Tragedy in Life Essay

In William Shakespeare 's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Brutus possesses all of the traits of a tragic hero in the eyes of Aristotle. Brutus is the perfect candidate for a tragic hero, containing all of the tragic hero traits. This includes nobility, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and catharsis. Between everything Brutus does for the people of Rome, he shows anyone that he is the most noble of them all. He definitely proves himself to be an honorable man. Out of all the things that describe Brutus,…

Understanding Irony in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar To add interest and complexity to their works of literature, authors often employ the various forms of irony. In the Tragedy of Julius Caesar, conflicts arise in Rome when general Julius Caesar defeats Roman king, Pompey, and seizes power of the empire. Playwright William Shakespeare weaves dramatic, verbal, and situational irony throughout the play. The forms of irony affect the plot and characterization, and conveys the themes: words are…

In Sophocles’s Antigone, Antigone, who was mourning for her diseased brother, morally believed it was right to break the law and bury him. Antigone tries to get her sister, Ismene, to help her in the act of burying their brother, but she refuses (Sophocles). Ismene states that she cannot break the law, or disrespect her citizenship by burying him (Sophocles). Their brother, Polyneices, was treated unfairly by not being buried alongside with his brother Eteocles, who Creon, the King, allowed a…

than sinning”, yet the play still ends in the tragedy of his death. However, Shakespeare also utilises the supernatural and religious imagery to demonstrate not only the idea that pain and suffering is meaningless, but to extend this to express his idea to the audience that life itself is meaningless. He explores the idea that people are “as flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods… they kill us for sport”, indicating that anything that happens in life is simply for entertainment, and nothing…

Throughout Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman constantly reminds those around him that in order to be successful in life you must be well liked. Early in the play Willy remarks that his sales have been slow and so he says, “[he] will go to Hartford. [Because he] is very well liked in Hartford” (36). When Willy struggles with his sales he believes the answer to resolving his problems is by selling where he is well liked, being that he is sure if he is selling where people like him…

overcome those adversities on their paths, as heroes. Speaking of tragic heroes, however, while they embrace the same kind of virtues as heroes do, miserable destinies are always await ahead for them. As it was suggested by Aristotle, a hero of a tragedy usually evokes audiences pity or fear, through his "underserved misfortune". Moreover, Aristotle's concept further indicates that a tragic hero would be a man “who is not eminently good and just, whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or…

Sophocle’s Greek play Oedipus Rex tells the downfall of the tragedy`s namesake protagonist, Oedipus. As per the tragic nature of the story, Oedipus`s narrative is one of a tragic hero and as such, he fits all of the seven requirements for this literary character. To start off, the first attribute of a tragic hero is to be born noble, of which Oedipus obviously fulfills. He is (albeit unbeknownst to himself) the “offspring of Laius” and Jocasta, the rulers of Thebes. In addition to his…

Achebe also stated that most cultures are familiar with “the man who’s larger than life, who exemplifies virtues that are admired by the community, but also a man who for all that is still human. He can have flaws, you see; all that seems elegantly underlined in Aristotle’s work” (Kortenarr, 2006). With this in mind, Aristotle’s next…

characters defying such expectations being seen as shocking and unexpected. In particular, most of the surviving sources from the period are written from male perspectives, so what remains is how male writers reinforced their idea of a woman (Blundell). Tragedies and comedies offer different versions of this idea, but in both main genres the act of breaking…

The Winter’s Tale is one of William Shakespeare's later tragedies written in 1611. The drama depicts a story of loss and redemption. Leontes, the king of Sicilia, falsely accuses his wife of adultery. Leontes convinces himself that his wife is pregnant with the child of his best friend, Polixenes. During a fit of rage, Leontes orders that the Perdita, the child, be abandoned in a desolate place to die. In these acts, the wintery setting conveys a tone of death and loss. This melancholy setting…