A tragedy, in literary terms, is defined as a literary work in which a great person suffers extreme sorrow, or is destroyed as a result of a character flaw or a conflict with an overpowering force, often through no fault of their own. William Shakespeare is known as one of the greatest play writers in the world. Many of his tragedies exemplify this common theme: some things in life seem destined to happen, regardless of the path we take. Three of his most famous tragedies, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet, illustrate this theme.
Hamlet demonstrates that an overpowering force determines his fate. A series of tragedies begins when Hamlet, a prince, encounters a ghost that appears to be his dead father, King Hamlet. The ghost tells Prince Hamlet that he was murdered by his uncle, Claudius (King Hamlet’s brother), who is now married to Prince Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude. He orders Hamlet to seek revenge for his murder. Hamlet becomes obsessive about avenging his father’s death; hence this becomes an overpowering force in his life. Claudius realizes Hamlet knows the truth about his role in his father’s murder, and recruits Laertes, the son of the Lord Chamberlain, to kill Hamlet. Hamlet realizes the plot Claudius hatched and many people die as a result, including Gertrude and Laertes. Prince Hamlet achieves his revenge on Claudius and kills him, and tragically, Hamlet then dies. The focus of Hamlet’s life was revenge on Claudius. Although he achieved success and got his revenge, this consuming force destroyed him.
Julius Caesar is another of William Shakespeare`s famous tragedies. This tragedy shows how character flaws can lead to one’s downfall. Julius Caesar is a man who becomes ruler over Rome. He believes that he wil...
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...e since they feel they will never be able to be together as long as their families are adversaries. Ironically, the tragedy of their deaths leads the families to settle their differences and make peace with each other. They even promise to put up a monument in memory of Romeo and Juliet. This peaceful existence makes the destiny of Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths even more tragic.
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will” (Shakespeare). In life we all have a route that we are supposed to follow to achieve our goal. Our attitude towards the path to achieve that goal is what will shape our ends. Our reactions to our obstacles we face are what are going to set us through the path. Shakespeare was trying to have an overall theme throughout his tragedies, to get through obstacles to keep continuing on the path to our overall achievement in life.
The story of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. The two lovers go against their families and against their hate to be together but they don’t think about the consequences, which in the end are devastating.
King Hamlet loved his son like any father does. Hamlet looked up to his father like all children do and his life was greatly changed when he learned of his fathers death. After hearing the news of his father’s death, Hamlet felt as if a part of his life was ripped away from him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. During an encounter with his father’s ghost, King Hamlet, Hamlet learns that his father was murdered. It was not the news that his father was murdered that shocked Hamlet into reality, it was the fact that the one who murdered him, was in fact his own loving brother, Claudius. After killing his own brother, Claudius believes that he can go on with life like nothing has happened. Hamlet does not understand how someone can murder somebody, who is not only the King, but their own brother, and go on with life like he did nothing wrong.
A tragedy is a genre of play, a form of drama that portrays the suffering of a heroic individual who is often overcome by the very obstacles he is struggling to remove. A tragedy excites terror or pity. Each tragedy can be considered a tragedy because it involves a tragic ending to the play as a whole and a tragic hero. However, there are three main types of tragedies. Firstly, in Greek tragedies, everything is deterministic.
Tybalt and Mercutio provoking one another plays a big part in the death of Romeo and Juliet. The family feud causes Romeo and Juliet to keep secrets from their family which also results in their death. Lastly Capulet forcing Juliet to marry Paris is the main reason why they ended up giving their lives for one another. At the end both families admit that it is their own faults that their children died. The death of Romeo and Juliet puts them at peace, after all Romeo and Juliet's love story changes the Capulet and Montague feud into
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
Hamlet soon is told that his father was murdered by Hamlet’s own uncle Claudius. Hamlet takes on the task of vengeance after he was given word from his dead father’s ghost who is stuck in purgatory until revenge is sought out. Hamlet taking on this task seals his fate as he goes on a trail of madness, violence and anarchy. Hamlet’s choice of vengeance led to him to kill Polonius and indirectly himself. His choice to assume this madness drove his girlfriend away and nearly got himself killed by order of King Claudius. In the end Hamlet died by the sword of Laertes son of Polonius who Hamlet killed. Hamlet’s one choice of vengeance created a domino effect in his life which eventually to his own
A tragedy is : a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically involving a great person destined to experience downfall or utter destruction, as through a character flaw or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or an unyielding society. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy in which the great person or character caught up in downfall and utter destruction is Romeo. Romeo’s utter destruction as a tragic figure is the suffering around him. All of this suffering and tragedy in Romeo and Juliet can be traced back to Romeo or the grudge between the Montagues and the Capulets. Romeo is the most tragic figure in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, so he is the leading cause to all suffering to other characters.
What is a tragedy? Furthermore, what makes something tragic? Often times the tragedy of a situation is debatable, for people have different opinions. In the story of Romeo and Juliet, however, there is no debate; that play is a tragedy. Throughout the entire story, characters made decisions that led to terrible happenings despite the characters’ best intentions. Romeo was one of these characters and although he is an arguably moral human being, he ends up causing great suffering in others. It was his decisions that caused nearly all of the actions which made this play the tragedy it is. The play Romeo and Juliet, furthermore, follows Northrop Frye’s five stages of tragedy, which also confirms its place as a tragic play. Romeo also goes
Claudius is the brother of Hamlet’s late father, and is now married to Hamlet’s mother. Claudius appears to be a sympathetic husband who only has Gertrude and Hamlet’s best interests at heart. He is actually the main conspirator against Hamlet. He arranges for Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and others, to spy on Hamlet. When he feels Hamlet is becoming too big of a problem, the ‘loving father and husband’ plans to have his stepson murdered upon arrival in England. Hamlet finds evidence of this, and returns to Elsinore. Claudius receives a letter from Hamlet, stating he will be returning, which causes Claudius to manipulate Laertes by pretending he cares for him. He also claims to mourn the death of Laerte’s father, Polonius, stating, “I loved your father”, in order to convince Laertes to agree to kill Hamlet (IV.vii,34). Claudius arranges for what appears to be a friendly duel between Hamlet and Laertes, but plots to use this match to end Hamlet. He poisons Laertes’s blade, and as a backup, poisons the cup of wine Hamlet is to drink from. Claudiu...
A tragic story represents the downfall of goods and destruction by evil. Tragedy is a descending story shape. It can be compared to the season of fall because both fall and tragedy go from good to evil where living things die. Tragedy starts with "Destruction of the Beautiful," in which virtuous characters are destroyed through no fault of their own; this descends to "The Death of Innocence" where faultless characters meet the realities of life and are changed forever; "Triumph and Defeat" shows us a state where a quest either fails or triumphs but in the midst of suffering; "Pride and Death" in which a character who is familiar with evil is presented with affliction; "Nothingness" where a character only knows suffering and evil in life; and "Horror" where a victim of great horror can only escape through death. Tragedy is like a black hole of misery where a victim becomes a prisoner in hell like life and suffers until death. In Night, a horrific autobiography of Elie Wiesel's life in the Nazi concentration camps, Wiesel witnesses unspeakable acts of appalling pain and suffering. These included a boy killing his father for a piece of bread and the death of Wiesel's own father. Wiesel is eventually liberated from the concentration camps but it is after witnessing the loss of his friends, family, country, faith, and religion. Wiesel was one of millions who faced the tragic and unspeakable acts of the Nazis. In the concentration camps people gave up and lost any hope. This ultimately led to destruction, which can be compared to the phase of "Horror."
Old Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. Only two months after her husband’s death a vulnerable Gertrude marries her husband’s brother Claudius. Gertrude’s weakness opens the door for Claudius to take the throne as the king of Denmark. Hamlet is outraged by this, he loses respect for his mother as he feels that she has rejected him and has taken no time to mourn her own husband’s death. One night old Hamlets ghost appears to prince Hamlet and tells him how he was poisoned by his own brother. Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.
“A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also as having magnitude, complete in itself in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form: with incidents arousing pity and fear; wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.”
In 350 B.C.E., a great philosopher wrote out what he thought was the definition of a tragedy. As translated by S.H. Butcher, Aristotle wrote; “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. . . . Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, Melody. (http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html)” Later in history, William Shakespeare wrote tragedies that epitomized Aristotle’s outline of a tragedy. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one such tragedy.
A tragedy has many definitions, but the Merriam-Webster version defines it as: “a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that excites pity or terror.” The latter part, about disastrous conclusion is true for Shakespeare’s tragedies, and Othello is no exception.
King Hamlet has just died, leaving his son, wife, and kingdom alone. His brother, Claudius, gains the throne and marries the kings widow, Queen Gertrude. Come to find out, Hamlet discovers a ghost by way of some watchmen and Horatio, a great friend of his. The ghost turns out to be none other than King Hamlet's spirit, or so Hamlet believes. Upon this finding, Hamlet is informed by the ghost that Claudius was the one who caused his death and ordered due revenge. He sets off to do just that but is delayed frequently by his contemplative, indecisive personality and becomes very sad, confused, and a little bit crazy.