Comparing Heroes and Villains in Measure for Measure, Othello, and Hamlet
According to John Steinbeck, "Heroes are innocent; villains are cunning." This statement likely regards the internal aspects of characters, such as intellect, reasoning/motivation, and morality/responsibility, as indicated by consistency in action and/or articulation, as in direct speech or soliloquy. An examination of the heroes and villains in Measure for Measure, Othello, and Hamlet can determine whether Steinbeck's generalization is applicable.
Although Measure for Measure is not a tragedy by standard conventions, Angelo can be considered a tragic hero since he falls because of his hamartia, hubris. While he fits into Steinbeck's generalization of "innocent" as a victim of the circumstances created by the Duke, Angelo is responsible for his own fate. When asked "Whether you had not sometime in your life/Err'd in this point which now you censure [Claudio]," (14-15, II.i) Angelo affirms he has never felt love or passion, nor had sex. Thus, being a man of virtue, Angelo believes he has the right to impose morality upon the city: he unquestioningly enforces the law forbidding fornication. Since he is righteous, Angelo's motivation is not wrong or immoral; however, once he begins to manipulate sexual morality in his favor, his innocence decreases. Angelo offers to spare Claudio's life should Isabella engage in sexual relations with him; he claims to be tempted by Isabella's virtue, and does not recognize his own hypocrisy in proposing there is charity in sinning to save Claudio. The reduction of Angelo's virtue and righteousness continues as he sends Claudio's death warrant after he has had sex with Mariana, who he believed to be Isabella. In additio...
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...le to comedies, when considering A Midsummer's Night Dream, As You Like It, and Measure for Measure, in which the heroes are mostly virtuous ("innocent"), and the villains are devious ("cunning"); however, since the Duke and Iago are both cunning villains, Steinbeck's notion of villains is also appropriate for tragedy. More importantly, though, as previously noted, these “heroes” are directly responsible for their fall, and therefore challenge readers to consider the roles of heroes and villains in tragedy less traditionally; Othello is not cunning, nor is he innocent, and so Steinbeck's parameters exclude him. Thus, a more encompassing generalization would be that tragic heroes are responsible, and "villains are cunning" (Steinbeck).
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Alfred Harbage. 1969. Baltimore: Penguin, 1994.
All these literary pieces are plotted so intelligently that it takes a moment before one can distinguish between the monsters and the men. Macbeth was a tragic hero. Traditionally, a tragic hero is someone who is born as an example of greatness, but somehow along the way they acquire a flaw in character that brings about his own downfall.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Northrop Frye once said, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” Othello is the pillar of tragic heros, first playing the part of a loving husband with a beautiful wife, then being manipulated into believing his wife was cheating on him and killing her. Throughout the play, he played the part of the protagonist, everyone hoping he would figure out Iago was lying to him. Othello being the protagonist made the fact he was also a villain bittersweet. His apparent love for his wife Desdemona, his ‘just’ reasoning for killing her, and Iago’s deserving end all contribute to the tragic work as a whole.
Unfortunately, the quality of health care in America is flawed. Information technology (IT) offers the potential to address the industry’s most pressing dilemmas: care fragmentation, medical errors, and rising costs. The leading example of this is the electronic health record (EHR). An EHR, as explained by HealthIT.gov (n.d.), is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. It includes, but is not limited to, medical history, diagnoses, medications, and treatment plans. The EHR, then, serves as a resource that aids clinicians in decision-making by providing comprehensive patient information.
Dual Nature of Characters in Othello Many of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello, are duplicitous to the extent that how. they are perceived in public is not how they behave in private. The perception of the public plays.
Healthcare professionals associated with medical billing and coding know the progress the technology has made so far. In the last few decades, medical billing and coding has switched from being a paper-based system to a computerized format. Under HIPAA laws, medical practitioners had to develop new software in order to send out electronic bills. With the advent of electronic medical records (EMR), with one touch of a button, doctors, Nurse Practitioners and PAs can gain access to all the care a patient has ever received from every healthcare facility the patients visited previously and can figure out possible illnesses. This enables statistical documentation of the population as a whole as well. EMR can also make the healthcare system more transparent and allow integration with reimbursement data. As the healthcare system changes, this will prevent unnecessary costs and make it easier to get the reimbursements needed to treat a patient.
The comedy, “Much Ado About Nothing” depicts the story of a group of high-ranking soldiers who travel through a town called Messina. They had been to the town before, and this time Claudio confesses his love for the governor’s daughter, Hero. Because Leonato is so fond of Claudio, the wedding is set to be a few days away. This gives Don John, Claudio’s bastard brother, a chance to show his true hatred for Claudio. He comes up with a scheme to make Claudio think that Hero is cheating by dressing Margaret in her clothing and perching her near the window with another man. When Claudio sees this, he says that he will humiliate Hero instead of marrying her.
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” It is a well-known quote from Hamlet who was created by Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is known as a great poet, playwright, and actor. He had written about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and many other writings (Bevington, 1). He was not only a playwright, but also he was the father of 1,380 characters (Bevington, 2), including Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Claudio, Prospero and Henry V. Shakespeare successfully created different characters and each of them had their unique personalities. Most of the well-known characters were not only alive in the plays, but also their characteristics could be found in the reality.
Othello as Tragic Hero I would agree that it is helpful to an understanding of Othello's character to think of him as a tragic hero. On the surface, the opinion may be different because he kills his wife and commits suicide to end his anguish. However, if we look deeper the suffering that Othello has to go through, and the way that this powerful and heroic character is tricked and knocked off his high perch by Iago (a lower status member of the army) he can be seen as a tragic hero. All Shakespeare's tragic heroes seem to have certain qualities that put them in this category.
Elaine Surbeck explains the background of early childhood learning programs. She talks about the history and how things have originated. Programs for children between the ages of three and six, while more recent to the American educational scene, have roots that are deeper and more diverse in origin than most people realize. Kindergartens, nursery schools, and day-care centers have existed in the United States for more than 100 years. The kindergarten, serving 5-year-olds, was first established in St. Louis public schools in 1873; private kindergartens have existed since 1855. Nursery schools serve children two through four years old. While the first nursery school in the U.S was a parent cooperative “typical” in America were often associated with university home economics departments and were established about 1922.
There are obvious benefits to the technology such as quick access to patient information, efficient and faster billing, and lower storage costs. In addition, there are huge advantages to linking laboratory, radiology, and pharmacy information to the larger EHR. According to Murphy (2011), linking this data is very patient-centric as it lessens the likelihood of repeating tests, thus better care decisions happen when current data is available. However, there are cons to the technology that are hampering its full acceptance. In the digital age, the public is becoming aware of how pervasive computers are to our everyday lives. Computers run our cars; manage our financial matters, and numerous other daily functions. In addition, computers and electronic information allow medical devices to function and more often than not, track our medical footprints. When the shift to EHR was nearly mandated, the one consideration not taken into account is the public’s mistrust of how the healthcare industry uses this information. Certainly, those in the healthcare industry want to keep their patients healthy, heal them when illness develops, and develop better ways of treating disease; however, the medical industry, like all businesses, are motivated by profit. According to Blankenhorn (2010), medical records, from pharmacy records
- - -, dir. “Air Force Special Operations Command.” The Official Web Site of the United Stated Air Force. U.S. Air Force, 20 Sept. 2011. Web. 9 Feb. 2012. .
Hamlet. Romeo. Othello. These men not only star in some of Shakespeare’s finest plays, but they are all classic examples of tragic heroes. A tragic hero is one who is courageous and admired but who has a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. Othello was one of the greatest military men of the time. He was highly respected among his superiors for both his military prowess and level headed nature. This was a man who could be in the heat of a battle and would remain collected. Though this great hero also had great shortcomings. Othello was naive, jealous, and concerned with public appearance. Othello is truly a dynamic character. As the play continues and his jealous increases, Othello gradually changes from a flawless military general into
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.
A tragic hero is defined as,“a literary character who makes a judgement error that inevitably leads to their own destruction.”(Tragic Hero as Defined by Aristotle). A villain is, “a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.”
Early Childhood Education (ECE) is the term frequently applied to the education of young children from birth through age 8. Although early childhood education has existed since the creation of kindergarten in the 1800s, the last decade has seen a tremendous amount of attention devoted to the subject of early education for young children.