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Essay on the impact of shame
Essay on the impact of shame
Essay on the impact of shame
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There are many aspects that can lead to tragedy in texts, shame can be a strong aspect however there are others that can be just as dramatic as an aspect for a tragedy to take place. In this essay I will be looking at the effects of shame and other aspects of tragedies. In ‘Death off a Salesman’, it is clear from the start of Act 1 that Willie is ashamed of the way his life turned out and ultimately how he ends up treating his family poorly from his own shame.
Northrop Frye states in his book Anatomy of Criticism that the tragic hero is “on top of the wheel of fortune, halfway between human society on the ground and the something greater in the sky”. The book also declares that tragic heroes are “inevitable conductors of the power around them”, and conductors may be victims as well as instruments of destruction (website). Willy Loman, the epitome of a tragic hero, brings suffering upon not only himself, but others, including his wife and sons. Willy establishes Northrop Frye's definition of a tragic hero through the suffering of both himself and his friends and family, and this suffering contributes to the great tragic vision of the play as a whole.
The standard tragedy is composed of three parts in sequence: periperty, recognition, and suffering (Aristotle 37). Peripety, also known as “reversal”, is the “shift of what is being undertaken to the opposite in the way previously stated,” commonly from good to bad in tragedy, and recognition is “a shift from ignorance to awareness, pointing in the direction either of close blood ties or of hostility, of people who have previously been in a clearly marked state of happiness or unhappiness” (36). Aristotle states that the finest recognition is the one that occurs simultaneously with the peripety, but Eckbert the Fair does not strictly follow this model. It novella combines recognition with “pathos, a destructive or painful act, such as deaths on state, paroxysm of pain, woundings, and all that sort of thing” (37). Eckbert does not recognize the root of his sin until the very end where he encounters the old ...
As was demonstrated by the characters in Oedipus Rex and Antigone, acting on emotions causes more pain and catastrophe than acting with prudence. Not only did characters evoke catastrophe upon themselves, their actions forced grief upon others. Today, readers are still able to take this lesson away from reading such ancient Greek tragedies and are able to apply it to their everyday lives.
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...
Originating in Greece, tragedies were and remain a common and popular form of dramatic entertainment. To be considered an authentic tragedy, the protagonist must be one of aristocracy. This noble character begins the story as a likeable person whose destined fate is foreshadowed in dramatic irony to the reader. The reader is aware of the errors in judgment that the protagonist is inflicting on oneself. As the last to discover one’s unfortunate fate, the protagonist is devastated. The revelation is far too much to bear; therefore, the protagonist either commits suicide or inflicts pain or mutilation onto oneself. “Oedipus the King” reflects all of the essential components of a tragedy; however, “Death of a Salesman” lacks some of these defining characteristics. In “Death of a Salesman” the protagonist is not a “tragic hero” (Kennedy, Gioia 1282) like Oedipus. He lacks the nobility that is a prerequisite to being...
Almost 2500 years ago Aristotle defined a tragic plot as one containing six essential elements. The first is a hero (sympatheia) who is noble by birth or has risen to a place of power. The hero should also be of good character. Aristotle stated in The Poetics, “This is the sort of man who is not pre-eminently virtuous and just, and yet it is through no badness or villainy of his own that he falls into the fortune, but rather through some flaw in him, he being one of those who are in high station and good fortune.” The second is the flaw (Hamartia) in the hero’s character. The hero falls into misfortune not because of wickedness on his own part, but because he makes a moral mistake or error in judgement. The next components of a tragic plot are reversal (peripeteia), recognition (anagnorisis), and calamity (pathos). A reversal is a change of the situation into the opposite while recognition is a change from ignorance to knowledge. Aristotle said that the most effective reversal is one from good to bad whereas recognition is most effective when it coincides with reversals. One of the best ways to have a reversal and recognition is through a calamity. Combining these three elements correctly generates a powerful tragic plot. The sixth and last element is the audience’s response. In The Poetics Aristotle said that a tragedy should produce both pity and fear (catharsis) in the audience. “The plot should be so constructed that even without seeing the play anyone hearing of the incidents happening thrills with fear and pity as a result of what occurs.” Aristotle also stated, “the one [pity] being for the man who does not deserve his misfortune and the other [fear] for t...
A tragic hero is commonly known as a character of nobility that undergoes a fatal change which ultimately results in a tragedy. Arthur Miller, however, has a slightly different view in regards to what a tragic hero is. He asserts that a tragic hero does not necessarily have to be a character of nobility, instead can be an average person in possession of a tragic flaw. In Death of a Salesman, a play written by Arthur Miller, the criteria of a modern tragic hero are best expressed and demonstrated through the main character, Willy Loman. Willy Loman’s tragic flaw would be his excessive and unwarranted pride. This is because his pride causes him to live his life in a world of delusion, ultimately resulting in his very death. Willy’s pride first leads him into misunderstanding and mistreating his family, consequently resulting in family feuds and resentment. It then leads him into building his life out of false hopes, consequently resulting in his absolute failure in the business world. Finally, it results in him living an incredibly narcissistic and delusional life; to a point where he believes that he can attain fame and success through suicide. As it has been thoroughly demonstrated by Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, having excessive pride in one’s self can ultimately derail an individual’s life into a mass pit of delusion and failure.
Tragedy has been apart of human history since the dawning of civilization. Man has been plunged into terrible tragedies for ages. But not until the Greeks and prominent playwrights such as Sophocles did tragedy take on into its own on the stage. Out of this rebirth of tragedy came what has been considered, even by Aristotle himself, the greatest tragedy ever written, Oedipus the King. He delves into the human psyche: bringing forth the notion of predestination, a supposition desperately believed in by humans, betraying the fatal flaws of his hero and manifesting the suffering brought upon the hero by his tragic downfall. Though it was written more than a millennium ago, its basis and structure for tragedy has held strong, showing true in the modern tragedy of A Doll’s House. Written by Henrik Ibsen, it is a more down to earth tragedy on a level and situation that almost anyone can relate to. Though the heroine of the tragedy is almost no different than Oedipus, she has a form of personal nobility and pride that leads her to actions that eventually bring about her downfall. She suffers, she feels emotion. Both Oedipus the King and A Doll’s House set forth a range of human emotions that allows the audience to connect and feel for the tragedy, given to one to reflect upon human nature.
Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s – happening to him. He – talks to himself” (Miller 21). Willy, as a father, cares about his children but he wishes they would do better. He believes Biff should have been an athlete. According to Harrington, “Even figuratively, Willy is haunted, and particularly in Biff’s failure to achieve success as a sports figure” (108). This haunting is part of what led to Willy’s slow plunge into madness. As Willy’s career in sales fails, he also fails, even failing his family. Heyen adds: “He didn’t have anything of real value to give to his family, or if he did, he didn’t know what it was” (48). His debilitating flashbacks and delusional hallucinations with Uncle Ben cement his horrifying realizations that he has let down his family. Willy Loman blames the economy for his downfall in his career. In one of his more extreme outbursts he exclaims, “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. ...
Numerous people have tried to define a tragedy, and even with the most popular definitions, flaws are still apparent within it. When analyzing the stories, Oedipus the King and Romeo and Juliet, using Aristotle’s well-renounced definition of a tragedy. Differences between them become clear and their similarities obscured. The story of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is about two young lovers on opposing families and through a series of misfortunes end up killing themselves. Oedipus the King by Sophocles is about a king who did not have any control over his destiny and in the end does everything he tried not to do. The distinctions between these two stories become evident because of noble figures, acknowledgment of consequences, and catharsis.
All great tragedies involve to varying degrees the psychological downfall of the protagonist. To explicate this point it is a simple matter to draw upon two tragedies that have remained famous through the ages. They are ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ by Thomas Kyd and the filmic adaption of Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Macbeth’ by Roman Pollanski. They demonstrate the point through literary techniques like foreshadowing, soliloquies etc. and through in the case of Macbeth through the additional visual techniques that enhance the realism of the psychological emancipation demonstrate that although all great tragedies are in part tragedies of the mind and that the tragedy of the mind is vital for another tragedy to occur for as Jacques Barzun famously said “Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy.” However there are other forces, actions etc. that influence what is viewed as the tragedy.
job. He once believed you could flourish on the merits of disposition alone but now he wonders if he is too verbose. Willy now wonders if he ever controlled the qualities of a prosperous salesman.
Paulo Coelho once said, “Tragedy always brings radical changes in our lives, a change that is associated with the same principle of loss.” In Poetics, Aristotle describes the qualities of a tragedy and uses the character of King Oedipus as a perfect example of tragedy. In the modern world, authors continued to create tragedies as depicted in the modern book of Death of a Salesman. Considering the time difference between the two books, one is left wondering how the concept of tragedy has remained relevant for many centuries, and whether in the modern world tragedy has changed in any way. In light of these facts, the author gives a personal definition of tragedy and examines the tales of Oedipus the King and Death
When the realities of life become too harsh, humankind has a natural tendency to choose the most convenient solution to his problem: illusion. They build dreams and fantasies to conceal the more difficult truths of their lives. In his play Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller portrays the hold of such illusions on individuals and its horrible consequences. Through the overly average, overly typical Loman family, Miller shows how dreams of a better life become, as Choudhuri put it, “fantasies to the point that the difference between illusion and reality, the Loman’s dreams and the forces of society, becomes blurred” (Choudhuri 70). The Loman family created dreams and illusions that were far better than their reality.
Aristotle proves that his praise towards attributing Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex as the most important tragedies of all time is well-established by the theories laid down in his Poetics. It is still considered to be relevant since it manages to relate to any generation, regardless of age and race, and as it strongly incites sympathy from the audience – in that, we might be too eager to know if he would be at least free from awful misery he had to suffer upon his death, and also, it elicits fear in having the same situation to coincidentally happen to us. Aristotle characterizes these emotions as inseparable in tragedy as he said that what we pity in others is also what we fear for ourselves. Oedipus Rex used these two essential qualities to generate