The optimist sees the rose and not its thrones; the pessimist stares at the thrones, oblivious to the rose. There are two types of people in the world—optimistic and pessimistic. Optimistic persons always look the positive side of the thing even in tragic consequences and live a cheerful life. On the other hand, pessimistic persons always look at the dark side of a thing even in happy conditions. The negative attitude of these persons makes their life tragic and full of tension. Economic depression, rapid social change, disillusionment and pessimism became the dark social realities of the modern age. It is in the twentieth century that man’s faith in the accepted values and established institutions of life were shattered with the result that man found himself lonely. The literature of the century in general and drama in particular, became powerful expression of this sense of nihilism. It was taken up and expressed beautifully by Eugene O’Neill in his almost each expressionistic play. Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1936, is one of the few American playwrights of the twentieth century to acquire world stature and reputation. It was O'Neill who, though deeply influenced by the classical drama, started modern American drama. He was an analyst of the American society and of the human situation. The cause of the sickness of today was the death of the old God and the failure to find a new one and the duty of the modern playwright was to dig at the roots of the sickness of today. Life, without God has no meaning and the fear of death cannot be comforted. In the modern times, the term "behind-life” relates to O'Neill’s concept of Fate and it suggests the existence of an extern... ... middle of paper ... ...erature. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he declared: I feel so deeply that it is not only my work which is being honored but work of all my colleagues in America—that the Nobel Prize is a symbol of the coming of age of the American theatre. (Goyal 39) Works Cited Clark, Barrett H. Eugene O’Neill: The Man and His Plays. New York; Dover Publication, 1947. Falk, Doris Virginia. Eugene O’Neill and the Tragic Tension: An Interpretative Study of the Play. New Brunswick, N.J.:Rutegers University Press,1958. Gassner, John. O’Neill: A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964. Goyal, Bhagwat Swarup. O’Neill and His Plays. New Delhi: Arti Book Centre, 1970. Raleigh, John Henry. The Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965. Sharma, N.K. O’Neill’s Dramatic Vision. New Delhi: Educational Publishers, 1985.
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.
Kernan, Alvin. “Othello: and Introduction.” Shakespeare: The Tragedies. Ed. Alfred Harbage. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1964.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare's Othello. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
The preeminence of woe has the potential to devour the vivacity of oneself. This faring of one’s internal afflictions is embedded in Shakespeare’s illustrious tragedy of Hamlet, most notably through the ceaseless complexity of the protagonist. Through his timeless mastery over the intricacy of detail, Shakespeare propels Hamlet, inconsolably stricken with the matter of demise, through interminable depression thereby initiating his fabricated, subsequently candid, lunacy ultimately contributing to his utter ignorance and culmination of life in order to reveal the calamity bestowed in the excessive contemplation of decease.
In Making History Hugh O'Neill was a well-liked character who also proved himself not only a good man, but intelligent and sensible. He inspires a large amount of sympathy in the audience. O?Neill had been fighting, backed by the Irish population, for Spain's support to rid themselves of the English for many years.
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespear. Othello. Dir. Grenblatt, Cohen, Howard, and Eisaman Maus. (second ed.) New York. 2008.
Bradley, A.C.. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Shakespeare, William, and James K. Lowers. Othello: Commentary, Complete Text, Glossary. Lincoln, Neb.: Cliff's Notes, 1968. Print.
Joyce Carol Oates, an American writer, holds a unique place in twentieth century literature. She won acclaim during her lifetime as a novelist and essayist and short story writer. The themes of Joyce Carol Oates are imposing and she portrays the social and psychological problems which are faced by the contemporary men and women in their day-to-day life. She is at her best in projecting the harsh and violent world of the present time. She presents a realistic sensation of life with a moral lesson to the reader. Joyce Carol Oates, like any other writer, selects out of the vast store of her experience. Daniel Hoffman says in his Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing, “Creativity thrived with alienation, some postwar writers insisted-or at least they held that the condition of alienation which had played a nurturing role in fostering modern art, literature, and thought was too precious a heritage to sell for an academic chair or a government post” (8).
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.
At first glance, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America appear to serve as two individual exercises in the absurd. Varying degrees of the fantastical and bizarre drives the respective stories, and their respective conclusions hardly serve as logical resolutions to the questions that both Beckett and Kushner’s characters pose throughout the individual productions. Rather than viewing this abandonment of reality as the destination of either play, it should be seen as a method used by both Beckett and Kushner to force the audience to reconsider their preconceived notions when understanding the deeper emotional subtext of the plays. By presenting common and relatable situations such as love, loss, and the ways in which humans deal with change and growth, in largely unrecognizable packaging, Kushner and Beckett are able to disarm their audience amidst the chaos of the on stage action. Once the viewer’s inclination to make assumptions is stripped by the fantastical elements of either production, both playwrights provide moments of emotional clarity that the audience is forced to distill, analyze, and ultimately, comprehend on an individual level.
One of the major themes in the play, “A Moon for the Misbegotten” by Eugene O’ Neill, is the fact that people are rarely what they seem to be at first glance. We see this theme in at least three out of the six characters in the play. “A Moon for the Misbegotten” is the story of an Irish father, Phil Hogan, and his daughter Josie who live in a small shanty on a farm in Connecticut.
- - -. Othello. 1968. Ed. Kenneth Muir. The New Penguin Shakespeare. London: Penguin Books, 1996.
Many playwrights drew from outside influences to compose their works. They would look the era they were living in, their personal lives, childhood experiences, and even ancient texts to acquire inspiration for their works and famous playwright, Eugene O’Neill, is no exception. Writing through two world wars, a great depression, and boom of the motion-picture industry, O’Neill certainly had much inspiration to choose from. Although not becoming nationally recognized until after his father’s death in 1920, O’Neill still managed to produce fifty completed works. Using influences from the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Eugene O’Neill demonstrated how he used the era he was living in to help compose his works.
Regardless of a person’s age or literary preference it is undeniable that William Shakespeare had a flair for composing dramatic tragedies. Tragedy is a powerful underlining theme which portrays the qualities of the human capacity. In one of Shakespeare’s most brilliant plays, Hamlet, tragedy is portrayed through the protagonist’s constant contemplation of suicide. Shakespeare often alludes to powerful images of death by using pathos and bereavement in life to be inconsequential. In the play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare produces a tragedy which illustrates the suggestion of suicide and the imagery of death as solutions to problems through Ophelia’s demise, the minor characters reflection upon death, and most importantly the protagonist Hamlet.