A Terrible Tragedy

likeable until he is unlikeable, a pawn for the complexities of Iago’s more elusive character to develop against. In “The Last Great Speech of Othello,” T.S. Eliot scathingly dismantles romantic notions of Othello, calling his pre-murder soliloquy “a… terrible exposure of human weakness,” introducing a valid (if emotionally wrought) argument that seems to accidentally follow well in the teaching of Frye. Although Eliot was, by his own admission, writing from a perspective “that may appear…

Before the many genres we know today in literature, there used to be only two: tragedy and comedy. With tragedy comes the tragic hero, the character that ultimately defines the ending of the story. In Antigone, that person is Creon. He is a troubled king living in the same time as Antigone, who may have contributed to his downfall. Creon’s fate was determined from the start to be less than desirable, and the audience knew this from the odes following each scene. Creon fits the archetype of a…

was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me". This is an integral part of the plot, not only for what it brings to the story but for the other structural elements, such as catharsis and peripataeia, which it allows Fitzgerald to incorporate. Therefore by creating a conflict, Fitzgerald is allowing ‘The Great Gatsby’ to contain all of the elements of a typical tragedy, thus informing its tragic…

In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, the Greek tragedy consumes its audiences with fear and pity to build a heightened sense of tension that ultimately climaxes with a grand catharsis. The use of dramatic irony, a literary technique in Greek tragedy by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions are clear to the audience but unknown to the character, creates a deep sense of fear and pity for the unconscionable acts of Oedipus and Jocasta. This fear and pity is alleviated through the…

In the Odyssey, the gods and their will represent fate, and as such bring both joy and suffering. Fate in the Iliad -- or rather -- the Fates are more powerful, such that the gods must consider them before interfering in the lives of mortals. In tragedies, fate is presented again as an extension of the gods, but in a much more negative light. However, one thing that remains constant throughout genres is that fate is ultimately inescapable. In the Odyssey, the Fates as mythological beings are not…

to his own death. Too much power ended up into the hands of Marcus Brutus. At the end of the tragedy, he commits suicide.…

It can be argued that dominant ‘fatal flaw reading’ of the play The Tragedy of Hamlet; Prince of Denmark that Hamlet was simply a man of inaction, which is incorrect in that Hamlet did not act because of his religious stance on the topic of murder at the time the play was written, and this had a great deal of consequences. The Tragedy of Hamlet; Prince of Denmark, is a tragedy play written by William Shakespeare, published in 1603. The religious teachings of the time were against murder, which…

created in ancient Greek tragedy and was perfected throughout their time. The class described a tragic hero as a great character who is destined for defeat, suffering, or downfall. One thing I would add into the definition of a tragic character is that they have a tragic flaw that leads to their downfall. One major tragic play written and preformed during the peak of Ancient Greece was Sophocles ' Oedipus the King. Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King as a self-discovering tragedy that all plays out…

arguably most important forms of Greek theater was tragedy. The subject of Tragedy is very broad and hard to define. To give the topic the attention it deserves it needs to be placed in its own piece of work to help dive into the different details surrounding Greek tragedy. This paper will start by looking deeply into exactly what a tragedy is and the origins of where it came from. The second section will discuss the three great playwrights of Greek tragedy and the effect that they have…

the play and characters, giving Sophocles many opportunities for the use of dramatic irony and subtle allusions. Dramatic irony is used to allow the audience to gain a deeper understanding of Oedipus’ complex character and to heighten the sense of tragedy within the play. Throughout the play, two noticeable patterns of dramatic irony emerge that depict Oedipus’ two distinct roles. At the beginning of the play, dramatic irony is used to accentuate the commanding actions taken by Oedipus as king,…