Tragedy is an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress. Tragedy takes its toll on everyone and everything. This is made obvious between the passages written by Mark Twain and Jack London. Twain's passage is a narrative , he uses satire to describe how society reacts to tragedy. While London's passage personifies the city of San Francisco as the city copes with this earthquake disaster. Twain describes the damage by using heavy words that will stir up an image of violence, but he just barely speaks of the physical instruction. Twain focuses mainly on the damage of the souls it affected, so nonchalantly. "The injury to it was widespread and somewhat serious." He wasn't taking the injuries seriously, but he wondered into 'The …show more content…
Narrating the chaotic behavior, "... From mere reportorial instinct, nothing else, took out my watch and noted the time of day." He spoke about the event with satire. Twain brought in experiences from his own self, "... At that moment a third and still severer shock came and as I reeled about on the pavement trying to keep my footing, I saw a sight!" London's focus in this passage is the structural damage within the cities buildings. Harsh words build up the tone of defeat in London's passage.The city is defeated. London foreshadows when he makes immediately shows the reader the city is …show more content…
The passage quickly shifted focus from the earthquake detail to society's reaction. In the first paragraph he mainly wrote what he saw at the time of the event, by the second paragraph he's noting that the citizens are behaving barbaric and chaotic. "...The public streets in all sorts of queer apparel, and some without any at all." He continues to show the foolish behavior throughout the rest of the passage. He told what he saw. London wrote his passage in chronological order to give cause and effect. He states the time and day before going into hefty detail of defeat. Showing the death of San Francisco in phases. Thirty seconds to live. Twain mentions "wave shocks" emphasizing the timeliness of the quake itself- thirty seconds. In his last few paragraphs he emphasizes the entire city falling apart. An Oakland minister of a quickly deteriorating church tells the people of San Francisco " 'Keep your seats! There is no better place to die than this'- And added, after the third: 'but outside is good enough!' Twain uses this as closure from the earthquake, after such a defeat there's was nothing else to do. London takes advantage again with his chronological organization to portray the metaphor that the city of San Francisco is dying. He first hints this in paragraph two; the focus on this paragraph is the smoke that was left to linger in the city after disaster struck. "Within an hour after
“The Convergence of the Twain” is a nonlinear retelling of the Titanic disaster of 1912; however, on a deeper level, the poem explores hubris, downfall, and how fate connects hubris to downfall. Through tone, diction and juxtaposition, the speaker describes the sinking of the Titanic as inevitable and necessary.
In the book, The Scarlet Plague, Jack London transports his audience sixty years into the future, yet it feels as though it is before the current era. An important passage from The Scarlet Plague, starting at the second paragraph on page seven and ending at the beginning of page nine, shows and describes the type of civilization that is presented after the plague. This passage produces the story’s savage effect through its descriptions of Hare-Lip, Hoo-Hoo, and Edwin’s knowledge of the past world. The passage is also important because it shows how civilization has collapsed and restoration does not seem hopeful, which relates to the overall post-apocalyptic theme.
Pain and Suffering “To live is to suffer, To survive is to find meaning in the suffering”. What is a tragedy? Tragedy is, an event causing great suffering, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe. Tragedy started in Ancient Greek and evolved into religious ceremonies. Shyamalan painted a harsh image of tragedy when he made the movie Signs, he showed that you have to have faith and family to get through tragic events.
Aristotle, Antigone and Billy Budd In Poetics, Aristotle explains tragedy as a kind of imitation of a certain magnitude, using direct action instead of narration to achieve its desired affect. It is of an extremely serious nature. Tragedy is also complete, with a structure that unifies all of its parts. It is meant to produce a catharsis of the audience, meant to produce the emotions of pity and fear and to purge them of these emotions and helping them better understand the ways of the gods and men. Tragedy is also in a language in both verse and song. Aristotle's definition is clearly applicable to both Herman Melville's Billy Budd and the famous Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.
“…it broke into hundreds of pieces so that the rain fell here and there from high clouds in long, curving gray plumes.” The hyperbole about the storm produces a wild sense of the surroundings. Kingsolver uses the onomatopoeia and simile to describe appearance and the sound of the storm. The first-person point of view also assists on expressing Taylor’s senses and emotions. In describing Taylor’s feelings for Estevan, Kingsolver combines them into a one complex sentence, which displays the exhilaration that Taylor feels. Most of all the paragraphs’ structure is similar, adding consistency to the passage. The consistency makes it easier for the readers to follow and understand the message and concepts that the author conveys in the novel. Additionally, Kingsolver uses contrast to bring out the mood among Taylor’s group. In the beginning, she makes a deadly ambience with the storm and lightning, yet the characters are very high in spirit and energy to a point in which they dance under the storm. It enhances the characters’ emotion to attract the attention of the readers, which makes it more noticeable just like light being brighter in the dark. Kingsolver also uses this passage as a chance to build up for a shocking event unexpected by
...he refused to acquiesce to convention in his writings. Though he viciously attacked the wrongs that permeated his world, he did not solve the problems of humanity with his literature. But the vital voice of his literature is not dead, and it offers guidance for those seeking to fathom Twain's mark.
In the opening line of the novel, the narrator provides a vivid description of the his decaying surroundings:
In the last paragraph the church goers make their final prayer for their departing soldiers and state “ O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;”. This is exactly what Twain was trying to convey during the whole satire. The church goers could not have made it any more blunt by literally saying “help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds”. At this point they are no longer alluding to the fact that they want their soldiers to kill their opponents they are just straight up saying they want them dead. Twain wanted to make sure no matter what the reader knew exactly what he was trying to get
Humans tend to think of themselves as the best of the best and consider other beings to be pathetic in comparison. In Mark Twain’s satirical essay,”The Lowest Animal,” he argues that in fact, humans are the ones that are the lowest animals, not the superior species as they like to think. Twain utilizes concrete examples, irony, and satire to make his argument that humans are greedy and foolish, making them the lowest animals.
Mark Twain uses humor, irony and satire in his short stories. Also known as Samuel Clemens, he was a writer of the late 19th century of America. Most famously known for his work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain was born on November 30th, 1835, in the state of Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth child in his family, making him the youngest child. Twain is also remembered as an “American humorist and novelist, [who] captured a world audience with stories of boyhood adventure... with commentary on man's shortcomings that is humorous...” ("Mark Twain"). He was well complemented by various other novelists.
The southern way of speech had yet to have been captured skillfully until Twain’s writing. Twain went into detail in L...
A tragedy is defined as immeasurable suffering caused by an incident. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Claudius is the cunning and conniving antagonist. This character commits treason by killing the King of Denmark, his brother, an ultimate act of betrayal. Moreover, Claudius’s manipulation of other characters leads them to commit nefarious acts without him being at fault. In addition, Claudius being the nemesis of Hamlet leads to Hamlet's downfall.
Tragedy comes in many forms, for example earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes are all types of tragedies. On the other hand, when talking about tragedy in literature, it has a whole different meaning. Tragedy in literature is on a smaller scale than things like earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes. In literature tragedy is usually about one person and the horrible things that happen to them during their life in a story or play.
Tragedy, many people have defined it so many different ways. So, what is a tragedy? Arthur Miller has defined a tragedy by specifying certain characteristics that must be included in the story; there must be living and breathing characters, it must bring knowledge or enlightenment, there must be an internal conflict, and there must be a struggle for happiness. This definition does a really good job of defining what a tragedy is, but I think that there is more to it. I believe for a story to become a tragedy it does not have to have the above aspects, but every reader has to decide whether it is a tragedy to them. Take The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for example.
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.