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LITR 4533
TRAGEDY
Midterm Samples 2014 (midterm assignment) Essay Answers to Topic 3 |
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3. Begin Essay 2 (topic of interest) on final exam (3-4 paragraphs, 1.5-2 double-spaced page equivalent)
Authors & titles (scroll down for essays):
Rebecca Bridgmohan, "Teaching
Tragedy in Today’s Ever-Changing World"
Cassandra Rea Essay 2: Families & The Oedipal/Electra Complex
Zizi Sigh,
Teaching Western Theater in Islamic Country
Mickey Thames,
(Tragedy and its Updates and Teaching Tragedy
Rebecca Bridgmohan
Essay 2 –
Teaching Tragedy in Today’s Ever-Changing World
For Part B on the final I want to attempt to answer why it is important
to teach tragedy in school curriculum. I want to answer: “Why/How do we use it”
and “Why do we read it.” I also want to work in modernization of tragedy to make
it pliable to teaching tragedy. I feel that my misconception for what tragedy
is, is not limited to just my thinking, so I want to preview the misconceptions,
common usages, and classical elements that help it to stand the test of time.
Because the Oresteia is the foundation for tragedy I would discuss the elements
that make the trilogy worthy of being classified as that genre. I will cite
Aristotle’s Poetics and Nietzsche’s
The Birth of tragedy, and use my working definition of tragedy to support how
tragedy should be taught. I would also compare the
Oresteia with
Mourning Becomes
Electra to highlight how tragedy is modernized, paying attention to
spectacle in the two plays.
In addition, I want to discuss
Antigone, and explain why it is the hottest classical tragedy in schools
today. What is it about
Antigone that
makes this classical story so popular? What are common themes in
Antigone
that remain
consistent with other current popular literature? I want to develop
Antigone’s themes for study and discussion: state law vs. “higher
law”/morals, honor and dishonor, politics, and light and darkness. These themes
are important in
Antigone because
Antigone is confronted with such a problem that distinguishing the themes and
understanding them would help students to read the play with an open mind. Civil
disobedience may be a theme that is most current for them relate to, especially
when you provide examples of civil disobedience in history or popular culture.
Antigone may not be a philosophical
debate, but the moral complexity begs us to read it for more than just the
story.
My reasoning for combining two
options (1 and 9) is because I think that teaching tragedy and tragedy and its
updates go hand-in-hand. In high school, students touch base on tragedy by
defining the tragic hero and the tragic flaw, but never go too much in depth to
prevent the misconceptions that I harbored about tragedy until this class.
Ultimately, I want to touch base on both topics to form a solid thesis about
teaching tragedy in a society that continues to evolve.
Cassandra Rea
Essay 2: Families & The Oedipal/Electra Complex
Throughout our class readings the one thing that has stuck out to me the
most is the idea of family. Each text covered thus far (and in tragedy itself)
deals with the conflict surrounding one family. Personally, this is one of the
reasons as to how tragedy gets its edge because these problems arise within the
family always. Family and problems are something that I think that every
individual can relate to at some point or another. Granted it might not be as
severe as murder or incest but having problems within the family allow the
audience to connect with the play and by extension tragedy.
Even though each story is quite different, they did possess many similar
qualities that relate to the notion of the family. First each problem surrounded
the head of the family, whether it may the father or the king, the problem
always lied around this central character. Then is the fact that the wife plays
a role in the demise of the head of the family. For many, it was she who
murdered him or in Oedipus’s case it was incest. Followed by the more
fascinating idea which is the Oedipal/Electra complex. This complex surrounds
the idea of the child wanting the affection for the opposite sex parent with the
hatred of the affection that the other parent gives. This is particular stuck
out like a sore thumb because I had never heard of this concept before as well
as I thought it was a tad radical for my taste. But nonetheless it offered a
very interesting insight into how the family dynamic works.
My ultimate goal for the final essay is to explore the idea of family
and how the Oedipal/Electra Complex fits into the story. There are many
connections that I have made thus far in my previous essays into how these two
idea go hand in hand with one another. Where there is a family, the
Oedipal/Electra is not far behind when it comes to stories in tragedy. I want to
find the connection and see how it fits into the mold of tragedy as well as why
it makes it so great. Without the family and Oedipal/Electra complex, the story
would not have to humanistic quality that clings to. Personally, I feel that it
is these two things that contribute greatly to a tragedy story because it seems
to bind everything else which is why I plan to further explore my idea. This
idea ultimately marks a main ingredient into the recipe of a tragedy story.
Zizi Sigh
Teaching
Western Theater in Islamic Country
I think
teaching Greek theater in Saudi Arabia will be beneficial for philosophy and art
are identifiable across cultures. Since I have gotten Greek theater courses in
neither my undergrad or graduate coursework, I think I would like to teach it in
one of the Saudi Universities. However, I have a couple points that concern me:
the cultural barrier, and materials.
Since Saudi
Arabia has totally different culture, I think I should have a good plan to
process Greek Theater along with Shakespearean theater. I think
Agamemnon
and
Antigone
are a great fit since the Arab culture in general has the concept of revenge and
honor. The consequences of such plays are similar for an Arabic Epic, but it has
never produced as a play. I think Arab students may relate to both plays because
all of the political situation in the Arab Spring and the government ongoing
change.
However, I
noticed that there are no sufficient materials online or videos because
undergraduate and ESL students need visual materials more than a native
English-speaker does. It is true that students, whether they were native speaker
of English
or ESL students, should
read the play. However, I believe that a play is written to be acted, not to be
read. As such, I think I may ask them to play it on private stages where the
audience is female –because the Saudi Society is conservative. I may try to
associate it with Arabic Mythology or some current television show. I think this
way, students will have a good grasp about the basic elements of Tragedy and
Greek plays.
Teaching
Greek plays in Saudi universities has a great impact on Saudi students’
understanding of Western theater (Elizabethean, 19th century, or
modern) First. Besides, the relation between Aristotal’s
Politics and the
current literary work will refine their sense of literature. Though Saudi Arabia
is a conservative country that has totally different culture and heritage, some
Greeks plays are teachable in such culture, due to the common culture of revenge
and honor. In other words, teaching such material in Islamic country will have a
positive impact if I overcome the cultural barrier and presented visual
miracles.
Essay 2 Topic of Interest: Immorality of Family in Tragedy
In Essay 1, I focused on tragedy and how it is an extension and display
of questions of morality and tendencies of humankind. For this essay, I would
like to branch from that and relate it to the topic of families in tragedy. From
the moment man first set foot on this earth to the current year of 2014, mankind
has been changing and evolving, and what is acceptable in the eyes of society
has as well. Thousands of years ago, family was not necessarily the utmost of
importance, but keeping the family’s place in society was, especially for those
families born into royalty. It was not about if someone was happy or in love, it
was about keeping the last name going and extending the royal bloodline to
offspring; to sum it up, those in power wanted to stay in power. We have not
read any so far, but there are tales of fathers intentionally impregnating their
daughters when their wives were barren in order to produce more royal offspring.
In more recent times, only hundreds of years ago, it was socially acceptable for
cousins to marry and continue creating high born offspring. Today, these
practices would be considered taboo, but now there are scenarios with same-sex
marriages becoming more socially acceptable, though in the past people lost
their heads or genitals for such practices. This essay will explore the families
we have read about in our tragedy tales, and relate their situations to morality
and acceptability among humankind.
In Aeschylus’s Oresteia
trilogy, the king, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter in order to save the lives
of thousands during wartime. It would appear immoral to kill one’s own child in
today’s society, but what comes to my mind is the saying about eliminating one
for the good of the commonwealth, and that is where we see our first example of
immorality within families of tragedy. While Agamemnon is away at war, his wife,
Clytaemnestra, has an affair and plots to murder for revenge of her daughter
with the king’s brother, Aegisthus. Then and today, affairs were widely known
that it happens, but often looked down upon, and the murder of a spouse can
definitely be considered immoral. Readers realize though the murder is out of
love and revenge for their daughter, but does that make it any more right or
wrong? After the deed is done, their son Orestes returns home and is urged by
dreams and his sister, Electra, to murder their mother and uncle for revenge for
their father. Clearly Electra displays distaste for their mother and her
actions, but Orestes is the one who commits the crime and is haunted by his
mother’s ghost and Furies. Though Orestes is pardoned and can live on without
guilt after a trial of Aphrodite and her court, the morality of his actions is
also called into question on similar ground of his mother. Is revenge a just
reason to murder? This concept is visited again in Eugene O’Neill’s play
Mourning Becomes Electra, which is a modernized concept of the
Oresteia trilogy, but the Electra
Complex is more evident in this version. The Electra Complex is where a daughter
is very close to their father, and regards their mother with distaste as a
threat to their relationship. In Mourning,
the daughter Vinnie despises her mother, Christine, for carrying on an affair
with a love interest of her own, Adam Brant. Not only is the Electra Complex
evident, but the same questions of morality about family, murder, and revenge
are questioned. There is also a portion of the next concept I will discuss that
can be found in Mourning, where the
son, Orin, is describing his dreams to his mother, which could be analyzed for
almost inappropriate content.
To further analyze immorality in the families of tragedy, we can use our
reading of Sophocles’ Theban trilogy, starting with
Oedipus the King. The most obvious
psychological conflict in this tale would be the immoral concept of the Oedipus
Complex, where the son is in love or has inappropriate feelings for their mother
while viewing their father as competition.
Oedipus is about a man of the same name that becomes the king of
Thebes, and unknowingly fulfills the prophecy of murdering his father, Laius,
and marrying his mother, Jocasta. In the beginning, Laius hears from an oracle
that he will die by the hands of his own son, so he orders his wife Jocasta to
murder the infant. Yet again, we cross the moral question of murdering our
children, but Jocasta finds she is unable to do so, and orders a servant to.
Instead, the servant abandons the baby to die, but he is rescued by a shepherd
and raised by King Polybus as his own. Once an oracle tells him of his own fate,
he leaves his “family,” believing they are biological and not wanting to harm
them, and kills his biological father, Laius, during a conflict on the road,
then once he defeats the sphinx, he is wed to Jocasta, his biological mother, as
a reward. Through the action of the play the truth is discovered, and in the
end, Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs out his eyes. Oedipus fathered two
daughters with his mother, so not only are they his daughters, but also his
half-sisters. Inter-family relations are highly taboo in today’s society, even
then, but it is brought to light the immoralities and natures of people, and how
it affects the family as a whole. As Umaymah Shahid states in their essay, “no
one wants to think of children sleeping with,” or having sexual thoughts about
their parents, yet it brings to light that “these feelings might be real,” and
that conflicts such as these not only affect the family, but society (Shahid,
2012).
Teaching
Tragedy
I cannot wait
to be a teacher, and when I saw this as a possible topic for the midterm, I got
so excited! Tragedy can be a very challenging subject to teach because it is
just so tragic! I am hoping to teach eighth grade English, and for the most part
the only tragedies that they will be familiar with are Romeo and Juliet, and
possibly tragic stories they have heard on the news. I really think teaching
tragedies would be very rewarding because you are not only teaching writing, and
reading, but you are also teaching a beautiful acceptance of appreciating the
remains that fall from misfortune. Such wonderful legacies have risen from
tragedies, and so much of our culture thrives because of the aftermath of
catastrophe.
In class we discussed Mimesis, and exactly how the “representation or
imitation of the real world in art or literature” reflects in what we learn, and
that “creative writing is more mimetic in that it creates a world in and of
itself”. (Craig White’s Literature Courses Terms/Themes Handout). Opening up
students’ brains to the knowledge of art of all kinds, means introducing them to
tragedy, because tragedy has always been around, and it has inspired all sorts
of masterpieces. Look at the Renaissance era, all the beautiful art and music
from this time was because of the strength that comes with rising after tragedy.
When we discuss tragedy, we are not only discussing stories, we are discussing
current events! Nietzsche says “The idea of the spectator without a play is an
absurd one” to whom are we teaching if no one cares? As a teacher, we rely on
references and interpretations, to educate ourselves as professionals and to our
students as scholars, to create an environment where learning becomes the main
goal, and everyone is interested in learning more. There is great knowledge in
finding a purpose for the ruins that come with tragedy, because from ruins,
cities are built.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Oedipus the King, and during my presentation
in class, I discussed a few ways in which would be acceptable to introduce this
text to a Composition 1301 class, and interestingly, I found that after I had
done my presentation, my brain just kept bubbling with ideas. As an educator, it
is crucial to keep in mind all of the ways in which we can keep students
interested in the classics that shape what society is today, so that they can
grow and become open to new interpretations of stories, theories, conventions,
philosophies, and viewpoints.
For instance, a student who understands the dialogues of Plato, is much
more likely to ask questions in class because they understand that learning
comes from asking questions. Nietzsche says “In order to understand this we must
level down, stone by stone, as it were, the elaborate construction of Appoline
culture until we can see its underlying foundations”. In order to completely
understand literature, and appreciate the complexities and advancements made in
society, we must understand tragedy, and understand that teaching it, is not
tragic, to ignore it, would be.
Mickey Thames
Selected Topics- A blend of Tragedy
and its Updates and Teaching Tragedy
Title- Everything Old is New
Again: Teaching the Immortal Genre
There are few quintessential learning experiences in
life like having your childhood memories being torn apart by a sudden
realization of their true nature. Such was my experience when I went back and
watched The Lion King
with my sister, after having taken a class on Shakespeare. “This is Hamlet,” I
thought, and I was amazed at the consistency of the story.
So, imagine my surprise when looking through the
questions for this essay and seeing Hamlet
paired up with Oedipus Rex.
Two stories that I thought I knew backwards and forwards, and never seeing the
link between the two.
It’s these types of learning moments that make
Tragedy so useful for teaching intertextual thinking. Often, teaching students
to read a text is about learning to unravel plot, describe characters and
motivations, and drawing out morals or lessons that they teach. It is often hard
to teach how texts can respond to texts that come before it, or that different
works are responses to one another. Even giving a history lesson about the
author or the time period can miss this very important skill to reading
literature at a higher level.
When Oedipus Rex is updated to Hamlet, it gains
relevance not only in cultural context, but the questions it raises can be
expanded upon. While Oedipus ultimately chooses exile upon his downfall, Hamlet
chooses to die rather than continue on. Oedipus is concerned with his family’s
well being, while Hamlet, in losing all of his family, seeks to end his life.
The emphasis Oedipus Rex puts on family, no matter how intertwining the tree may
go, is shown by Oedipus refusing to give up on life as long as his daughters are
alive. He limps on, clinging to the children made in sin, because they are what
is most important.
Omitting the remaining family in Hamlet emphasizes
the role that family plays in tragedies. Hamlet is robbed of his love and his
family, and sees no other path other than to die. His tragedy is that he is
alone, whereas Oedipus was at least with his daughters.
As Hamlet upgrades the importance of family, so the
Lion King continues this trend, but in this case, preserving Simba even as he
slays the only remaining member (male) family member through his mother (Oedipal
positioning) and Nala, a love/wife interest. In fact, The Lion King is the
happiest of endings, since it is aimed at children, but serves as a good
introduction to the Kill your Dad/Take Dad’s place story.
I also plan to take this further with the updated
Hippolytos and Phaedra plays, and contrast them with O’Neil’s updates.
Teaching Literature in High School
I am studying to be an English teacher and
would like to teach at the high school level. My high school English teachers
are the ones that instilled a love of reading and literature in my life. I would
like to do the same for my future students, while exposing them to all types of
literary works.
In class we have discussed how
Antigone tends to be a more enjoyable
read for the younger generations. I completely agree that
Antigone can be more enticing to read; however, if the students have
little knowledge of Sophocles Oedipus Rex
they may not understand the references in
Antigone that relate to Sophocles play. I have pondered how I can
incorporate these two classic tragedies in my future classroom. Part of me feels
since Antigone is the more popular
choice for the younger, I would start with this play but first introduce it with
excerpts from Oedipus Rex that explain
the family curse and Oedipus’ destruction.
I also want to teach more modern tragedies
like the ones we have read in class. There is value in introducing the students
to more modern concepts of tragedy to compare the differences with the older
tragedies. One main difference I want to emphasize with my future class is the
use of spectacle. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Eugene O’Neill’s
Mourning Becomes Electra spectacle is more common than in Aeschylus’
Agamemnon. I want the students to
interact with the texts and evaluate whether the use of spectacle or the lack
thereof impacts their opinion of the different literary texts.
I can see how teaching tragedy can be a
challenge, but I feel it is a challenge that I want to take on. It is worthwhile
because as Dr. White’s Tragedy handout says, “Tragedy
makes you learn, which, Aristotle says, is ‘the liveliest pleasure’”.
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