The Role and Structure of Greek Tragedy in Philip Roth’s Eli the Fanatic
When one’s in pain—physical, mental, or emotional—one always believes it is worse than everyone else’s. Yet when an acquaintance bemoans a bad day, one still manages to wave it off: it could not be worse than one’s own pain. Even if it is a past pain and there are only scars, those scars are tenderer than the friend’s current sores. Individuals forget that anguish can be shared and another’s intervention can diminish it. This theme has been around for millennia and was particularly explored in the works of Greek tragedians. In Eli, the Fanatic Philip Roth employs structural and thematic elements of Greek tragedy to illustrate that human beings can be responsible for each other’s suffering.
One of the essential elements of Greek tragedy, that of the chorus, can be filled in by Ted, Shirley, and even Miriam. They are the residents of Woodenton who call Eli. Traditionally, the chorus plays an active role and can be a sounding and advising board for the protagonist. Ted in particular tries to advise Eli and, like the customary chorus, he represents the masses, the people, in this particular case the town of Woodenton. As Ted informs Eli, “The Jewish members of the community appointed me, Artie, and Harry to
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see what could be done” (276). The Greek chorus, in Greek tragedy, represents the masses and often serves to counterpoint the protagonist, and Ted’s near-fanatical grudge
against the Yeshiva certainly counterpoints with Eli’s growing benevolence toward them. In Roth’s context, the residents of Woodenton, the Chorus, also serve as a
counterpoint to Eli’s guilt. Eli becomes concerned over the Greenie’s happiness a...
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...s Eli who, as he awakens to the laws of Gods, also becomes aware that just as there are laws beyond those he preaches, there is pain beyond his own. Greek tragedies were successful in that they taught viewers how to extend their compassion, and Roth duplicates this motive. He suggests that if one is willing to accept the laws of God, then one can also help others. It is an idealistic message perhaps, but when one is suffering, one wants to believe that others are concerned, even if they don’t physically share the pain.
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Works Cited
McDonald, Marianne. “Seamus Heaney’s Cure at Troy: Politics and Poetry.” Classics
Ireland. 1996. University College Dublin. 13 Feb. 2006.
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Roth, Philip. Goodbye, Columbus. NY: Vintage International, 1959.
If God is powerful and loving the humankind, then why does He permit evil as well as suffering in this world? Various answers had been offered by many Christian philosophers and many victims of suffering, but there was not a lucid answer that could settle this argument permanently. God uses malicious acts of this world to rise up His own people and remind them that there is an opportunity that they can posses their eternal life. Literature, especially biblical literature has exploited this biblical nature to its fullest in various types of forms, including the play J.B. by Archibald MacLeish. In the play J.B, Archibald MacLeish reanimates and modernizes elements taken from the story of Job to come up with his own response to the ultimate question which has been asked by countless generations, “Why do the righteous suffer?” Throughout the play, Archibald MacLeish delineates the sudden corruption of J.B and his family, his calmness despite the helpless pieces of advice from the Three Comforters, and his unusual ending in order for God to test if one’s will and faith are strong enough to rebuild oneself after an irrational decadence.
Philip Roth is the most prominent American novelist in American literature. His book, “Portney’s compliant” is one of the most important literatures for the ethnic group in the world especially for the Jews in America. According to Prof. Sasha Senderovich “Philip Roth’s book is the bible for the Jewish people.” (Lecture). Through the practice with cultural tradition and try to assimilate with the gentile world, Roth reveals his gloom with complain to his psychiatric, Dr. Spielvogel to free from orthodox Jewish tradition in the American society. Inversely, through goy’s behavior, lifestyle, food, and their anti-Semitic psycho, dragged up him back to his tradition. Therein, the juxtaposition between two cultures fabricates him with an enormous confusion and he felt rootless about his identity and end up with his complaint to the doctor. However, the experience of Alex life, established a statement that, “being minority in a society, for the first or second generation,
Both Shakespeare’s King Lear and Dante’s Inferno explore the reasons for, and results of, human suffering. Each work postulates that human suffering comes as a result of choices that are made: A statement that is not only applicable to the characters in each of the works, but also to the readers. The Inferno and King Lear speak universal truths about the human condition: that suffering is inevitable and unavoidable. While both King Lear and the Inferno concentrate on admonitions and lamentations of human suffering, one of the key differences between the works is that Inferno conveys an aspect of hope that is not nearly as prevalent in King Lear.
“One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s...
Through the use of these literary devices, Roth proves how in the end, no matter how much effort is put in to keep an orderly life, chaos will eventually overtake everything. The life of the Levovs in this novel is used as a projection of what chaos is in real life. It is messy and unexpected. American Pastoral is an exaggeration of what happens in real life. The purpose of the novel is not to make it’s readers disillusioned and fearful of the unexpected. Roth is reaching out to his readers saying that yes, there is chaos and uncertainty in life. The unexpected is in store for everyone, but that is reality, life does not make sense.
Peter Shaffer’s play “Equus” reads like a true tragedy blending religion and adolescence while questioning society’s “civilized norms”. Although Alan Strang seemingly suffers the most throughout the story, the true tragic figure in the play is Dysart, Alan’s psychiatrist. Dysart is forced to question everything that he previously accepted and his whole life is thrown out the window upon meeting Alan. Both Arthur Miller’s definition of a tragic figure and the traditional definition provided by Aristotle apply to Dysart.
...sensible validation in catastrophic suffering, and we must not justify it as part of some divine purpose or for the greater good of humanity in the afterlife; humanity needs justice on earth. Such need to justify cruelty and agony eliminates the incentive for victims and their families to overcome sorrow, grief, and misery, especially if the explanation lies in the after-life. An appropriate response must present solutions to prevent suffering, and an initiative to spread human compassion, thereby overcome suffering. One response is to keep protesting against injustices on human beings, by alleviating poverty, violence, torture, child abuse, and any other sort of injustice. If we are to hold the argument that God suffers with those who suffer, it would be much more justifying to end the suffering rather than to vindicate it, and accept that suffering is God’s will.
Grene, David., and Richmond Alexander Lattimore. Greek Tragedies. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
In the search for the essence of the tragedy, The Book of Job and Oedipus Rex are central. Each new tragic protagonist is in some degree a lesser Job or Oedipus, and each new work owes an indispensable element to the Counselors and to the Greek idea of the chorus.
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.
An interesting and important aspect of this Greek notion of fate is the utter helplessness of the human players. No matter the choice made by the people involved in this tragedy, the gods have determined it and it is going to come to pass. T...
Tragic events can happen as a result of accidents, misunderstandings, or specific situations, hence, they relate little to others. However, tragedy is rooted in the order of our universe because it reveals hypothetical situations that can occur at any time or place. This feeling of uncertainty arouses feelings of pity and fear because we can imagine ourselves having to face tragedy. In Aristotle's Poetics, Aristotle defines tragedy as, “a representation of an action of serious stature and complete, having magnitude, in language made pleasing in distinct forms in its separate parts, imitating people acting and not using narration, accomplishing by means of pity and fear the cleansing of these states of feeling” (Aristotle, 26). A dramatic composition that captures the true essence of suffering and awakens our senses is one that Aristotle would call a tragedy worthy of our praise. He notes, “It is clear first that decent men ought not to be shown changing from good to bad fortune (since this is neither frightening nor pitiable but repellent) and people of bad character ought not to be shown changing from bad to good fortune (since this is the most untragic thing of all, for it has none of the things a tragedy needs, since it neither arouses love for humanity nor is it pitiable or frightening)” (Aristotle, 36).
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.
Sophocles’ Oedipus is the tragedy of tragedies. An honorable king is deceived and manipulated by the gods to the point of his ruination. In the face of ugly consequences Oedipus pursues the truth for the good of his city, finally exiling himself to restore order. Sophocles establishes emotional attachment between the king and the audience, holding them in captivated sympathy as Oedipus draws near his catastrophic discovery. Oedipus draws the audience into a world between a rock and a hard place, where sacrifice must be made for the greater good.
The Chorus is very much an important part of Euripedes’ Medea, and indeed many other works written in the ancient Greek style. In this play, it follows the journey Medea makes, and not only narrates, but commentates on what is happening. Euripedes uses the Chorus as a literary device to raise certain issues, and to influence where the sympathies of the audience lie.