Knowledge Is Power

1160 Words5 Pages
Robin Morgan once stated; “Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.”
How would you interpret knowledge as power? Is all knowledge power? Good evening, and welcome to the Sydney Writer’s Festival. Thank you for celebrating the National Year of Reading.

My interpretation of the quote “Knowledge is power”, is the ability of an individual to use the knowledge they possess in order to exercise power within their surroundings. Through identifying and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of those around them, they are able to successfully manipulate and influence everyone to suit their own desires. Power can be used in a beneficial manner, or as a method of corruption. The texts Othello by William Shakespeare and The Devil Wears Prada by David Frankel both portray protagonists and characters that exemplify the term ‘knowledge is power’. The main characters that portray this concept both wear a social mask to give the illusion that they are of one nature, but in fact have an underlying nature that nobody recognizes. We can clearly see this in both texts, as the audience knows information that few if not none of the characters are aware of.
For those of you who have engaged with the text Othello, you will know the character of Iago as a megalomaniacal, arrogant deceiver who uses his intellectual power on others due to built up resentment and hatred. Isn’t he just one of those characters that keeps you hungry for more? You hate him, yet you love him at the same time? Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada too uses her intellectual power in order to inflict fear upon everyone who encounters her, and to keep herself higher than everyone else.

In the text Othello, Iago states “The moor is of free and open nature, who thinks men honest but seem to be so”

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