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LITR 4533
TRAGEDY
Midterm Samples 2012 Essay Answers to Topic 3 |
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3. Review possible topics of interest for Part B on final exam (3-4 paragraphs, 1.5-2 double-spaced page equivalent)
Authors & titles (scroll down for essays):
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Andy Feith, "More on Tragedy as Greatest Genre
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Susan Newman, "Essay 3. Plotting against genres
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Umaymah Shahid
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Jennifer Hamilton, "Essay 3, topic 7: Tragic World
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Sarah Hardilek, "Option 1: Old vs. New: Changes in Tragedy across the Generations
Andy Feith
More on Tragedy as Greatest Genre
What tragedy seems to do better than any of the other three narrative
genres described by Northrop Frye is address the problem of human suffering
head-on, without dabbling as much in humor, light-heartedness, and escapism as
do the other three. I’m still not convinced that this necessarily makes tragedy
“better” than comedy, romance, or satire; rather, I see each genre as having its
proper use and place.
A comedy, in my experience, is often an instantly forgettable experience
for the reader or viewer, but the best comedies are quite capable of
entertaining and informing. I think of
Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray’s character inexplicably repeats the
same day of his life, ad infinitum. He goes to sleep at night, and when he wakes
up in the morning, his life has rewound, so to speak, and he’s back at the same
date. He therefore gets infinite chances to try out new variations, new
responses to the events of that one day. He experiments with various ways of
dying, and has a slightly different conversation with his love interest each
day. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think he’s only freed from this cycle
once he’s made the lived the best possible day and won the girl. It’s not
heavy-handed moralizing, but it asks what the most important things are in life,
and invites the viewer to imagine how she would experiment with that level of
freedom if she could.
I’ve been defending comedy, arguing that it is more than just
entertainment, it can inform, too; but I don’t want to sell entertainment short,
either. Entertainment, and more specific to comedy, laughter, is a wonderful
thing. It’s consoling and relieving, but it also serves an interesting function
of bringing people closer together. Shared laughter creates a level of intimacy
between people in a way that nothing else does. If two people can laugh at
something together, they are in that moment on the same “team,” the same “side.”
There’s an instant affection and camaraderie, even if just for a moment.
Satire, too, does things that tragedy can’t. In my lifetime, the satire
that comes immediately to mind is The
Simpsons. Nietzsche admired tragedy because the satyr chorus represented man
in his natural state, regardless of state or culture; I admire satire because it
so specifically depicts a particular state and culture and points out where it
is ridiculous or unjust. Perhaps tragedy can teach me all about the universal
human condition, but The Simpsons or
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart can
teach me all about life in these United States – while still sprinkling in
tidbits of timeless wisdom to boot. They are sometimes gentle and sympathetic to
the subjects of their satire, and sometimes confrontational and absolutely
bitter (in the case of Jon Stewart), but I tend to believe that the editorial
slant they’re pushing is good, healthy stuff, a necessary medicine to cure some
of the misperceptions common to Americans. (Here I’ve strayed into the “culture
war,” but so much good satire is part of the culture war. They may not have
called it by that name, but Swift and Voltaire were eminent culture warriors).
Finally there is romance. I watched an interview with Dr. Neil DeGrasse
Tyson not long ago, and he was making the case to restore major government
funding to NASA. He was saying that space exploration is the kind of grand,
adventurous prospect that could get young people excited about math and science,
that we all benefit in an unquantifiable emotional way from exploring that final
frontier. That is more or less the idea I want to push for romance. Tragedy
evokes pity and fear, comedy and satire may make us light-hearted or critical of
society, respectively. Romance makes us
admire what we see. It often engages the imagination with its
larger-than-life characters and settings. As a kid,
Star Wars provided me with a
vocabulary of terms – X-wing, Darth Vader, lightsaber – that then populated my
own sessions of imaginative play. Disney movies provided a repertoire of songs
that I sang. And like I said of comedy earlier, these images and songs could and
did bring me closer to other people who had seen these movies.
So I’m finding that tragedy, for me, has actually been the genre I’ve
loved the least. This is consistent with what we’ve been taught, that it has
always been the least popular, that it appeals to a limited portion of the
reading or viewing public. This probably has something to do with my youth and
relative privilege; perhaps I don’t relate easily to tragedy because my own life
hasn’t (yet) been very tragic. I hope to come to appreciate it more over time,
but never to the complete exclusion of comedy, satire, and romance. They all
serve a purpose.
Susan Newman
Essay 3. Plotting
against genres
2. “Plot is the Soul of Tragedy” + Comedy & Romance
In Tragedy, characters are
secondary and plot is the first principle and “the soul of a tragedy”
(Aristotle’s Poetics). With more character development, as in Romance and
Comedy, there is less plot to develop because the power of the characters seem
to drive the action forward so that the reader is expecting certain kinds of
action, even if it is not specifically predictable. Allison Evans describes
Romance as “a genre that often intermingles in several genres and helps to drive
characters actions and emotions” (Dr. White, Samples 2010). Speaking as a fan of
the heavy hitters of drama, mystery and thrillers, I think character development
is a very important aspect of these types of stories because getting to know
people is what makes the “romance” believable.
This approach is beneficial in the
study of Tragedy for the same reason, but overanalyzing the characters comes at
the cost of undermining the magnitude of complete action in Tragedy. I agree
with Melissa King when she states, “As the plot develops, we as an audience
become invested in the story and feel the pain ourselves” (Dr. White, Sample
2010). In Tragedy, the story’s plot provides the foundation as it is the root of
tragedy. The characters are doomed from the start as the audience watches the
plot unravel. There is a question of whether or not the characters’ fate is
their destiny or if their free will is what dooms them. Oedipus’ natural parents
thought that by getting rid of their baby, they could avoid the prophecy of his
killing his father and marrying his mother. Was this outcome inevitable or could
the king and queen avoided the prophecy by keeping their son close to them and
raising him in an environment where this prediction would not have materialized?
They sealed a fate they would have been better off not being privy to.
Tragedy imitates severe action,
rather than the narrative of Romance and Comedy. According to Aristotle’s
Poetics, “structure
of the incidents” is the most significant aspect of Tragedy. The plot imitates
the action of its characters. Characters in Tragedies are layered with good and
bad traits that cause the audience to recoil at some of their actions while
still empathizing with their situations in many cases. Agamemnon’s wife,
Clytemnestra, and her lover are plotting Agamemnon’s death and while the
audience might think he deserves punishment for sacrificing his innocent
daughter, they might also think that the king was in an impossible situation
when he made the difficult decision to put the lives of his men above the life
of his child. This represents characters in Tragedy as neither inherently good
nor inherently evil.
Aristotle’s
Poetics says the events in Tragedy inspire fear or pity and that the best
ones take place in a few houses. Characters in narrative form have a distinct
difference between good and evil. Even though Peter Parker is not immune from
making mistakes, he learns from them and is determined to protect the public
from villains as the hero Spider Man. The distinction is clear – the hero is
moral and stands for justice while the villains (Green Goblin, Venom, and Dr.
Octopus to name a few) are clearly motivated to either take over or destroy the
planet. As films, comics and novels, Spider Man is a mixed genre of
action-packed, sci-fi fantasy romance.
In tragic tales, Comedy is almost
exclusively reserved for lower class characters or blue-collar individuals who
are more relatable to readers or film viewers than are members of royalty.
Higher classes remain dignified, rather than subjecting themselves to
self-deprecating humor, such as the guard in Agamemnon standing outside of the
castle who compares himself to a watchdog. Crude humor evident in films like
The Hangover would not be acceptable
in the high-comedy action, romantic films
Oceans 11, 12 and 13. Even though the wit is obviously of higher intellect
than curse words and body humor, the characters, albeit smart and well-dressed,
are criminals who make their money illegally. Humor is reserved for “common
folk,” even the bright and/or attractive proletarians and their problems are
trivial compared to serious or social issues characters face in Tragedies. The
“Narrative Genre” handout explains that the conclusions provide closure, but not
a happy ending like typical romances or in the form of unity of resolution, as
in comedies.
Umaymah Shahid
6/17/2012
Families in
Tragedy + The Oedipal / Electra Conflict
Throughout
Tragedy, the audience sees a constant battle between families or family members.
The conflict ranges from incest to murder and many of them occur within the same
household. Yet why are families the main characters in a Tragedy? A possibility
could be that a good family results in a strong foundation for society, and a
corrupt family results in the opposite. If there is a problem in a family, which
is usually aristocratic due to the nature of Tragedy, the problem is shared by
the society. For example, in Oedipus the
King, Oedipus’s incest is only a problem within the monarchy, but it infects
the society and the whole city is plagued because of Oedipus.
Tragedy brings forth the importance of
family, and that when a family is unstable, so is the state. Another important
point to note is that because of the intimacy of family members, there is a
great chance of ill feelings rising.
As Aristotle says in
Poetics, “the best tragedies are founded on the story of a few
houses [i.e. families]” (qtd. In White, “Aristotle’s” par XIII c).
The plot of the Orestia for example, is set within Agamemnon’s family. One would
think that after ten years of not being home, a wife would greet her husband
with the utmost love and comfort. Yet this feeling of intimacy which is expected
in a husband and wife becomes the cause of jealousy and results in murder. The
family honor and intimacy is broken and is further scarred when the children
plot the murder of their mother in revenge for their father. Thus, the cycle
goes on where because the family was so intimate, feelings of love were quickly
transformed to hate.
Family feuds are not uncommon and they make the story of tragedy even more
intimate than if it involved people who did not know one another.
I wish to focus
on families in tragedy and the Oedipal/Electra Conflict because they are an
essential part of the Tragedy genre. Not only is family important in tragedy,
but so is the reoccurring theme of the Oedipal and Electra Conflict which is
seen in the Greek Tragic play, Oedipus the
King and O’ Neill’s
Mourning Becomes Electra. The Oedipal
conflict is seen in Oedipus the King
when Oedipus marries his mother, because as the conflict suggests, boys are
attracted to their mothers and are in competition with their fathers. Similarly,
the Electra Conflict suggests that daughters are in love with their fathers and
are in conflict and jealous of their mothers. The Electra Conflict takes after
Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon who plots against her mother to avenge her
father’s murder. Mourning Becomes Electra
an updated version of the Greek play Agamemnon which emphasizes Lavinia’s (i.e. Electra) jealous love of
her father.
As the Greeks worked with the Oedipal/Electra complex, so did the English
writer, Shakespeare. In Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, the audience sees an intimate love between Hamlet and his mother.
Though his mother thinks he is mad and at some point takes pity on him, he
expresses this rather odd intimacy for someone his age towards his mother. The
scene that brings to light such a relationship is when Hamlet confronts his
mother in her chambers about her betrayal to his father. The scene is better
understood when seen in a film, where he is always inches away from his mother,
half whispering, half screaming, talking with passion, and tossing her around
the room even onto her own bed. The physical proximity between Hamlet and his
mother suggests this idea that Hamlet is in love with his mother (though she
might not be), and wants to avenge his uncle for taking her.
The Oedipal/Electra conflict sounds strange in today’s society because it is
more or less taboo. No one wants to think of children sleeping or even thinking
sexually of their parents and thus it is a topic that is ignored. Yet it comes
to mind that these feelings might be real, and the Greeks and different
playwrights knew the corrupting influence of such feelings not only on family,
but on society. Family is the driving force of the plot in Tragedy, yet the
inner conflict within the family gives the onset to Tragedy.
Works Cited
White, Craig. “Aristotle’s Poetics.”
Online posting. N.d. Course webpage Tragedy. University of Houston-Clear Lake.
Web. 16 June 2012.
Jennifer Hamilton
Essay 3, topic 7: Tragic World
I have always been fascinated with the connection between history and
literature. So the opportunity to examine tragedy’s cultural and historical
background is something I look forward to. We have already learned in class that
tragedy seems to become prevalent when a society is going through more
prosperous periods. Although it makes sense that people would want to read,
watch and listen to cheerful subjects if they were going through hard times, I
had never really stopped and considered it before. What really has me interested
in learning more is why tragedy began at this particular moment in history.
I know from some of my history classes that during the time Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, and Aristotle were writing that Greek culture was
beginning to achieve its high point. One of the greatest changes was the
emergence of literacy which may have played a role in the rise of tragedy. There
may be an argument that tragedy developed to explain why things were the way
they were. For example, at the end of the
Oresteia by Aeschylus, when the furies compromise with Athena to leave
Orestes alone and as a result are honored and allowed to live under the city in
the caverns, this is also an explanation of Athens’s system of justice and how
it was formed.
If you also examine the difference in opinions between Plato and
Aristotle it is possible to see how they are both trying to deal with the issues
in their society that the rise of art brought about. For instance, almost every
writer we have looked at so far has dealt with the problem of imitation. Plato
was very concerned with the nature of things. In
The Republic, Plato questions the role
art as well as literature plays and its relation to morality. He was afraid that
if poets and writers were able to imitate reality so accurately that the
audience was totally drawn in, then the poet then had the power to mislead his
readers into believing what was not ‘the truth.’ Aristotle on the other hand,
although also concerned with the nature of tragedy, believed that the emotion
inspired by tragedy was able to end positively. In his
Poetics, Aristotle wanted to create
the form that great tragedy would follow writing, “Now, according to our
definition, tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole,
and of a certain magnitude . . . . A whole is that which has a beginning, a
middle, and an end” (VII).
I far from understand the full
relationship between the historical culture and the tragedy, but hope to gain
some better insights before the end of the semester. I know there is more to
this relationship since tragedy tends to show up in critical moments in history.
Work Cited
Aeschylus.
Oresteia. Tragedy Course
Webpage. University of Houston-Clear Lake, summer 2012.
Aristotle. “Poetics on Tragedy.” Tragedy Course Webpage. University of
Houston-Clear Lake, summer 2012.
Plato.
The Republic.
Sarah Hardilek
Essay 3 (Option 1). Old vs. New: Changes in
Tragedy across the Generations
For Part B. on the final I have pretty much decided
on writing the assignment for Option 1, Tragedy and its updates. I always enjoy
seeing how remade movies alter the original source material and adapt it to a
new audience. Even if the remake does not quite achieve the desired results from
the audience, it is still interesting to see what creative decisions the film
makers chose and to wonder why they went a certain direction. One example of
changing for a new generation is definitely the increase of spectacle in the
films. Why not have a majority of the filming crew in King Kong be eaten by
giant grub worms? Similar instances happen in literary genre updates as well.
My first comparison will be between the
Oresteia
and Mourning Becomes Electra.
I will begin with discussing the presence of the Electra character in
Homecoming
and how that changes the reading of the story since Electra does not appear in
Agamemnon.
In order to give a full response to this aspect of the two stories, I will have
to mention
The Libation Bearers as well so as to compare
the characteristics of Electra in both. Then, I will focus on the changes in the
genre that were made between the old and the new versions.
The second comparison I plan on writing on is
Hippolytus,
Phaedra,
and Desire Under the Elms.
However, since I have yet to read these stories, I cannot give a detailed plan
for this part of the paper apart from noting the differences in genre as with
the previous comparison. My reasoning for selecting these comparisons is that I
think it would be very interesting to see how the same author handles updating
two different tragedies and if he remains consistent in his changes to the
genre. I will have a section of my paper devoted to this question assuming I
find enough to write about.
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