othello in high school

Very nice article. Sorry I didn't respond until a year after you posted but I just recently read Othello myself.

I'm a little skeptical of the modern trend of placing classic storie in a high school setting just to get young audiences to identify with it. But in this case, it was more than appropriate. Adults struggling with infidelity, or the perception thereof, have sometimes turned violent, but usually they either divoce, or not, and move on with their lives. Teenagers are the very people you would expect to turn violent--and the very people who need to be shown the consequences of it.

Iago gives us various possible reasons for doing what he does: 1. He made Cassio his Lieutenant instead of me, 2. Rumor has it he's banging my wife, 3. I just plain hate him, and 4. I'm not telling. Hugo certainly gives us less of this. But making him obviously act out of jealousy doesn't make him sympathetic, IMHO. It does make it easy for an audience to identify with him, and maybe that's the point. If Odin teaches us not to be so fixated on a teenage relationship, and Hugo shows us the consequences of believing that any actions are justified if they make you famous and/or popular. And possibly also of obsessing over a school's athletic reputation.

In my city there are still teenage boys who committ suicide because the girl they have a crush on doesn't feel the same way. I would say that if, as freshmen, they are still required to read Romeo & Juliet, then the teaching of that play should be extended to apply to their own dating lives: the two lovers kill themselves because they can't stand to be parted, and a decent classroom discussion should explain why it's just not worth it. Both that story and this one are tragedies, and so the questions need to be asked: what tragic flaws led to the tragic outcome, and which of our own personality traits need to be kept in check to make sure it doesn't happen in our own lives. Surely, that is the highest use of a tragedy.