The original depiction of the loving relationship between Orpheus and Eurydice seems unclear. Throughout the myths the only information we receive about their relationship is that they are keen lovers which leads to their marriage. This general lack of knowledge, along with the mystery of Eurydice gives us a gloomy view of what their relationship was actually like. The only
Sophocles uses a mixture of both visual and emotional imagery to create the morally questioning, Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus Tyrannos’. He presents the audience with an intense drama, which addresses the reality and importance of the gods that the Greeks fervently believed in. The play also forces the audience to ask themselves if there is such a concept as fate.
Throughout literature authors have written to express a message to their intended audience. This is no exception for the plays, Oedipus Rex and Darker Face of the Earth, written by Sophocles and Rita Dove, respectively. The similarities in plot, characters, and motifs are not the sole concurrencies between both plays; the overall message to the audiences in both plays is one in the same, one cannot escape their fate. Sophocles and Dove both illuminate this message through their use of the chorus. While Sophocles uses a single chorus of Theban elders, Dove illustrates the grimness of fate through several minor characters: the chorus, the prayers and the players, the rebels, and three female slaves. Dove’s usage of Phebe, Diana, and Psyche further accentuate the battle between free will and fate, as well as the role of women, a concept absent in Sophocles’ play.
Greek tragedies, written in ancient times, are still a standard for tragedies written today. Contrary to diminishing in value over time, these tragedies have become cherished pieces of work in the sophisticated literate culture of today. However, one can not delve into these precious works of beautiful literary verse without first having background knowledge of the context they were written, and of the structure they follow. There are several terms, as well as an analysis of tragedies by Aristotle, a philosopher who experienced them firsthand. By knowing the structural basis of tragic works before reading them, one is able to better understand them and appreciate them more fully for the prized trophies of classic literature they are.
“Medea,” a play by Euripides, depicts the difficulties that befall women and how their suffering from mistreatment, turned her to commit violent and terrible transgressions. Medea’s display of ceaseless demoralized actions lead to the death of nearly her entire family. The text depicts powerless women that live under the rule of their husbands in a male dominated society. Medea rises against societal norms during this time by her strong belief in her own ideas, she rises to power, and begins to challenge the idea of a strong, heroic character.
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.
In the play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, a quintessential pair of teens fall in love, but their fate ends in misfortune. The pair falls in love in a time where women are seen as unimportant and insignificant. In spite of this, Romeo breaks the boundaries of male dominance and shows a more feminine side. Throughout the play, there is an interesting depiction of gender roles that is contrary to the society of the time period.
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.
The use of offstage action is effective in constructing Medea’s authoritative persona. “Fe-oo! Fee-oo! Weep. Pity me.” These lamentations are passionate and emotional, exactly what many men of Ancient Greek society would expect of a woman. Suspense is built and the audience’s attention captured, focusing it on Medea and the moment of her on-stage arrival. However, when Medea does appear on stage she is calm and composed, dispelling the notion of a “wild woman”. “Ladies, Corinthians, I’m here./ Don’t think ill of me. Call others proud.” The Medea character has the power to command the audience through this presentation of her dual natures; she can be defined within the typical female gender role as emotional and passionate, yet she usurps masculine traits of rationality, resourcefulness and int...
He curses the murderer of the previous king, Laius, whom Oedipus killed not knowing he has both the king and his father. This is a good example of dramatic irony in the play, as he starts by curing the murderer, who is himself, then continues to curse himself in case that the murderer is someone within the walls of his palace. In the end, he places a curse on himself, which said curse will take effect towards the end of this play.
There are many tragedies to be found in literature, but only a few are like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It is a story of forbidden love in which a young couple are torn apart by their families’ feud in Renaissance Italy; the play’s tragic ending has both main characters die. Many aspects of this play have sparked a heated debate: is Romeo and Juliet a tragedy or is it simply tragic? Some critics claim that the play lacks elements that are necessary for a tragedy. Yet Aristotle explicitly states the essential components of a tragedy in his Poetics, and Romeo and Juliet meets those requirements. Romeo and Juliet can be considered an Aristotelian tragedy because of Romeo’s impetuousness, Juliet’s loyalty to Romeo, and the play’s peripeteia.
The play "Oedipus Rex" is a very full and lively one to say the least. Everything a reader could ask for is included in this play. There is excitement, suspense, happiness, sorrow, and much more. Truth is the main theme of the play. Oedipus cannot accept the truth as it comes to him or even where it comes from. He is blinded in his own life, trying to ignore the truth of his life. Oedipus will find out that truth is rock solid. The story is mainly about a young man named Oedipus who is trying to find out more knowledge than he can handle. The story starts off by telling us that Oedipus has seen his moira, his fate, and finds out that in the future he will end up killing his father and marrying his mother. Thinking that his mother and father were Polybos and Merope, the only parents he knew, he ran away from home and went far away so he could change his fate and not end up harming his family. Oedipus will later find out that he cannot change fate because he has no control over it, only the God's can control what happens. Oedipus is a very healthy person with a strong willed mind who will never give up until he gets what he wants. Unfortunately, in this story these will not be good trait to have.
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
It is universally acknowledged that William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is regarded as the most famous tragic love story in English literature (Weis, 1). The play outlines the story of ‘a pair of star-crossed lovers’ (1.Prologue.6); Romeo and Juliet, which fall in a love that totally consumes them and results in their tragic death. Consequently, love is regarded as the most dominant and significant theme, as it is the motive supporting Romeo and Juliet’s actions throughout the play. The love presented between Romeo and Juliet can be criticised and interpreted differently. A majority of the audience perceives the love as brave and courageous as it challenges the traditions of its time, the Elizabethan Era (Weis, 18). It is naturally accepted as an idealistic love, longing for perfection that causes its own destruction. However, some argue that the love between the main characters is superficial, solely based on lust and physical desire (Belsey, 127). This essay will firstly discuss how Shakespeare challenged societal conventions through the concept of love in the play. Additionally, it will explore the opposing views regarding the love portrayed by examining both, Romeo and Juliet’s idea of love, in which Shakespeare effectively presented through his use of language and technique. Lastly, this essay will study the power of the forbidden love between the main characters and highlight its consequences.
The plot of the play revolves around Oedipus during his young age; when he was young he is shown to have raped a girl who then committed suicide due to the shame. In this case, he is shown to have attracted a curse since at young age; he was blinded to sacred laws of hospitality. The king Lauis and Queen of Thebes decides to kill the infant Oedipus; but the person sent to kill hesitates to do so. Other than killing him, the servant sent takes him to the mountain to die out of exposure (Brown 254). Instead of dying out of exposure, he is rescued by a shepherd who takes him to Corinth and he is raised as a childless king. Having the knowledge of the fact that he is not the biol...