Shakespeare's Selfishness

Hey bloggers!

It’s time for another blog! This week’s blog is about William Shakespeare’s Othello and selfishness in the play.

For starters, what is selfishness? Selfishness is an action of caring solely for one’s self; placing the concern of one’s own interest above others’ well being.

It is said that all our actions may be motivated by our selfish nature and that we secretly do everything for ourselves.

“Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves." 

- Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare

Sometimes even the most common action can be perceived as selfish. For example, when mourning the loss of someone, most people believe they are being unselfish by being sad for that person when in reality they are usually sad that they will not see them again and talk to them again. But the truly unselfish manner of mourning is realizing that the person will never laugh again and see their loved ones again. We can still turn around in a room and count all the beautiful faces of our family and friends, where they can no longer talk to them and smile at them. It is quite a sad thing to realize yet many people don’t. It is quite astonishing how so many of our actions can be perceived as selfish even when that was not the meaning behind them.

In the play Othello, there are many selfish characters and actions. It seems as though they all have plots and plan to hurt other characters either emotionally or physically, as an act of selfishness, in order to further succeed in their life.

One main character who demonstrates many acts of selfishness is Iago. All through the play he causes others grief and misery in an attempt to gain a promotion. At the beginning of the play, Iago calls to Barbantio to inform him of his daughter’s marriage to a black man. “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.” (Othello, scene 1 act 1) His reasoning was not to inform Barbantio of his daughter’s whereabouts, but rather to make Barbantio dislike Othello and improve Iago’s chances of gaining the promotion that he believes was stolen from him by Othello. Most of Iago’s plans throughout the play were to break up Desdemona and Othello and ruin Othello’s life to give himself a better chance of succeeding and as a means of revenge.

Another character that demonstrates acts of selfishness is Roderigo. Roderigo was in love with Desdemona since the beginning of the play and was jealous of her relationship with Othello. He agrees to help Iago with his plans of betrayal because he believes he will receive the love of Desdemona as a result. His actions are not to help out a friend but merely to achieve his love interest. “It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor, – put money in thy purse, –nor he his to her.” (2.4.5) Iago convinces Roderigo that he can have Desdemona is he simply helps Iago with his plan and since he so desperately wants her, Roderigo agrees on selfish terms.

    

Finally another main character, that we all believe is the victim in the play, has many selfish acts. During the last act of the play, Othello kills his wife, Desdemona. He kills her because he believe that she was being unfaithful and not true to him. Othello believed that she was doing HIM wrong at that the only way to solve the problem was to get rid of her. (Well, he was also led on by Iago but that goes back to Iago being selfish) He did not think to ask her and really talk to her, he simply jumped to a conclusion that she was going to ruin him and killed her. This action was a very selfish action because he did it for simply himself and no other reason. He thought she didn't love Him anymore and as a result lost a great wife. 

We all have done selfish acts is our lives. We all have ask people to do something selfish and we all have payed the consequences of our selfish acts. It is part of being human and no matter how hard you try, cannot be avoided. The characters in Othello are no different and all payed the price for their selfish actions. 

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, is and remains immortal.” 
- Albert Pine

Addicted to television

Hey bloggers!

Have you ever been in a room having a nice conversation, or even a boring one, and can’t stop yourself from periodically glancing over to the television that is on in the background? Everyone has, you can’t deny it, it is something that just easily draws our attention and is able to keep it for long periods of time.

Some scientist may classify this habit as being obsessive whereas others simply call it part of our human behaviour. We get distracted easily and have a hard time focusing on just one thing. It’s part of our nature. But sometimes we go overboard on things and turn them into an addiction. Watching television is a choice and one we regularly favour, in which case watching it too much could be considered an addiction. No one has to drink alcohol for example, we simply do it for enjoyment, but there are some people that get overly attached to it and become addicted.  This can happen with anything and anyone and seems to have happened with our society and the television. In the past twenty years we have gotten very dependent on the television as a pastime and turned it into an addiction. 

Now is this point still relevant today, that is something each of you may want to think about.

I believe the argument that people are addicted to TV is still relevant today, whether in the same context or different, it is still present.

People always want to be lazy, sit around doing nothing for a little while and television gives them a perfect excuse. It’s a way to zone out the world and turn into the beloved couch potato. And sometimes, that perfect excuse can turn into an everyday occurrence that then becomes an addiction. I know that is a very drastic way of looking at it but the Oxford dictionary states an addiction as being, “the condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit, practise or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming.” And watching television has in some ways become just that. 

But whether our addiction has changed with time or is still how it used to be, it is still present in our everyday lives.

In class we read an essay on television addiction and there are some very valid points in it about how we don’t have the motivation to stop watching. It is very true because we can sit on the couch and watch pointless show after pointless show without caring. It takes serious self-control and self-regulation to snap out of the trance we put ourselves in and get back to the real world. If it was as easy as we wish it to be, we wouldn’t have this problem. But the problem is also that we as a species are drawn to the newest pieces of technology like a dog is drawn to a bone.

“Oh! A new video game! Let’s go play it for hours and hours until we beat the whole game.”

   

We get so distracted by these new toys and lack the self-control it takes to regulate our consumption that they have turned into addiction-like pastimes.

As our class read the essay on the addiction to television, we had a long discussion on whether this point is still relevant today. We came to the conclusion that there are many points for either side of the debate but overall they all end with society today being obsessive over some sort of electronic. Whether it is television, a gaming console or simply their phone, everyone has a piece of technology that they cannot seem to put down and walk away from.