Balancing Distance and Understanding

           The one thing I cannot stand as a reader is an easily predictable plot. Too often do stories follow the same format- a conflict gradually builds up and becomes more and more tense, with the author dropping hints as to how this conflict will reach its peak, and then be resolved. The most common way authors make their story too predictable is by giving their characters too much transparency, as this allows these characters' decisions to be too obviously foreseen. In other words, the author makes his characters too understandable. A good story is always a tad mysterious, as some distance should exist between the reader and characters to prevent an overly transparent and predictable tale. William Shakespeare found a particularly great balance for presenting characters to his audience- allowing them to be somewhat understandable but also slightly distant. Last year, while reading Othello, I found that although I understood some essential qualities of Iago (namely his insecurity, love of manipulating others, and jealousy), Shakespeare still kept Iago slightly mysterious.  

        Iago's actions weren't obviously foreshadowed or predictable, though we, as an audience, were aware of his basic scheme to drive Othello mad with jealousy. To me, however, the most intriguing aspect about the way Shakespeare presents Iago is that Shakespeare never presents the audience with the root cause of Iago's horrendous deeds. We often debated last year in class just what fueled Iago- perhaps an inner evil or deep insecurity, but we never concluded on one reason. This inability to truly understand Iago captivated me and only made me view the play with more awe and admiration for the characterizations presented. Shakespeare's phenomenal ability to give us what we need to know about a character but still keep that character distant is what brought me to this class.