LITR 4533 TRAGEDY Midterm Samples 2014 (midterm assignment) Essay Answers to Topic 2

2. Write opening draft of Essay 1 (overall learning experience) on final exam (3-4 paragraphs, 1.5-2 double-spaced page equivalent)

Authors & titles (scroll down for essays):

Scott Agruso, Tragedy is Not Just a Sad Story

Theresa Box, The Lessons We Learn Through Tragedy

Rebecca Bridgmohan, "Tragedy: It’s More Than You Think"

Hector Guzman, "Learning Tragedy"

Tina Le, Learning about Tragedy Is Not So Tragic

Melissa South, Human Error in Tragedy

Chelsea Stansell, Tragedy is Real, that’s why it’s Tragic

Mickey Thames, Learning it Again: Tragedy and Repetition

Katherine Vellella, Is Tragedy All About Death?

Scott Agruso

Tragedy is Not Just a Sad Story

            Before attending classes and studying for this course, my knowledge and idea of tragedy was eerily similar to Umaymah Shahid’s in that “tragedy was always of blood, death, and grief” (Summer 2012, Essay 2), and its differences with the comedy genre were limited to the common idea that “tragedies are sad stories and comedies are happy stories.” A slightly more brilliant and sophisticated literary definition of “tragedies move towards conflict, and comedies move towards resolution,” was provided to me during a class a couple of semesters ago. This class has taught me that defining tragedy or any other literary genre cannot be achieved through such a simple phrase.

            I had read many of the plays (Oresteia trilogy, Oedipus, Hamlet) that we have read in this class previously in my collegiate career. My recollections of the Greek tragedies were of bloody violence and scenes of gore. I seemed to remember vivid details of Oedipus killing his father, ripping out his eyes, and gazing upon his hung mother in agony. I recalled images of the brutal stabbings of Agamemnon, Cassandra and Clytaemnestra in the Oresteia. It was not until re-reading and listening to in-class lectures that I realized that these scenes were merely a product of my imagination as a result of repressed spectacle. Agamemnon is stabbed off-stage and the only immediate indication of death is brought through a scream off-stage. The only indication the audience receives through stage direction that Cassandra has been killed is through Clytaemnestra entering the stage covered in blood. The brutal deaths are described in detail, but the audience never sees it. This contrasts the play written nearly two thousand years later, Hamlet, where the final scene consists of multiple stabbings, poisonings, and deaths. An even later play, Mourning Becomes Electra, does not feature the gore Hamlet does, but in much the same way, the spectacle of Mannon’s death is in plain view of the audience and is in no way repressed. This realization gained through the course readings and class discussions has allowed me to contemplate and wish to explore more about how the audience’s tolerance for physical violence in the flesh, as well as physical and technological limitations, impacted spectacle in early Greek tragedies.

            A couple of weeks before this class began, I attempted to read Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy to get ahead on my reading for this abbreviated summer semester. After failing miserably and effectively psyching myself out for the semester, I jokingly read a randomly selected passage to my wife to see if she understood its meaning (this exercise was ineffective in helping my confidence). During the first days of class, a brief lecture over the conflicting forces of the Dionysine and Apolline was given. This small discussion acted as a sort of Rosetta Stone for understanding and comprehending many of Nietzsche’s observations and commentary. Although I cannot say that I completely understand all of what Nietzsche has to offer, as evidenced by my Birth of Tragedy presentation, I am now able to grab hold of many of his ideas and have begun the beginning stages of applying them to the course readings.

Hector Guzman

Learning Tragedy

            I as a football coach have had other interests in life and have never had an inclination to gravitate toward classical literature.  However, this course has been expanding my horizons on tragedy as the greatest literary genre every day.  I have come to realize that tragedy is not the most popular of all the literary genres because most people prefer to be entertained by escaping reality with romance and comedy.  Whereas, tragedy according to Aristotle’s Poetics is an imitation of life and confronts problems. 

            This imitation of life that confronts problems is done perfectly through tragedy when it excites pity and fear as per Aristotle’s Poetics.  Therefore, producing the sublime which stating Edmund Burke, “is the strongest emotion that the mind is capable of feeling.”  Tragedy is filled with pain which leaves a more lasting impression than pleasure consequently contributing to the greatness of tragedy.

            I believe that the sublime in these literatures of tragedy have made them classical and timeless.  Greek tragedies like Agamemnon and Oedipus have been written more than 2500 years ago and they can still capture an audience.  In fact, the demand was so great that trilogies were created because of them.  As well as, updated versions like Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra as the modern version of the Oresteia trilogy.  Also, psychological terms were created as well such as Electra and Oedipal complexes.  Even the great Robert Kennedy referred to and quoted Aeschylus in a speech for Martin Luther King’s shortly after Dr. King’s assassination by saying, “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Theresa Box

The Lessons We Learn Through Tragedy

            The course of Tragedy has taught me many things so far this semester. The lessons I have learned already have opened my eyes to a genre of literature I have never really expressed much interest in. I have always shied away from the topics of tragedy and mythology and was extremely nervous to be in a course dedicated to these ideas because of my lack of knowledge and exposure to the subject. However, I have already begun to engage in the ideas being presented and have learned that as with all subjects you can take tragedy and relate it to your own life experiences and background knowledge.

This class has taught me to engage new content into my previous experiences and knowledge. One example of this fact is that I have always been raised around the Bible as both literature and spiritual. In some ways I have thought then that topics such as mythology and tragedy would contradict those beliefs and ideas. When I came into this class and saw that they coexisted beautifully and could often be paralleled it was a great way to engage in the new text. It opened me as a learner up to a whole new genre of literature that I have never previously experienced. It also showed me the importance of being open to new things both academically and for enjoyment. I would never have previously thought to read a tragic book for pleasure and after taking this course I can now see myself enjoying this genre of literature.

Another thing this class has showed me is that while tragedy is a part of our everyday lives there is also beauty in the fact that our lives often do not end like the lives of our tragic characters. In a strange way the genre of tragedy has highlighted the beauty of reality and the beauty that our lives do not always end with everything going wrong at the end. It highlighted that though sometimes our lives feel like tragedy there is still a hope for a “happy ending” so to speak, and that we are not in a book that is doomed to a tragic ending.

I also took away for the course on tragedy how much we can learn from the topic and genre. I plan to teach in the future. While I plan to teach elementary I think there is a great deal that students at any level can learn from tragic characters. First of all we can show our students examples of what not to do with their lives. We can show our students through tragedy that actions and decisions have consequences. We can also show our students that in life not all things are black and white, sometimes the lines between good and bad will be blurred and they will need to learn how to think critically in order to decipher between them.

Rebecca Bridgmohan

Essay 1 – Tragedy: It’s More Than You Think

            Although every genre has its own way of drawing us in, I have always been a bit skeptical about tragedy. My skepticism was not unwarranted mostly because for me tragedy was a genre that I perceived as being full of gore with its grotesque amounts of blood, brutal deaths, and insurmountable grief. Looking back on the first day of class when we were asked about what our definition of tragedy was, I could only muster up negative thoughts. I could never see the value of tragedy until diving into the Oresteia trilogy, Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, and Aristotle’s Poetics.

            These key works have helped me to understand that there is more to tragedy other than death and all of the loveliness that accompanies it. Tragedy, as described by Aristotle, is “general conception modes of imitation” or mimesis. And it is through mimesis that we learn our earliest lessons in life. For example, tragedy teaches us (the audience) what happens within society, even though what we may uncover could be considered taboo. For instance, the unfortunate mishap that occurs in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, where Oedipus unknowingly kills his long-lost father and marries his mother, who gives birth to his children. This is not something that happens to be a conversation that is easy to discuss amongst society; however, the complexity of issues concerning family and life in general begs us to take notice. The struggle becomes real in O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, where it is the daughter whose affections for her father have caused an uncomfortable predicament.

            In tragedy, the characters are neither completely good nor absolutely bad. In fact, characters in tragedies sometimes have both qualities, which often make it difficult to root for them, yet it helps us to empathize with them because we can see ourselves in the characters. Humans, as Umaymah Shaid agrees in her essay “The Beauty of Tragedy,” are not “black and white,” and are fashioned through experience. A good example of humans formed through experience is Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra in the play leaves little to like about her character, especially when she deceives her husband by having an extra marital affair with his cousin Aegisthus. But as if that is not enough, she also kills both her husband, Agamemnon, and Cassandra, the innocent prisoner of war. Yet, amidst the treacherous activity and murder, the audience can also understand Clytemnestra’s actions because the play gives the back story of how Agamemnon sacrifices their daughter, Iphigenia. The dilemma is comparable to any decision that has to be made in order for the “good of the many.” Take for instance, the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, where the decision and ethical justification to drop the bomb is still debated. We are definitely not a society that is black and white, where every decision is clear cut.

            Nietzsche states in The Birth of Tragedy that “Aware of the truth from a single glimpse of it, all man can now see is the horror and absurdity of existence;” which brings me to the fact that tragedy’s appeal lies within the fact that we can learn from tragedy. This concept of learning through the tragedy genre was not something that I ever expected until this class. I find evidence of learning though the works that we have read thus far and am hopeful to continue to uncover all that tragedy has to offer.

Tina Le

Essay One: Learning about Tragedy Is Not So Tragic

            In just the matter of two weeks I have learned a great deal about the narrative genre of tragedy. What I believed to be tragedy was the popular use of the term, such as the death of an innocent young person or an unfortunate event that could have been avoided. I had taken a course in Shakespeare, and like his plays I assumed that in tragedy everyone dies in the end without any justice or redemption. However tragedy is much more complex. As we have learned in class, the genre “explores how some of the best qualities that make us human create tragedies so that human greatness is revealed by human failure” (Dr. White’s course website).

            To understand the genre and the qualities that make us human, we take a look at what Nietzsche called the duality of the Apolline and Dionysiac, “the two gods of art, Apollo and Dionysus, we owe our recognition that in the Greek world there is a tremendous opposition…These two very different tendencies walk side by side, inciting one another to ever more powerful births” (14). This is the foundation of tragedy and in the genre we see the dialectic, and according to Dr. White, “[the gods] are not mere oppositions for humans to choose between; both are essential aspects of human personality or identity.” In the first part of Aeschylus’ Oresteia Trilogy, Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murder her husband Agamemnon to avenge the death of her daughter Iphigenia, but also as a motive for the two lovers to be together. Her intentions are both good and bad, thus making it hard for the audience to feel any sympathy towards her. It is this complexity of her character that accurately imitates the complexity of reality. This mimesis or imitation of reality can be linked to Aristotle’s Poetics, which states that through imitating life, the audience can learn something about themselves or about others.

            Another aspect I have learned so far is that tragedy mixes other narrative genres together so perfectly that it takes a critical eye to separate the distinctions. In both Agamemnon and Mourning Becomes Electra, readers get a little bit of comedy and romance narratives. The Watchman in Agamemnon fulfills the comic character. He being “lower type” has a dreadful job keeping watch which he does not seem too involved in, for the lays around like dog and spends most of the night looking up at the sky studying the constellations. His reaction in seeing the signal fire is to spring up and start dancing for his own joy now that his duties are over. In Mourning Becomes Electra, the romance narrative shows through Christine and Brant’s dialogue when they discuss how to kill Ezra. Brandt tells Christine that he would prefer to have a face to face duel, “If I could catch him alone, where no one would interfere, and let the best man come out alive—as I’ve often seen it done in the West!” (293). His reference to western romances is also comical because it is an exaggerated way of killing Ezra that would not be sensible in New England. The overlapping of genres make the plays we read in class less like a work of art imprisoned in a box, but more like a yardstick laid out which can “measure and describe similarities and differences."

Melissa South

Human Error in Tragedy

            In reference to Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, he refers to the birth of said tragedy through the union of Dionysian concepts of art and music with the Appoline concepts of knowledge and illusion.  Jorge demonstrated in class discussion that today we think of tragedy as some catastrophic event, but Dr. White implored further thinking by saying that in the academic sense, tragedy is more of a catharsis tale, where a spectrum of emotions comes to full circle (2014). Therefore, to the average person, when discussing tragedy in literature, it is safe to assume that they will believe the story is only about murder, death, grief, or other such conflicts. According to Umaymah Shahid, tragedy “is a slightly exaggerated form of human behavior and reality” instead of just tales of sadness and grief (Shahid, 2012). Tragedy is the truths that mankind hides within themselves or within the confines of their homes. Each individual experiences trouble, strife, death, etc. and in the form of tragedy drama, these conflicts in our lives are easily relatable and make people feel like they are not alone. When things such as these can be expressed on stage, it makes the conflict more socially open and acceptable. Tragedy dramas also teaches their audiences how to deal with such conflicts, and how these conflicts can affect the person they are happening to, the people around them, and even society as a whole.

            These theories I have about tragedy are proven in Aristotle’s Poetics, where he states that tragedy is a “[mode] of imitation (mimesis),” and that they lie “deep in our nature” (Aristotle handout, 1). We learned in class that tragedy is not always bad, but it usually begins with a problem that is significant and usually stems from within one of the characters, then the action is usually composed of an attempt to discover the truth or the restoration of justice, and concludes with a resolution of the issue that is complemented by death, banishment, or some other just punishment. In tragedy, it is also difficult to define characters as good or bad, but instead as a mix; the people are usually trying to work through internal and external issues, and while they might not be the hero or the villain, they instead can often make good or bad decisions that influence the results of the play. Tragedy is hard to see in black and white, but instead in this big area of grey where morals are often questioned and tested. A good example to clarify what I mean would be to think of a woman who is caught stealing. On one hand of the moral spectrum, stealing is illegal and bad, but on the other hand we find out she was stealing food to feed her children. Is stealing so wrong when the woman just wanted to sustain the life of her children? Tragedy brings morals such as these to light and into question, and that is what can be so tragic about it…tragedy identifies how mankind is flawed.

            An example from Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy that we read in class would be that the king, Agamemnon, sacrificed his daughter in order to save the lives of thousands during wartime, then when he returned, his adulterous wife, Clytaemnestra, murdered him for the revenge of her daughter. Afterwards, their son, Orestes, kills his mother and her new husband (his uncle), for the revenge of his father’s murder, but then he is haunted by his guilt (the Furies) until he is pardoned by Aphrodite and her court. All of these characters were a mix of pure and evil, they all did good and bad things, and their morals were brought into question via the themes of justice and murder. Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra is just a more modern adaptation of the same tale, therefore conflicts with the same moral questions. Then there are similar questions of morality that can be found in Sophecles’s Theban Trilogy, in the first part Oedipus the King. Through Oedipus’ mistakes and suffering, the audience and readers can easily relate to him, and he is made human and real, someone to identify with. All people face questions or situations that question their morality. Tragedy is truly the doorway to the ways of mankind; the dark, secret ways and twisted views of morality that no one wants to willingly express.

Chelsea Stansell

Tragedy is Real, that’s why it’s Tragic

“Tragedy does not rely on flash or over exaggerated visual stimuli to prove its point. Instead, it seeks to eliminate nearly all excess in order to present a purer plot. It does not rely on the easy feelings of laughter and happiness to win over its crowd. Tragedy is more focused on the words and choices of characters rather than the gluttony of showiness and excessive breaks of humor. The old cliché holds true with the immensely raw genre of tragedy: with spectacle, less is more”. Whitney Evans had a wonderful point here is the beginning of her paper, “Tragedy and Spectacle, Including the Sublime”.

Looking at Oedipus the King, when he gouged his eyes out, there was immense spectacle, but was it needed throughout to portray a tragedy…absolutely not. With such a beautiful script, and such a wonderful mixture of relationships, tragedy simply strikes during times of prestige. Similarly with Mourning becomes Electra, Electra being so devoted to her father, persuades her brother to avenge Agamemnon’s death. With a sense of loss taking place in tragedies, it is difficult to feel the need to “dress it up” or “add pizazz” because a tragedy is simply a tragedy.

The most beautiful part of a story, is how you feel (the reader) while reading the story. In everyone’s lives at some point, we all face tragedies and loss, and I believe that while reading tragedy, there is a connection being made there, while feeling grief for the characters. Similarly, while watching a comedy, laughing will also bring you closer to the characters. Kids for instance, feel closer to adults who make them laugh. Laughter brings people closer together, just as grieving does as well. Think about family large visits, usually they are over a festive holiday such as Thanksgiving, while eating food and saying grace, or they spent grieving together, over the loss of a loved one, shedding tears and sharing memories . Comedy and tragedy brings us together, because both of them make us feel immensely human.

When beginning a story, it is easy to get caught up in the monotonous beginning where we all feel almost bored with life and all of its regularity, for instance, in the beginning of Agamemnon, when we read about the watchman and begin to understand his perception of the situation. Or in the beginning of The Bacchae, when Dionysus starts out in disguise, it almost seems too normal, as if something needs to be shaken up in order for chaos to strike, but that is the most beautiful part of tragedy: for it to be tragic, it must feel real, and real life complications always start out a little anticlimactic. By replicating or mimicking a situation that is more relatable prior to tragedy, it intensifies the tragedy. “For instance, Hamlet 3.2 on the purpose of playing [or drama], whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as twere the mirror up to nature” (Craig White’s Literature Courses  Terms/Themes handout). Tragedy is all around us, and showing us things that we already know exist, in a way that helps us relate it to our lives, is always horrifying because it makes it real, even if it is in a story.

Mickey Thames

Learning it Again: Tragedy and Repetition

            “Really? We are doing Hamlet again?”

            “I have Oedipus memorized at this point, how many times do we need to talk about having sex with our parents?”

Sadly, these were among my first thoughts upon entering Tragedy. But, I trusted Dr. White to do as he did in American Renaissance, and take the subject I had brushed over before numerous times and make it interesting. This time, with Tragedy, I was not simply asked to consider the ignorance of Oedipus Rex, or the melancholy of Hamlet as teachable moments about jumping to conclusions and depression, but to consider them in the context of human nature.

            The addition of Birth of Tragedy has been the transformative change to the course that has caused me to reconsider the role of Tragedy. By marrying the philosophical thought of the usually opaque Nietzsche to the emotional weight of tragedies such as Agamemnon, both of the works emerge with clarified newness, and more importantly, relevance.

            When Nietzsche uses his understanding of human nature to opine about the works of early Greeks, he brings these ancient classics to modern understandings. Whereas before the mirror was only held to them to understand the ancient Greek culture, Nietzsche exchanges turns the mirror on ourselves, seeing modern humanity through Greek thought, with harrowing results.

I saw harrowing because of how easily those same problems translate to the modern world. In Mourning Becomes Electra, a picture of human nature comes to bear; inflamed and misguided passions leading to sorrow, downfall, and death. It is a perfect mirror to Agamemnon, seeing as it is an update, but the relevance is not lost for 2000 years of distance.

Tragedy does not ever seem to disappear. The basic story structure has not changed through the ages, and with only different characters suffering new downfalls do we notice a change. What came to mind in my (albeit grudging) last re-read of Hamlet was the last promise Hamlet asks of Horatio.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.

                                                Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2

The older the story, the grander the tale seems to become. As we tell the stories over and over, they seem to grown with humanity, reflecting in them whatever seems to trouble them at the time. I have seen in Tragedy a constant reminder of the human condition, that each person must die. It seems, as we always have, and always will do, return to Aristotle, and his mimetic understanding of literature. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a story to tell again.

Katherine Vellella

Is Tragedy All About Death?

            My previous exposure to tragedy was in my high school English classes. I did not learn nearly as much about tragedy then, as I am now. Before, the focus on tragedy was to learn about the “tragic flaw” and recognize as many literary terms as possible. At one point, the class began keeping a death count of all the characters who died during the tragedy unit. Now that I am in Dr. White’s class my knowledge of tragedy has significantly expanded.

            In Dr. White’s class I have learned the purpose of tragedy stems from two things: it informs and it entertains (Purpose of Literature handout). One way it informs is through the use of imitation, as Aristotle said, “…through imitation we learn our earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated…” (Aristotle’s Poetics, IV[a]). An example of learning through imitation would be a baby learning to speak by imitating sounds and mouth shapes that the parents make. From tragedy we can learn from the characters experiences with “a temptation or error that human beings recognize, such as greed, vanity, or self-righteousness” (Tragedy handout).  

            The second purpose of tragedy is that it entertains. This can be found in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy.  Nietzsche describes how a man responsive to “artistic stimuli” can learn from it, “…for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life” (p. 15). Through the man’s learning, he can experience pleasure in the images as well as learn from the dreams, hoping for it to continue on (Nietzsche, p. 15). In Oedipus Rex, pleasure can be experienced when Oedipus hears from the messenger that his father in Corinth has passed away. However, the reader quickly learns there is more to the messenger’s message than just the death of Oedipus’ father.

            I have not covered the extent of what I have learned so far in class, there is so much more. I can say despite my previous experience with some of these plays, new things keep coming to light. It is refreshing to move away from a heavy focus on “tragic flaw” and literary terms. Instead I am able to read the plays and find pleasure and learning at the same time. Even though some of the works took place a long time ago, there is much to be learned and can be applied to my life in a modern sense.