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Analysis of major characters in othello
Analysis of major characters in othello
Analysis of major characters in othello
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The tragedies of Antigone and Othello were written with great depth and are structured in such a way that both characters are victims, in spite of their crimes. Antigone and Othello are tragedy plays created by using many techniques to create the feelings of fear and pity. There are differences and similarities in characters, action, and themes between Antigone and Othello.
First, the major characters in both of the plays are suffering through great pain and end up with death. The drama Antigone which is written by Sophocles, tells the story of Antigone. Antigone is a tragic heroine who doesn’t have the power to challenge the authority of the king; she has to obey the rules. However, she shows her strong will and voices her opinions and she is willing to challenge the authorities and the rules. She not only fights for her brother, she also challenges her rights to speak out her thoughts. Yet, her sister Ismene is satisfied to recognize herself as a woman in a male dominated society. Ismene argues, “I, for one, I’ll beg the dead to forgive me- I’m forced, I have no choice- I must obey the ones who stand in power” (832: 80). Ismene's words clearly state her weak and helpless character. Antigone is not happy with her sister’s response, says, “Set your own life in order"(833: 97). Antigone is telling her sister to do her own life, and that she will do what she wants to bury her brother. Antigone preferring the god's laws to man's, disobeys Creon, to bury her brother Polyneices. After her uncle found out what Antigone did, he punished her with death. However, when Creon discovered that what he did was wrong; it was too late. Antigone is already dead, and Creon is punished by Heaven with the suicide of his own wife and son.
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Both of the plays are similar and differ in characters, themes and actions. Antigone and Desdemona stubbornness are their downfall. Both plays explore the theme of family loyalty, Antigone to her brother, and Desdemona to Othello. Yet, the themes are different, jealousy of Othello and the different view of laws between Antigone and Creon. We can learn that stubbornness sometimes blinds you to the effects of your actions. It relevant to the real life, for example, sometimes people don’t want to give up on something is because they don’t want other people to think he is weaker than others.
Work cited
Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.” Literature: A
Pocket Anthology. Ed. R.S.Gwynn. New York: Longman, 2008. 829-876.
Sophocles. “Antigone.” Literature: A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R.S.Gwynn. New York:
Longman, 2008. 829-876.
The two plays, "Antigone" and "Julius Caesar" both contained two very similar characters. In Antigone the nobleman, Creon, claimed the thrown after his nephews, heirs to Thebes killed each other in battle. Assuming that the populous was going to find him inadequate he laid a strict rule in order to keep the people under his control. Creon wanted Thebes to prosper and grow and was willing to do anything to achieve this. Through a chain of events Creon killed his entire family.
In Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Antigone, two characters undergo character changes. During the play the audience sees these two characters' attitudes change from close-minded to open-minded. It is their close-minded, stubborn attitudes, which lead to their decline in the play, and ultimately to a series of deaths. In the beginning Antigone is a close minded character who later becomes open minded. After the death of her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, Creon becomes the ruler of Thebes. He decides that Eteocles will receive a funeral with military honors because he fought for his country. However, Polyneices, who broke his exile to " spill the blood of his father and sell his own people into slavery", will have no burial. Antigone disagrees with Creon's unjust actions and says, " Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way." She vows to bury her brother so that his soul may gain the peace of the underworld. Antigone is torn between the law placed against burying her brother and her own thoughts of doing what she feels should be done for her family. Her intent is simply to give her brother, Polyneices, a proper burial so that she will follow "the laws of the gods." Antigone knows that she is in danger of being killed for her actions and she says, "I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down with him in death, and I shall be as dear to him as he to me." Her own laws, or morals, drive her to break Creon's law placed against Polyneices burial. Even after she realizes that she will have to bury Polyneices without the help of her sister, Ismene, she says: Go away, Ismene: I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too, For your words are hateful. Leave me my foolish plan: I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, It will not be the worst of deaths-death without honor. Here Ismene is trying to reason with Antigone by saying that she cannot disobey the law because of the consequences. Antigone is close-minded when she immediately tells her to go away and refuses to listen to her. Later in the play, Antigone is sorrowful for her actions and the consequences yet she is not regretful for her crime. She says her crime is just, yet she does regret being forced to commit it.
In the play, Antigone, two brothers are killed in battle. One of them, Polyneices, is considered to be a rebel by the new ruler of Thebes, Creon. The corrupt and prideful king, Creon, created an edict that states that nobody could bury Polynices’s body because he was a traitor to Thebes and his family and denies the sanctification and burial of Polyneices's body because of his rebellion and intends to leave him to become the meal of wild animals. Polyneices's sister, Antigone, defies Creon by giving her brother a proper burial, no matter the consequences. Both King and Antigone sought to do what they thought was the right thing to do, even if it was against the law. Though King and Antigone are two completely different people from two completely different times, they were actually quite similar in that they both were minorities at a disadvantage, and lacking power and credibility among those in control. King and Antigone both fought for injustice and what they believed in, however, not necessarily in the same
The Themes of Antigone and Oedipus Antigone and Oedipus, written by Sophocles, are dramatic plays with a tragic ending. The main theme for Antigone is that people sometimes have to learn the hard way from their mistakes. This theme is expressed in the final four lines of the play. They read, There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, and proud men of old age learn to be wise.
Antigone is a play about the tension caused when two individuals have conflicting claims regarding law. In this case, the moral superiority of the laws of the city, represented by Creon, and the laws of the gods, represented bt Antigone. In contrast, Oedipus The King is driven by the tensions within Oedipus himself. That play both begins and concludes within the public domain, the plot being driven by the plague that troubles the city, and which is so graphically brought to life by the Priest. In both Antigone (ll179-82) and Oedipus The King (ll29-31) the city is likened to a storm tossed ship, and it cannot be merely coincidence that Oedipus The King was written at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, a time when Athens itself was suffering the effects of plague. Oedipus The King reaches its climax with a now blinded Oedipus daring to show himself to the people of Thebes, forgetting that he is no longer the leader of the state. In Antigone, it is Creons abuse of absolute power that leads to his tragic downfall. Whilst Oedipus determinedly tried to get to the root of his peoples ills, ultimately discovering that he was in fact the cause of them, Creon morphs from a supposedly caring leader into a tyrannical despot, eager to take the law into his own hands. It is the actions of Antigone that helps to bring about Creons fall from grace, as her steadfast refusal to accept th...
Antigone, as a character, is extremely strong-willed and loyal to her faith. Creon is similarly loyal, but rather to his homeland, the city of Thebes, instead of the gods. Both characters are dedicated to a fault, a certain stubbornness that effectively blinds them from the repercussions of their actions. Preceding the story, Antigone has been left to deal with the burden of her parents’ and both her brothers’ deaths. Merely a young child, intense grief is to be expected; however, Antigone’s emotional state is portrayed as frivolous when it leads her to directly disobey Creon’s orders. She buries her brother Polynices because of her obedience to family and to the gods, claiming to follow “the gods’ unfailing, unwritten laws” (Sophocles 456-457). CONTINUE
The main source of conflict between Antigone and Creon is the issue of the burial of Antigone’s dead brother. Both of her brothers were killed in battle, however one brother fought against their home city and was considered a traitor. Creon issued a law that whoever tries to bury this man will be put to death. Antigone is very upset because her one brother is graced with all the rites of a hero while the other is disgraced.
The play Antigone is usually thought of as either the tragedy of Creon or the tragedy of Antigone, but it is just as much the tragedy of Antigone's sister Ismene. In the play, Antigone and Creon hold on to two different ideals, Antigone to the ideal of sororal duty and holy rights, while Creon holds on to the rules of his kingdom, dominated by the laws of men and of reason. Ismene is obsessed by her role as a woman, choosing to ignore her feelings of obligation towards her family, and remaining completely indecisive and inactive, as she believes a woman should. By the end of the play she is left in the same position as Creon, without any family in the world and feeling partially responsible for the outcome. If Ismene had stood up and done something either to stop Creon from sentencing Antigone to death, or to help Antigone in burying Polyneices, she would in the end be with her family in life or in death, and be better of than being left alone on earth alive. Also the actions of the characters in the play are very comparable to the ideas and strategies of the Greeks and Spartans in Thucydides, written shortly afterwards.
There are many similarities and differences between Antigone by Sophocles and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The adults in both of the books have the difficult job of controlling the actions of the younger characters. Their decisions have a crucial effect on the outcome of the books, for the younger characters that they guide are the main figures in their stories. Antigone’s King Creon and Romeo and Juliet’s Prince Escalus and Lord Capulet share but also have unique strengths, weaknesses, leadership qualities, and crisis-managing techniques.
...igone respectively. Both plays focus on women's place in society and the struggle of two women to discover the repression of women latent in society and to break free of that repression. Surprisingly enough the two societies maintain similar expectations of women, but Nora and Antigone break those expectations via different methods unique to their situations. Nora is repressed by her husband and society, whereas Antigone is repressed by Creon and Thebian society, and while Nora deceives her husband for the majority of their marriage, Antigone's strong will allows her to openly confront Creon's superiority. Thus, the conclusions or denouements of the plays are to some extent different; while Nora survives in theoretical 'perfect freedom' in her society, Antigone is given death, and in a way 'frees' herself from the repressive society in which she has been subjected to.
A tragic hero is shown in both the plays Oedipus the King and Antigone written by Sophocles. Oedipus and Antigone are both tragic heroes with many similarities and differences. Antigone, however is more of a true modern hero rather than an ancient Greek tragic hero. Oedipus is self-confident, intelligent, and strong willed. Ironically these are the very traits which bring about his tragic discovery. Antigone is a strong person and will not give into orders. She doesn 't care what happens to her because the most important thing to her is that she does what is the right thing to do hence her brother may have a good after life. Antigone feels that all people even her brother deserved a proper burial; "with all honorable observances due to the dead” (Antigone, 127). Oedipus is also as noble as Antigone is. Oedipus was so determined
In both plays the main characters have different capabilities that are unique to each of them. For instance both show strong will that many women are afraid to show. In Antigone the characters show many different capabilities, Antigone included, with these certain characteristics giving her the ability to bury her brother. As she simply says “Antigone: Guilty. I did it, I deny it not” (Sophocles, pg 189-190). This shows how Antigone is proud of what she is doing, standing up to Creon and his ways with unmoving motivation. As well as showing her true commitment to burying Polynices and being proud of doing so. Plus, Antigone displays this strength of commitment more than anyone else in this play. As Ismene and Ant...
In Antigone, we have Antigone who is a very determined yet disobedient girl. She goes against the King Creon’s rules to bury her brother and when confronted and punished decides to kill herself. Her death led to main tragedy as her husband and mother in law both commit suicide hence leaving the King in distress and pain. Even though the story line in Antigone is very different from that of Oedipus the King, the two plays do mirror each other in a vast number of aspects. The kings, Creon and Oedipus’ desire to do right despite being warned ultimately led both of them to their doom. Their arrogance towards Teiresas, the fear of being over throned and losing their wives are mirror images of each other.
Antigone and Hamlet are two distinctive tragedies, written by two different authors, in two separate centuries, yet both stories have considerable aspects in common. Antigone is about a girl who stands up to her uncle, the new King Kreon, after he refuses to bury one of her dead brothers, Polynieces, because she believes not burying him in wrong, especially on a spiritual level. Antigone is a tragic heroine because her tragic flaw, tenacious loyalty, leads to the down fall of not only herself, but more importantly her beloved fiancé, Haemon, and also his mother. Hamlet is about a prince whose father, King Hamlet, just died and whose mom, Queen Gertrude, just married his uncle, the new King Claudius. Hamlet is not ok with the situation. Hamlet
...tigone is between the two mindsets of the two conflicting characters. Sophocles bases Antigone on his standpoint about the argument of the man-made law against the religious law. The conflict between the two opposing characters creates drama throughout the story.