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Faults Written in the Stars
During the Ancient Grecian time periods, tragedy meant death because one defied against an outer prophecy. Modern day tragedy was simply realism, the unspoken way of life. In Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Ibsen's A Doll's House, the main characters - Nora and Oedipus, are both constructed to illustrate flaws in society and how naive people are. Ibsen and Sophocles both developed tragedy into a central idea that all people surreptitiously understand. Nora and Oedipus make incompetent decisions that assist in discovering their fundamental nature as tragic heroes and provoke sorrow and pity among the audience.
Oedipus lived his entire life in a dark shadow of ignorance, just like Nora. Oedipus' archetype of a tragic hero begins as an all-powerful, honorable king that believed he could solve any riddle, and acts rapidly on decisions. Oedipus lacked complete self knowledge, “I will speak out now as a stranger to the story, a stranger to the crime. If I’d been present then, there would have been no mystery, no long hunt without clue in hand” (Oe...
Classical tragedy is one of the most popular sorts of tragedy. The main ideas of classical tragedies include pity and fear for the victim; downfall from a high position for the main character. They usually end in the death of the protagonist, they start in harmony and end in chaos, and it is usually the innocent character that suffers. Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus Rex’ is probably the most famous classical tragedy ever written. Sophocles first produced the play in Athens around 430 B.C. at the Great Dionysian, a religious and cultural festival held in honour of the god Dionysus. The story of ‘Oedipus Rex’ is about a boy who is fated to kill his father, and marry his mother. One of the main features of classical tragedies is that whatever is ‘fated’ to happen, during the story, will always happen, and the characters cannot change it, it is an inevitable tragedy.
In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Ibsen's A Doll's House, the main characters - Nora and Oedipus, are both constructed to illustrate flaws in society. Oedipus' psychological evolution sees him begin as an all-powerful, righteous king, who seemingly through no fault of his own murders his father and marries his mother. His evolution ends with his self-blinding, an action which Sophocles' uses to establish the true freedom of the individual before divine authority. In A Doll's House, the development of Nora Helmer leads her from believing that she is happily married to realizing that she is a mere possession for her husband's entertainment. By her decision at the end of the play to leave her family and explore her own self-identity, Ibsen is insinuating that concern for oneself is far from selfish; it is in fact a supreme duty. Both plays introduced new waves of thought into society, and proved that freedom and justice are essentially matters of individual decision and responsibility.1
Tragedy is a broad genre that may take many forms. Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Shakespeare's Hamlet both contain the basic elements of tragedy, but Hamlet is a tragic hero, while Oedipus is a tragic villain. From the opening moments of Hamlet, the audience knows that Hamlet must avenge his father's death. Oedipus, on the other hand, kills his own father and unwittingly marries his mother, thus sealing his own fate and fulfilling the prophecy that stated he would do just that.
“Oedipus Rex”, by Sophocles is a play which perfectly follows the template of tragedy where Oedipus is in search of his own identity. “A Doll’s House”, By Henrik Ibsen is not necessarily a tragic play although it does contain a tragic hero. Nora Helmer and Oedipus are both considered tragic heroes in their own different ways but they come to realize the importance of self-knowledge. To compare and contrast Nora and Oedipus, the analysis can be broken down into 3 stages; both characters statuses at the beginning of the play, their own experience of their downfall and the similarities for the knowledge that they have gained.
From the times of Aristotle to modern day Boal people have tried to come up with a definition of tragedy that encompasses all of the works they feel to be tragedies. However, there are always a few exceptions to their rules that make their thesis insubstantial. Those who define tragedies all have different elements that they say are necessary in classifying something as a tragedy. Unfortunately for us, no one definition has ever been settled upon that everyone agrees with. The one factor that does seem to be present in every interpretation of what is necessary in a tragedy is the catharsis that is brought up in the viewer. Without that emotional reaction, whether of pity, empathy, sympathy, or perturbation, a work never seems to be classified as a tragedy. O'Neill wrote Desire Under the Elms borrowing themes from the myths of Phaedra, Medea, and Oedipus. He was trying to create a Greek tragedy in the setting of his time. Racine wrote Phedre in classic Greek style, attempting to create a Greek tragedy that had been written in the modern day. Both of these plays sought to entwine the modern world with Greek tragedies. While they each have distinctly different ways of accomplishing their goal of writing a modern Greek tragedy, they are both tragedies in their own way and bring about the similar effect of Catharsis.
In the reading “Poetics” by Greek philosopher Aristotle, the word Tragedy is defined as “an imitation of an action that is serious complete and of certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament” (Aristotle 1). This indicates that tragedy is foreshadowing what might happen in the future. In the book of Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles, a Greek Philosopher as well, tragedy is well defined throughout the book. The components of tragedy are the following: good or fine, fitness of character, true to life or realistic, true to themselves, necessary or probable, yet more beautiful. A modern tragedy has the components in which characters no longer must be a king or anyone important with power, but it can be anybody
Greek tragedy is characterized by the emotional catharsis brought about by the horrific suffering of a heroic figure. In Oedipus The King, by Sophocles, the onslaught of pain assailing the protagonist is a result of his tragic flaw. Sophocles often used a characters hamartia to alter or influence the outcome or future of the hero. Oedipus' hubris traps him to fulfil the oracle and intensifies his punishment.
Both ignorance and pride are closely related to the tragic hero and heroine of Oedipus the King and A Doll’s House. It is substantially the leading factor in the downfall of the characters, starting almost from the beginning of the tragedy, gradually building until the bliss, the fool’s folly, is wiped clean by a realization, a gatherance of knowledge that leads them to their suffering. Oedipus knows not of his herit...
efining tragedy is not an easy task because it has meant different things at different times. Aristotle writes in the Poetics that tragedies must represent a complete, serious, and important action that rouses and then purges (by catharsis) fear and pity in the spectators, with a central character who moves from happiness to misery through some frailty or error (hamartia). There is still much debate regarding the precise translation and application of these terms. It is supposed that the word “tragedy” comes from the Greek tragoidia or goat-play, and it is based on the assumption that the tragic hero is essentially another version of the sacrifice offered throughout human history to indulge an angry god.
It is exactly this bad decision to which he is blind to his own doing, due to his tragic flaws. Aristotle also defined a tragic hero as having the character's flaw result from something that is also a central part of their virtue, which is Oedipus’ intelligence. Consequently, this need for knowledge pushes Oedipus to discover the truth. His intelligence directly influences his pride and arrogance, as he believes that he would have never been out-wit by the gods. A Tragic hero also usually possesses hubris, or excessive pride. Arrogance and pride virtues also play a role in his fall. Oedipus cannot accept the foretelling about his fate, due to his excessive pride. For this reason, Oedipus rejects the idea that the gods are in control of the lives of humans, and fate all together. This is evidence or his excessive pride and ego, as he believes that he cheat the gods. Oedipus commands information, however damaging it be, because he believes he can handle the truth. “Did you rise to the crisis? Not a word, you and your birds, your gods—nothing. No, but I came by, Oedipus the ignorant, I stopped the Sphinx! With no help from the birds, the flight of my own
Although written after Sophocles crafted The Oedipus Trilogy, Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero fits perfectly with Oedipus. Aristotle, refers to tragic hero’s as those who are born of a noble birth and are fated by the Gods to doom and destruction. The tragic drama involves choices of free will and results in a paradox of whether if fate or free will is responsible for the suffering in the tragic hero’s life. The hero struggles against their fate, which leads to the drama of the downfall and the self-realization of their own self. Oedipus embodies Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero, as he struggles with his own fate, and is blind to his own self with his impulsive search for the truth.
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.
Before the twentieth century plays were mainly written as either a tragedy or comedy. In a tragic play the tragic hero will often do something that will eventually destroy him. In the book Oedipus the King, Oedipus is the tragic hero. In this tragic play the main character, which is portrayed as Oedipus, will do a good deed that will in turn make him a hero. This hero will reach his height of pride in the story, and in the end the action, which he had committed earlier, will return and destroy this man who was once called a hero.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself among many other things. Oedipus is often portrayed as the perfect example of what a tragedy should be in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics. Reason being that Oedipus seems to include correctly all of the concepts that Aristotle describes as inherent to dramatic tragedy. These elements include: the importance of plot, reversal and recognition, unity of time, the cathartic purging and evocation of pity and fear, the presence of a fatal flaw in the “hero”, and the use of law of probability.
Oedipus the King by Sophocles has the ingredients necessary for a good Aristotelian tragedy. The play has the essential parts that form the plot, consisting of the peripeteia, anagnorisis and a catastrophe; which are all necessary for a good tragedy according to the Aristotelian notion. Oedipus is the perfect tragic protagonist, for his happiness changes to misery due to hamartia (an error). Oedipus also evokes both pity and fear in its audience, causing the audience to experience catharsis or a purging of emotion, which is the true test for any tragedy according to Aristotle.