What On Earth Am I Reading?

Hello again, my wonderful readers! Welcome back to my blog. I want to introduce you all to the book I am currently reading which is Jennifer Government, by Max Barry.

To be completely honest, I do not have a specific topic for this essay so I am mostly going to talk about the things that caught my attention while reading. But first, let me provide you with some background about the book.

It is set in a type of dystopian era where things are almost perfect for the people living in that society. The entire world is basically owned by corporate companies that are for profit organizations. In most markets, the government has some type of influence on how things are produced, bought, and sold, however, in this society, the government basically has no say in anything that any company does. Finally, it can be compared to the novel 1984 by George Orwell, however, it criticizes the fact that there is not enough political power as opposed to too much political power. But that is basically an overall breakdown of the whole book. Let us get into the weirder things.

Now, the first thing that caught my eye was the fact that this girl had a barcode tattooed under her eye. Out of all the tattoos, someone could possibly get, she chooses a barcode.  Really? It probably has some deeper meaning in the rest of the book so maybe I should not judge just yet.

Another thing I noticed was the fact that every single chapter that I have read so far has been named after some type of company. When I first started reading, I thought it was coincidental how the first couple of chapters were named after big name companies. As I kept reading, I saw that literally every single last chapter was named after a company whether it be big or small. Weird, right?

This next thing actually kind of scares me. Remember how in the beginning I said that the whole world is basically controlled by corporate companies? Well, the United States has control over those companies and all of the other countries in the world. That’s kind of scary. The United States is already very powerful as it is, but to have control over every single country in the world? Now that is something else.

Another aspect that I am sure most adults would love is the fact that taxes are illegal. Other places in the world are ridiculed if they still allow their citizens to pay taxes. I thought this was so funny because the way they were making fun of other countries was probably the funniest thing I have ever read in a single book. I thought it was probably the dumbest thing to allow taxes to be illegal because how would the world even make money? But I mean, I'm not one to judge how people make their money so shout out to the world of Jennifer Government. 

Mirror, mirror on the wall… who is to blame of them all?

I know, I know. The title sounds corny but at least I tried. Anyway, let us get into the more serious stuff. Who really is to blame for all the mischief that went on in Othello?

 Now most people would automatically assume that it was fully Iago’s fault just because he was the one who plotted the most against Othello. I mean, I can understand why one would believe that because usually, the person who does the most plotting is the person who holds the most blame. Since Iago basically ruined everyone’s life in the play, he should hold the most blame, right? In my opinion, that is completely wrong.

I wouldn’t say that Othello deserves all the blame but he does hold a significant amount. While reading, there were so many things that irked me about Othello’s character and the way he handled everything he was told. I honestly do not even know where to start. Let me just explain my thought process while reading Othello. At first, I thought Othello was such a good person. Maybe a little cocky, but nonetheless still a good person. As the play progressed, I started to see some changes, like him getting progressively angrier, which made m ad because he had no reason to get mad. At least, that’s what I thought. Then at the end, I thought that Othello was the dumbest person alive because he should never have believed Iago in the first place, even if he was his right-hand man. But enough ranting. Let’s get back to the real issue.

Wait… what was it again? Oh yeah, Othello causing all the trouble. In my opinion, Othello is the person I blame the most for various reasons. The first being that he did not appoint Iago as his lieutenant. Let’s think about it for a second. If Othello had appointed Iago to be the lieutenant in the first place, do you really think Iago would have gotten everyone involved in his tangled web of revenge and jealousy? Actually, that question is up for debate because Iago is a very surprising, angry, little person. But moving on….

The second reason is the fact that Othello would rather believe his lieutenant, Iago, over his own wife, Desdemona. Granted, your lieutenant is never supposed to lie to you and everything he says should be credible, but you obviously married your wife because she wouldn’t lie to you either, right? The amount of trust Othello placed in the hands of Iago were absolutely shocking to me. Even friends in our modern age do not put that same amount of trust in the hands of their other friends. That amount of trust allowed Iago to play Othello like a toy therefore leading to a bunch of important characters to their death. Othello’s anger played right into the hands of Iago and Iago was able to control almost everyone in the play. Not cool man…

I really did not want to throw Othello under the bus like this but sadly, I had to hand the blame over to him. His simple mistake was trusting Iago too much with basically his entire life. It was as if Othello was the marionette being controlled by Iago, the evil puppet master. But now, I want to know what you, my blog readers, think. As readers, we could tell that all the characters thought Iago was mostly to blame but tell me. Do you agree with me or do you think I’m entirely wrong? Tell me in the comments; I would love to know what you think!