Poetics

The theme of the poem “The Conqueror Worm”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is death is inevitable and unavoidable, you can not control it. Also, the mood of this poem is morbid, dismal, and horrific. Firstly, the text cites, “That the play is the tragedy”(Poe 39). This explains how the play, which is the main event that is occurring in the poem, is the tragedy. If the play is the tragedy, it is meaning that it is a disaster, or horrific. Also, in the play, the tragedy is the worm killing all the…

In Ancient Greece, tragedies were seen as the best form of drama and were admired throughout Greece. Tragic heroes were the stars of these tragedies and were the key to an amazing ending that left the audience into a state of catharsis. Aristotle, a famous philosopher, created a guideline that a protagonist in a story MUST follow in order for the protagonist to be considered as a tragic hero. This hero is defined as an Aristotelian hero and must follow the five characteristics;…

A Tragic Hero The play I am writing about is Antigone by Sophocles, a greek tragic playwright. The main characters are Creon and Antigone, but as the play goes on it becomes more about Creon and his hamartia. Hamartia is a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero. A character named Teiresias who is a prophet serves as a foil for Creon’s character by highlighting Creon’s stubbornness, anger, and disrespect towards the other characters. When Teiresias passes his argument in…

How did Macbeth a loyal thane of Scotland become a regicidal murderer? The answer is his fatal flaw. Macbeth has one of the most relatable fatal flaws because we all have ambition. We like to read about things we can relate to which is what makes a tragic hero so encapturing. We as humans all have ups and downs in our lives, but we like to read or see the ones that are worse than ours to make us feel better. We also like to see how it all happens and to see that maybe we don’t all start the way…

Analyzing Death of a Salesman Since its debut in 1949, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman has captivated audiences. Miller’s ability to craft the story of Willy Lowman in the midst of his downfall, yet endear him to the audience is why Death of a Salesman is considered to be one of the greatest American plays. Of all the internal and external conflicts experienced by Willy the most notable and arguably the most detrimental were his beliefs that popularity was the key to success, obtaining…

Mind over Matter Only the most intelligent people understand to what extent people are able to control their lives with their minds. In Man’s Search for Meaning by Vik E. Frankl, Jews in concentration camps use their minds to escape from their daily tortures. Meursault did not use his mind to control himself and paid the price in The Stranger by Albert Camus. The Wachowski brothers directed “The Matrix”, in which Neo used his mind to escape from the Matrix, and the Oracle tricked his mind in…

Aristotle considered a tragic hero as a good man of high status who displays a tragic flaw and experiences a dramatic reversal along with an intense moment of recognition. In the play The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice written by William Shakespeare the main character, Othello, is portrayed as a tragic hero. Throughout the play he displays each characteristic of Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero. Othello was often considered as a good man of high status in the play. Many people…

Many Greek plays have a tragic hero, and Sophocles's Antigone is no exception. Aristotle believes a tragic hero is a man that is not too good but also not too bad, is lifelike, is appropriate, is consistent, and who “does not fall into misfortune through vice or depravity, but falls because of some mistake” (On Tragic Character, 1145). Creon, the new king of Thebes, is the tragic hero in Antigone because he fulfills the four main characteristics of a tragic character, and he makes a fatal…

Research Paper- Tragic character flaws in Oedipus the King and Othello, the Moor of Venice Oedipus the King and Othello, the Moor of Venice are both plays that explore character flaws that every common person possesses. Both poems tell stories about noble men (Oedipus and Othello respectively) who end up succumbing to their tragic character flaws. A tragic character flaw is accurately described in the Journal article “The Tragic Flaw: is it a Tragic error?” when it says: “ Distinct from this,…

A tragic hero in “The Crucible” written by Arthur Miller was a middle aged man named John Proctor. Through out the entire story John showed all the qualifications of being a tragic hero. The qualities are: he or she must be well respected, has a tragic flaw that causes their downfall, be able to redeem their self and lastly the person dies. In the next few paragraphs all the obstacles John faces to qualify as a tragic hero will be listed and briefly discussed. As the story goes about John…