Metamorphosis of the Tragedy in Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, and Desire Under the Elms
Tragedy is considered by many to be the greatest of the genres. Often something goes wrong and exposes something great. Characters generally have more depth as evidenced by Hamlet. Tragedy shows up in the great periods of history: Classical Greece, Renaissance, and the early 20th century. It is a far more complex genre than comedy or romance. It teaches people to think since the storylines never have a simple answer or resolution. We see this in Desire Under the Elms. Family relationships and inheritances are complicated and even when Abbie kills the baby, Eben decides to join her in her guilty plea when he is clearly not a participant in the murder. Unlike comedy, there is less spectacle onstage. Iokaste hangs herself offstage, King Hamlet's murder is only reenacted but not seen directly, and the audience doesn't see Abbie murder her baby. This forces or allows the audience members to use their imaginations to envision these crucial scenes, adding a layer of complexity to the play. Hamlet we are reminded of fate by the line, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends." Then in Desire, Cabot consistently looked to God for direction. These situations don't allow us to remain passive and simply be entertained when we view tragedy. We must grapple with the tough issues of life.
Plot is considered significant in tragedy for many reasons. . Plot examines the limits of human greatness. It is the most examined area in the study of literature probably because it is unique to humans. It can be both edifying for an audience and, at the same time, allow for a catharsis. Plot allows characters to play out their fate. Freud believe...
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...e less class conscious, the need for high status of one man disappears. In Desire the hero(es) were farmers.
Another way that tragedy has evolved is through more comedy being added to the tragedy. Oedipus has no real comic scenes. Hamlet had a few, but Desire had evidence of comedy sprinkled throughout by way of the brothers, the dance, food and drink, and animal references. Tragedy also had evolved to the point of having more romance. Again romance was missing from Oedipus, we saw a bit more in Hamlet between Claudius and Gertrude and Hamlet and Ophelia. But then in the modern tragedy romance is at the center of the play, albeit an uncomfortable, complicated romance. Some example in the play Desire include: the sexual advances, the kiss and walk away together, the reuniting at the end, stage directions that describe the physical appearance.
Before Clinton was elected President he had an encounter with Paula Jones in a hotel room. After Clinton took office Paula Jones then sued Clinton for sexual harassment. A short time later Monica Lewinsky began her intern at the White House. Clinton and Lewinsky began a sexual relationship. Judge Kenneth Starr was the investigator of Whitewater. President Clinton denied any sexual relations with Lewinsky. On October 8, 1998, the House would vote to have an impeachment and won. Clinton was charged with perjury and obstruction to justice. Bill Clinton would end up not getting kicked out of office by senate.
enable her to surmount the many obstacles she would face. She would endure the untimely death of both parents as a teenager and would be forced to raise her
The conservative movement that arose in the Orange Country during the 60's had many different contradictory attitudes. Some people thought of it as a meaningless span of time in which the government had been put on pause while others saw it as a crucial foundation for America's future. McGirr clearly seems to be no follower for Orange County conservatism, but she is still able to keep her disagreements from breaking through in her writing. McGirr gives the audience an understanding the 60s political struggles, one in which even conservatives proposed radical ideas that fundamentally reshaped the political and cultural landscape.
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.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.
Most readers are aware of the many famous deaths or acts of death within the Shakespearean plays. And when the main characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, indeed, the readers would categorize the play as a tragedy. The problem with any tragedy definition is that most tragic plays do not define the tragedy conditions explained or outlined by Aristotle. According to Telford (1961), a tragedy is a literary work that describes the downfall of an honorable, main character who is involved on historically or socially significant events. The main character, or tragic hero, has a tragic fault, the quality that leads to his or her own destruction. In reading Aristotle’s point of view, a tragedy play is when the main character(s) are under enormous pressure and are incapable to see the dignities in human life, which Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy is based on Oedipus the King. Shakespeare had a different view of tragedy. In fact, Shakespeare believed tragedy is when the hero is simply and solely destroyed. Golden (1984) argued the structure of Shakespearean tragedy would be that individual characters revolved around some pain and misery.
The play Othello is Shakespeare's own version of a classic Greek tragedy. A classical dramatic tragedy derives its essence from the ancient Greek plays that were often popular in Athens. These plays would typically consist of the downfall of a famous Greek character in history/legend, or the breakdown of a hero. Typically the hero is forced to struggle against overwhelming odds, and fate only that this characters downfall would be so imposing that regardless of these forces of nature and fate that destroy him, that he would rise and regain glory due to his moral victory. These tragedies would invoke terror and pity on the audience, in a sense a tragedy could be considered a form of a catharsis, literally cleansing the soul as it is performed, even though the horror typically disturbed audiences, at the same time it cleansed their soul and purified the spirit.
The Greeks considered tragedy the greatest form for literature. However, the tragic ends for the characters were not ordained or set by fate, but rather caused by certain characteristics belonging to that person. Such is the case with the characters of Sophocles' plays Oedipus the King and Antigone. Oedipus from King Oedipus, and Antigone and Creon from Antigone posses characteristics, especially pride, that caused their tragic ends. As the play progress, other characteristics appear and further add to the problem to such a point that it is inevitable that it will end in tragedy. Therefore the tragedies were not a result of a plot by the fates, but rather a result of the characteristics that the characters possessed.
The Oedipus complex originates from the classical era and was seen as pejorative due to the afflictions of hatred, jealously and a desire to kill the father. It is where a boy unconsciously develops a desire and lust for his mother considering the father as his ultimate rival whom he must eradicate. The death of Hamlet's father to his envious adversaries hand, stimulates Hamlet's deep affections for his mother from his childhood. Hamlet's Oedipal desire leads him to procrastinate in killing Claudius: in doing so, it would be an obvious admittance to his Oedipal lusts: his enemy has already fulfilled his Oedipal desires in murdering Old Hamlet and sleeping with Gertrude.
Many things can describe a tragedy. However, according to definition of a tragedy by Aristotle, there are only five. The play has to have a tragic hero, preferably of noble stature. Second, the tragic hero must have a tragic flaw. Because of that flaw, the hero falls from either power or death. Due to the fall, the tragic hero discovers something. Finally, there must be catharsis in the minds of the audience.
In Aristotle’s book, Poetics, he defines tragedy as, “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear” (Aristotle 1149). Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain of actions that clearly gives the audience ideas of possible events. The six parts to Aristotle’s elements of tragedy are: Plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. According to Aristotle, the most important element is the plot. Aristotle writes in Poetics that, “It is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have” (Aristotle 1150). Plots should have a beginning, middle, and end that have a unity of actions throughout the play making it complete. In addition, the plot should be complex making it an effective tragedy. The second most important element is character. Characters...
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.
In Poetics, Aristotle defines plot as “the arrangement of the incidents” (Aristotle 12). He indicates that there are six elements in every tragic play, which are plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle, among these plot is placed in the foremost positi...
There is no doubt that tragedy has changed considerably since Aristotle first wrote the definition of tragedy in his Poetics in Ancient Greece, but these changes raise the question of whether modern tragedy still fits the classical definition of tragedy. Tragedy has evolved greatly since the times of the classical tragedies, including Oedipus Rex and Hamlet, to the more modern forms of tragedy, as seen in The Hairy Ape and Death of a Salesman. Despite its evolution and deviation from Aristotle’s definition, modern tragedy holds by the same principles, and retains the same power and message expressed by Aristotelian tragedy.
According to Aristotle, the importance of tragedy as a genre is to represent action. Thus unity of action purportedly has the strongest implications for the effectiveness of the work itself. Aristotle posits “a story, since it is the representation of action, should concern an action that is single and entire, with its several incidents so structured that the displacement or removal of any one of them would disturb and dislocate the whole.” (Aristotle 27) and deems this claim imperative. A good plot, and thereby an effective tragedy, does not include events, which are not connected to each other or specifically the main plot. In theory, these unconnected events are distracting from the main action and dissipate the tragic effect. With Aristotle’s definition, no sub-plot should exist in tragedy. For all events to be “necessary or [have] probable connection with each other.” (Aristotle 27) none should exist not directly related to the main action. Again, unity allows for the tragic effect to be concentrated, intending to allow for increased feelings of pity and