another, Desdemona be my name I have never touched another, yet an Othello I have made I have never laid another, but you laid me with the blame.
Oh, poor Othello! Confused with talk fed into ear by Iago’s mouth, untamed and tainted with mirthful, selfish motivation, to destroy love! Revenge!
Was my mistake the one she missed? The one where I fought back? For though I’m fair, when I get pissed boundaries up and eyes go black
Not so passive, lacking grace I begged and pleaded and tempted fate with tearful eyes and ruddy face now there’s nothing to investigate
I’ve not strayed, and still I wait as Desdemona would have done had Othello spared her life and run her story, I do speculate, and mine
Would be as one.
So though leaves have stroked my arms And brooks have soaked my pants, No other man has ever stirred me Woodsy tickles come from spiders, ants
Still, the forest gets me going, More stagged than sumac sprigs How then I touch myself knowing I’ve never caved to pleasure twigs
Right now, I cannot know your mind How now, my Lord, I’m feeling blind! So, in ignorance I must declare:
I will never sacrifice my virtue To die upon a kiss Know, still, I’m saved for you.
Love, Desdemona
If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears, each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
The Halfwit Writer 