The Caretaker by Harold Pinter breaks the boundaries of the classical dramatic genres. What is more, he also abandons the concept of the classical tragic hero described by Aristotle and uses the more modern idea presented by Arthur Miller in his essay Tragedy and the Common Man. Additionally, in his Poetics, Aristotle set number of guidelines by which the dramatic works should be arranged and what crucial elements of the dramatics works, the playwrights should consider and follow. However, in The Caretaker, Harold Pinter do not follow those patterns, instead he blends genres such as, tragedy, comedy, farce, realism, naturalism and the Theatre of the Absurd. This mixture of various styles is essential to the entire play but also to the specific elements of the play. Namely, those are the language, the plot and the interaction between characters.
In his Poetics Aristotle claims that the primary purpose of a good tragedy is to invoke both pity and fear. In order to do so, the tragic hero has to be highly renowned and prosperous person. Only then it is possible to present the change in fortune from good to bad due to some extreme error made by the hero. However, Harold Pinter in The Caretaker does not follow any of those rules. The main characters are ordinary men. They have flaws but they are not predestined to commit a critical mistake which would henceforth, affect their lives and their surroundings. As a result, the presentation of the tragic hero in reference to The Caretaker is similar to the one portrayed in the Arthur Miller’s essay Tragedy and the Common Man who explains that common people are equally important to be a subject of a tragedy as the high lords or the kings. Unlike the high-borne, common people usually trying to...
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...esemblance amplifies the credibility of the connection between the play and the real life.
All in all, The Caretaker is a great example of mixing the different genres and making it one. In so doing the, Pinter was able to depict a larger scope of life without any unnecessary adornments but life as it is. Not to mention that the play shows us that life is not only white and black but also has different colours and something in between. I strongly believe that by The Caretaker Pinter wanted to show different aspects of life and to show flaws that the classical comedy and tragedy have which is purely focusing on one element. However, the sincere and accurate picture of life has different shades, colours and angles. Therefore, we cannot put everything into the same bucket as life overlaps a large number of different experiences, both fortunate and unfortunate.
The tradition of the tragedy, the renowned form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis, has principally become a discontinued art. Plays that evoke the sense of tragedy-the creations of Sophocles, Euripides, and William Shakespeare-have not been recreated often, nor recently due to its complex nature. The complexity of the tragedy is due to the plot being the soul of the play, while the character is only secondary. While the soul of the play is the plot, according to Aristotle, the tragic hero is still immensely important because of the need to have a medium of suffering, who tries to reverse his situation once he discovers an important fact, and the sudden downturn in the hero’s fortunes. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is the modern tragedy of a common man named Willy Loman, who, like Oedipus from Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, exhibits some qualities of a tragic hero. However, the character Willy Loman should not be considered a full-on tragic hero because, he although bears a comparable tragic flaw in his willingness to sacrifice everything to maintain his own personal dignity, he is unlike a true tragic hero, like Oedipus, because he was in full control of his fate where Oedipus was not.
Heroes in literature and history, more often than not, meet tragic ends, unless they were created by Walt Disney. These particular people are often seen as someone who is apart from the masses in morals and attempt to accomplish a higher calling for the common good. The problem with this type of hero is that they are destined for suffering.Two such characters exist in classic literature, Winston Smith of George Orwell’s 1984 and Hamlet of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” Hamlet is the true classic tragic hero, though, because he is of noble birth, possesses high moral standards, completes the task he is given to better the world, and causes tragedy in both his life and the lives of others.
The idea of falling victim to one’s own flaws is often closely associated with the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, particularly the concepts of hamartia (a tragic or fatal flaw) and hubris (pride before a fall). Although The Winter’s Tale, The Great Gatsby and The Remains of the Day are not widely considered to be tragedies, yet there are elements of the definition that are relevant. This c...
The first main area of art and reality colliding in the play is the existence of characters who are referred to as Characters. Pirandello stretches the bounds of meta-theater by having actors portray Characters who swear they are not actors, when faced with other actors playing actual actors and a Director. The layers of unraveling of reality are astounding. The Characters must try and convince not only the Actors and the Producer of their true nature, but also the audience. Pirandello must convey his beliefs about the essence of art through the mouths of Characters seemingly unattached to the actuality of the theater around them. In the play, the Producer acts on stage in place of the author, questioning the sincerity and the true nature of the Characters, who become his r...
Othello is one of Shakespeare’s four pillars of great tragedies. Othello is unique in comparison to the others in that it focuses on the private lives of its primary characters. When researching the subject of Othello being an Aristotelian tragedy, there is debate among some critics and readers. Some claim that Shakespeare did not hold true to Aristotle’s model of tragedy, according to his definition in “Poetics,” which categorized Othello as a classic tragedy as opposed to traditional tragedy. Readers in the twenty-first century would regard Othello a psychological thriller; it definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat creating the emotions of terror, heart break, and sympathy. This paper will focus on what Shakespeare actually intended regarding “Othello” and its Aristotelian influences.
A tragic hero is a protagonist with a fatal flaw which eventually leads to a character's downfall. The tragic hero is often introduced as happy, powerful and privileged, and ends up dying or suffering immensely due to their own faulty action. John Proctor’s, the protagonist in the play, flaw that lead to his “downfall” was his inability to accept his fate and his pride in which he holds in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. John Proctor had displayed the four characteristics of a tragic hero goodness, superiority, a tragic flaw, and has an eventual realization
Aristotle once said, “A man cannot become a hero until he can see the root of his downfall.” According to Aristotle, the characteristic of a tragic hero is a man of noble stature and occupies a high status position. There should be a fatal flaw that eventually leads to his downfall, the tragedy is usually raised by its character’s fatal flaw and the audience must feel pity or fear for this character. While there is less pity or fear for Macbeth, Macbeth still is a character who portrays a tragic hero through his nobility, high status position, his hamartia, and error in judgment.
A tragedy should bring fear and pity to the reader. A man in this tragedy should not be exceptionally righteous, but his faults should come about because of a certain irreversible error on his part. This man should find a bad or fatal ending to add to the tragedy of the story, for this man in the tragic hero. The protagonist John Proctor portrays a tragic hero in The Crucible; his hamartia of adultery causes great internal struggles, he displays hubris by challenging authority, and he encounters catastrophe through recognition and reversal.
Aristotle’s tragic hero is made up of three requirements. The protagonist of the play must be a person of high estate. This allows the protagonist to fall from power or happiness to create a tragedy. The next requirement is the protagonist mus...
There are many heroes in this world, whether it’s a fireman or a doctor. A hero is defined based on their courage, nobility and strength. In contrast, there are tragic heroes. According to philosopher, Aristotle, the definition of a tragic hero is one that is of greatness and dignity but, despite their greatness, makes an error, otherwise known as the hero’s “tragic flaw” or “hamartia” which leads to his downfall. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, the main protagonist and round character, Macbeth starts as a man of greatness and dignity. His assumed loyalty to the country and king earns him respect from a variety of men and the title “Thane of Cawdor.” But, unfortunately because of his tragic flaw he is corrupted by his overwhelming ambition and destroys himself and the natural order of man. Macbeth transitions from the savior of his country, “Bellona’s bridegroom”, a “brave” and unbeatable man to a man of endless brutality. Macbeth is the epitome of a tragic hero.
The tragic hero is defined by Aristotle as "a great man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake” (Aristotle n. pag.). There are a few principles that Aristotle believes to form a tragic hero: the protagonist should be a person of power and nobility, who makes a major error in judgment and eventually comes to realization of his or her actions (Aristotle n. pag.). In Arthur Millers’ play, Death of a Salesman, he has twisted Aristotle’s belief of a tragic hero, and has created his own. Although Miller has twisted Aristotle’s belief, Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, has a tragic hero (Oedipus) that follows the flaws, dignity, and acknowledgment of the truth that Aristotle believes in to make a tragic hero. It is essential for them to recognize their position and role in the play. Due to the fact that Willy Loman and Oedipus experience tragic flaws throughout their respected plays, they both have nobility, and they both realize the fact (anagnorisis) that they made an error in their life (hamartia). Through their fatal mis-steps, their pride and ego, predominately affect their familial lives, which in turn causes them to realize the truth that they are tragic heroes.
Tragic heroes, who destined for a serious downfall, are the protagonist of a dramatic tragedy. A tragic hero is usually a great hero, who gets the most respect from other people; on the other hand, a tragic hero can also lose everything he gained because of his mistakes. His downfall is the result of a wrong judgment, a flaw which might combined with fated and external forces. The downfall can cause the tragic hero to suffer for the rest of his life. In many literary works, the downfall of the tragic heroes usually happen in their highest point. In the same way, Macbeth is a tragic hero in the play called “The Tragedy of Macbeth” which is written by a legendary writer, William Shakespeares. Macbeth is a great general who gained many respect from the people and even the king. In the highest point of his life, because of seeking for greater power, it created Macbeth’s downfall. Macbeth, a tragic hero, causes suffering for himself and others by committing murders and creating distress, which are the negative effects of seeking for a greater power.
When one hears the word tragedy, one can assume that the human emotions are responsible for the collapse of an individual. To the Greek philosopher Aristotle, however, a tragedy is “an imitation of an action of high importance…in language enhanced by distinct and varying beauties…[or] by means of pity and fear effecting its purgation of these emotions” (Kennedy & Gioia, 945). He defined a tragic hero as having three common characteristics: hamartia, or the tragic flaw in the character which coupled with hubris (pride which results in overconfidence) causes his downfall and demise; katharsis, the purgation of the audience’s emotions, which causes the audience to feel “not depressed, but somehow elated”; and anagnorisis, or the recognition of some fact not previously realized by the true identity of the main character (Kennedy & Gioia, 946). Therefore, as defined by Aristotle’s concept of tragedy, William Shakespeare’s Othello could be classified as a tragic hero. Shakespeare’s play includes jealousy and intrigue, which intertwined with pride and suspense create the finest of Aristotelian tragedies. Othello complies with the requirements for a tragic hero as Aristotle began with the premise that the hero must be of “high estate,” as if he were the member of a royal family; however, he yet falls from a hierarchy of power to one of abashment. He has married the daughter of a Venetian nobleman. He starts out well, but his end is one of drama. Moreover, Shakespeare’s plot develops as Othello’s katharsis is revealed through the climax and conclusion of the play, while the anagnorisis with the recognition that Iago was a traitor and Desdemona his innocent victim.
Throughout his life, Pinter has written about and protested against social pathologies like war, human rights violation, terrorism, discrimination and totalitarianism. Having first-hand experience of the horrors of World War II and growing up at a time of Holocaust which caused large scale extermination of Jews in Hitler’s Europe, led Pinter to voice against all forms of social pathologies and the totalitarian institutions which inflict social evils or diseases. The trauma that Pinter went through in the early years of his life made him comprehend and relate with the physical and mental trauma that victims of social pathologies go through. His plays especially the early comedies of menace and the later overtly political plays exhibit his concern with post-war man’s egotism, hopes, feelings, struggles, crises, aspirations and objections against dominion, power, self-obsessed government, menace, suppression, coercion, injustice,
According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is one of noble upbringing who undergoes a reversal of fortune. The hero must then realize that their peripetia is a direct result of their own tragic flaw. King Lear in William Shakespeare’s King Lear and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman both share the tragic flaw of being blind to reality, but Lear fits the remainder of Aristotle’s description more accurately. It is evident that Lear holds these tragic qualities because he is born of a noble birth, receives pity, and is able to see the truth. On the contrary, Willy Loman lacks these same characteristics. As a result, he fails to accept his mistakes unlike Lear did, proving that the one who more precisely