Tragedy has a tendency to mean different things to different people, with one of the most common concepts being an event that makes a person’s life take a turn for the worse, such as a death or a failed test. And in some aspects this is true in drama. The oxford Dictionary defines Tragedy as a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character, this is true. One of the original concepts and ideas behind tragedy as implored by the ancient greeks was to give people an understanding of our lives as represented through fictitious media, within classic times the focus had a tendency to focus on the relationship between the gods and the people. And since the classic times, right up until the modern day the tragedy has been amongst the most enjoyed medium themes with this being due to the mix of emotion that it has on its audience, sorrow and despair on the behalf of the suffering soul and yet pleasure in the representation of angst and pain.
The philosopher Aristotle once depicted the definition and attributes of a tragedy in his writings, the Poetics, his writings concluded the key features of a tragedy. The protagonist/s is to be of a nobility or have an air of nobility about him or as Aristotle said “megalopsychia”, this reflecting common in Shakespeare's plays where in many of his tragedies such as Macbeth but also in the Merchant of Venice where the protagonist is not of noble birth but of a high class. The purpose of this so that the inevitable fall in a tragedy is seen to have a greater impact on the audience, to see a character to go from such highs as riches and power to lows of disease and even death. Aristotle’s key concept of the tragic hero is the idea of the
color Patricia Kendrick HUS – 135 March 2, 2014 Caught In the Crossfire No one should have to live in fear of the constant daily threat of violence and death. It is a basic human right that every person has the opportunity to live in peace. In the past few years the world has witnessed several tragedies involving gun violence in the United States. In January 2013 twenty children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. I myself can think of five…
Samuel Leibowitz Samuel was a huge asset in the Scottsboro Trials. He stood up for what was right and justice. Although he was placed there by the International Labor Defense he did believe in what he was fighting for. He took the case to "defend the basic rights of man." Atticus is such a spot on repersentation of Samuel. He is just, he is kind, he seemed to be soft spoken but strict. The book almost makes Atticus seem too perfect but Harper Lee did a wonderful job creating such an accurate picture…
storylines that have been around for many years. Disney’s The Lion King placed a children’s façade on a very serious story of responsibility and revenge. The Lion King doesn’t seem to be based on a fairytale, but rather on the Tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The basic character models are concealed, and the storyline is simplified for children. But with a closer inspection of the characters themselves and the storyline, we can see just how apparent these similarities are. It’s the story…
Nick Sheriff Period 4 The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet is full of death and despair. This is the basic structure of such forms of literature. But who is to blame for the death of the stars of the play, Romeo and Juliet? It is very clear that Tybalt is to blame because of his neglect to stop the first fight in the play, his attack on Romeo, and the chain reaction that ensued following those events . In fact,he is not only responsible for Romeo and Juliet’s…
Creon: The Archetype of a Tragic Hero The Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles is a story of defiance on one part and ignorance on the other, ultimately resulting in downfall in both cases. The play begins in the aftermath of a civil war in Thebes; there are many casualties including two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles. These brothers along with their sisters, Antigone and Ismene, are the children of Oedipus, the previous king who suffered a curse that led to his inevitable demise. The current…
by a sense of hopelessness and tragedy. The love story between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley that is central to the novel’s plot is, like the war itself, haunted by tragedy. Throughout A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway refers to geographic locations, governments, and battles with which his 1929 audience would have been familiar, since the novel was published just over a decade after the end of World War I. For today’s audience, it is useful to have some basic knowledge of World War I, which…
Jane. “Would you cruise after Concordia?” CNN. Cable News Network, 25 Sep. 2013. Web. 19 Oct. 2013 After the wreck of the Costa Concordia, where 32 cruise attendees were killed, CNN surveys the effects of the crash. They start by calling the tragedy a wakeup call for the cruise industry that has let passengers neglect safety drills. They go on to discuss the decrease in cruise fares and their hopes for it to draw in new customers. The article is helpful because it shows the prospective customers’…
The Inevitability of Tess‟s Tragedy Haiyan Gao School of Foreign Languages, He Ze City, China Abstract—Thomas Hardy is the influential English novelist and realist writer in the nineteenth century. His masterpiece Tess of D'Urbervilles has won him the world prestige. Tess’s tragic fate is the core and clue of the novel. By analyzing the contemporary social, historical and cultural backgrounds and the heroine's character flaws, this paper points out that Tess's tragedy is caused by women's status…
The Fall of Man The ancient Greek notion of tragedy concerned the fall of a great man, such as a king, from a position of superiority to a position of humility on account of his ambitious pride, or hubris. To the Greeks, such arrogance in human behavior was punishable by terrible vengeance. The tragic hero was to be pitied in his fallen plight but not necessarily forgiven: Greek tragedy frequently has a bleak outcome. Christian drama, on the other hand, always offers a ray of hope; hence, Macbeth…
Efthimios Mariakakis Professor Mihailovic 5-14-01 Though Shakespeares' Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus the King were written in two different eras, echoes of the latter can be found in the former. The common theme of Hamlet and Oedipus the King is regicide. Also, like in Oedipus the King, there is a direct relationship between the state of the state and the state of their kings. Furthermore, there is also a relationship between Oedipus' armed entrance into the bedroom in which Jocasta hanged…
