ABSTRACT
The works of William Shakespeare reveal and explore the human condition in a way that has remained relevant, useful, and entertaining for the past four hundred years. In addition to learning much about humanity from Shakespeare, however, we can also learn much about specific societies by the way in which they engage his works. In this chapter, we will look at how a very specific American desire has been expressed through the cultural adaption of Shakespeare’s Othello into Tim Blake Nelson’s O. This chapter will first examine the reasonless evil of Iago in the original play. It will then look at the traditional American desire to understand the “why” behind so many things using as a baseline John Winthrop’s 1630 “City on a Hill” sermon. Finally, it will look at the changes made to the villain Iago from the original in Othello into the character Hugo in O
and how these changes are reflective of this characteristic of American political thought and culture.
