LITR 4370 TRAGEDY Final Exam Samples 2015 (final exam assignment) Model Answers to Part 2. Complete Learning about Tragedy Essay

Part 2. Complete "Learning about Tragedy" Essay: Revise, improve, & extend essay begun in Midterms 1 & 2 on learning experience with tragedy, extending to include Hippolytos, Phaedra, and Desire Under the Elms. (Revise / improve midterm2 draft & add at least 5 paragraphs for 12+ paragraph total.) 

Nona Olivarez

Where Tragedy Arises True Wisdom Is Sure To Follow

When enrolling in the course Tragedy, I have to admit I was not looking forward to the reading material or what the content of the class contained, or at least what I thought it contained. My previous notions of Tragedy led me to believe that the reading material would be filled with “sad” endings, and this misunderstanding made me feel more than hesitant to sign up since I believe we get enough tragic occurrences in real life.  However, I am now proud to admit that my previous understanding of what Tragedy means is completely wrong, and the reading materials are not just “sad” but beautifully complex and relatable BECAUSE of their trueness to real life. 

I’ve learned a remarkable amount in just the first eight weeks of this course that I think an easier question might be: what haven’t I learned? The way in which the course site is set up allows me, as a student, to easily move through tons of information with just a click of the mouse, all the answers readily available. To begin, I’ve learned that Tragedy is not just full of gore, violence, and betrayal as I previously believed. In fact, as Scott Agruso mentions in his essay, “Agamemnon is stabbed off-stage and the only immediate indication of death is brought through a scream off-stage”. Aeschylus does not make a spectacle of Agamemnon’s death; instead, the audience is told about the murder through verse and the image of Clytemnestra splattered with blood, which is hardly very gory compared to the many mainstream horror movies seen today. This lack of a spectacle, to me at least, made the scene all the more powerful because we are left to our own imagination to picture how the murder took place. While Tragedy does contain violence, the violence isn’t always brutal and full of gore. For example in play by O’Neil, Mourning Becomes Electra, when Christine gives her husband, Ezra, a poisonous pill instead of his much needed medication lacks carnage but feels real because the passion and emotion of the character adheres itself to the reader. I felt engrossed when reading the murder scene of Ezra Mannon and at the end of the scene I felt highly disappointed we weren’t reading further.

Also and probably most significantly, I’ve learned Tragedies do not necessarily have “sad” endings. Dr. White’s course website states, “Tragedy ends with the resolution of the problem and the restoration of justice, often accompanied by the death, banishment, or quieting of the tragic hero”. An example of this is at the end of the Oresteia trilogy in the final play Euminides when the character Orestes is acquitted of the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, by the god Athena and all is restored to how it should be, quite the opposite of a “sad” ending. 

As I learned about tragedy as a genre I also learned about the concept mimesis, which is a familiar concept to me as I’ve heard the phrase “monkey see, monkey do” for as I long as I can remember. However I never knew the term mimesis was just another form of imitation, more specifically “imitation of the real world in (a work of) art, literature, etc” (Dr. White’s Website). The idea of mimesis in literature became apparent to me when we read the Oresteia trilogy and then right after read the play, Mourning Becomes Electra. O’Neill’s play is a direct representation of the play Agamemnon.  Christine is Clytemnestra, Ezra Mannon is Agamemnon, Lavinia is Electra, and so forth. Still, mimesis is not only art (literature) imitating other art (literature), but is more importantly art (literature) imitating “reality, nature, or life” (Dr. White’s Website). For instance in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the character Hamlet states, “for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature” (Act 3, Scene 2). Basically what Hamlet means by this statement is that actors need to act as natural as possible and avoid exaggeration or overacting because the true purpose of theatre (art) is to serve as a representation of reality. As a result of portraying nature through art, readers/viewers will take the work of art more seriously and be able to relate more easily because of realness the work of art possesses. Nevertheless a work of art cannot fully represent the entirety of the real world, instead it represents selections of reality that have significant and/or symbolic meaning (Dr. White’s website). In other words, works of art rarely give you detailed description of a person doing everyday things like brushing one’s hair unless it has a deeper underlying meaning. All in all, mimesis is not the easiest concept to fully grasp at first as it is more complex than just imitation alone, which I didn’t realize until Dr. White brought it to my attention, and perhaps I have more to learn as far as the full meaning of the term itself, but since the first part of the Midterm my understanding of mimesis has definitely grown exponentially.

The concept of mimesis brings me to another thing I have learned so far in this course which pertains to imitation being extremely important because through imitating others, like our parents, we learn all the way from birth to death and the true purpose of tragedy, of course, is to learn. Before taking this course I never considered Tragedy as a means of learning, but after reading plays like, Agamemnon and Oedipus at Colonus, I see now the connection between learning and tragedy. Moreover, reading Tragedy is a learning process in itself, and from Tragedy we are able to learn immensely about real life, like that people act both good and bad and that sometimes the greatest wisdom comes from the most tragic of moments. For example in the play Oedipus the King, the character Oedipus is both good and bad. Oedipus strives to be a good King and does what he can for the people like attempting to discover the murderer (unknowingly himself) of the previous King to save the city, but despite his best intentions Oedipus over and over again makes bad decisions like not sparing the life of the traveler on the road (unknowingly his father) and not listening to the prophet Tiresias’ wise words. In other words Oedipus is the heroic type who is strong, smart, and loyal yet he is also quick to anger, arrogant, and rash. In Tragedy the clear cut good guy and bad guy are not typically portrayed, instead Tragedy introduces characters like Oedipus that exist as a little bit of both, which is truer to human nature and allows the characters to feel more human and realistic to the reader/viewer as we are all both, good and bad. Like in real life these good/bad characters are able to learn from their mistakes and often become better people because of the tragic things that has happened to them. In the sequel Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus is an old man on the verge of death yet from the very start he states, “For I am taught by suffering to endure” (6). To state it simply, Oedipus means that through his suffering he has learned endurance which reinforces the learning theme at the very start and sets the tone for the rest of the play, which is that Oedipus’ character has developed into a wiser man than he once was because of the tragic occurrences in his life. Therefore as Aeschylus so eloquently stated in Agamemnon, “wisdom comes through suffering”.

In addition to tragedy functioning as a learning tool, “tragedy involves families who simultaneously love and hate each other as their fates are bound together” (Dr. White’s Handout). Families play a large role in tragic tales perhaps because tragedy strives to imitate real life and simply enough everyone has a family and everyone has family problems. In reality, no one has a perfect family and more often than not there exists conflict between different family members at some point in time, thus tragedy highlights this conflict that everyone experiences and uses it as a significant basis in the plot. The play, Oedipus the King, is a prime example of family conflict and more importantly introduces an interesting Freudian concept, the Oedipal Conflict. The Oedipal Conflict is an idea I briefly remember going over in high school when we discussed the play, but not much emphasis was put on it. However, I’ve gained a greater understanding in College as we’ve discussed the concept more thoroughly in class. The Oedipal Conflict takes family conflict to a whole “nother” level as the son is in constant opposition to the father and yearns for the mother’s attention. A pretty taboo concept since it insinuates incest, so I can understand why we didn’t exactly spend a large amount of time discussing it in high school; however, it is definitely worth mentioning because at least in the case of Oedipus the King it remains difficult to ignore considering the fact the story revolves around Oedipus killing his father and marrying his mother. Interestingly enough, the Oedipus Conflict doesn’t necessarily cease with Oedipus the King because the play Hippolytus could be argued to contain a hint of this complex, in a different way perhaps, but nonetheless there seems to be some aspect of it as the step mother, Phaedra, falls in love with her step son, Hippolytus, resulting in a conflict between father and son. Although I think it is significant to mention Phaedra only falls for Hippolytus because of the goddess Aphrodite, who uses her powers of love on Phaedra to get back at Hippolytus for his disapproval of sex, so the Oedipus Conflict does not have as much emphasis in the play Hippolytus is it does in Oedipus the King. But in the play, Phaedra, a rendition by Racine, Phaedra falls in love with Hippolytus at her own will and not because any god or goddess forces her to. Still just like in the original, Hippolytus does not reciprocate any feelings towards her so no actual copulation occurs, but the family conflict still remains as Phaedra through manipulation causes Theseus, his father, to believe Hippolytus yearns for his step mother, even though it is the other way around. The major family conflict in the two plays is Oedipal in the sense that Theseus believes that Hippolytus desires his step mother thus betraying him and becoming his antagonist. Additionally Eugene O’Neil’ in his play, Desire Under the Elms, does what Hippolytus and Phaedra do not, the step son and step mother actually end up falling in love mutually.  Despite the fact Abbie falls in love with Eben first, Eben eventually returns the feelings, and so the Oedipal Conflict is reinforced because the two actually act on their desires for one another. Even though in all three plays the mother is solely a step mother and not a biological mother the conflict of familial love still occurs, and it is difficult to argue against the fact that at least some aspect of the Oedipal Conflict exists. All in all, family conflict plays a large part in tragedy and the Oedipal Conflict is a part of that conflict, which is something I may have not put as much emphasis on before but now realize the significance.

Lastly, I’ve learned that the tragic hero doesn’t necessarily have to be male. For some reason I always assumed the hero of the story, at least as far as Greek tragedies go, are male but the play Antigone suggests the opposite.  While it may be debatable whether Antigone or Creon is the tragic hero, Karissa Guerrero provided a good argument for Antigone being the protagonist of the play. Certainly, Antigone possesses qualities that pertain to the tragic hero type including the fact that she doesn’t fit into the mold society has created for her. Also, like many tragic heroes she faces impossible odds in her attempt to defy the rule of King Creon, and she is more than willing to die for what she is fighting for. Furthermore, her belief in a higher law, that of the Gods, and overall her pride leads to her downfall and the fact that she expresses a “fundamentalist prioritization of the family over the state” can be seen as a tragic flaw (Dr. White’s Website). In short Antigone displays that women can be the tragic hero just as much as men can, which is something I had not thought of before since tragic heroes tend to be male and accordingly causes me to appreciate the play Antigone that much more.

While I’ve learned plenty about tragedy as a genre, I think it remains important that we have learned about other narrative genres, such as comedy and romance, as well because of how often they blend together. It appears that you really can’t teach one without teaching the others because then a clear understanding of certain aspects of the text cannot be attained. For example the play, Oedipus at Colonus, is a tragedy yet it also contains characteristics known to romance, especially at the end when Oedipus dies and in a sense transcends when he disappears. An ending that results in a feeling of transcendence is associated with romance, but if one had not studied romance as well as tragedy then this particular concept may have gone unnoticed when reading the play. Similarly the play, Lysistrata, although a comedy contains aspects of romance as the men are filled with a feeling of desire and loss when the women withhold sex. Again this aspect of the play would have gone unnoticed if one did not have a general knowledge of the typical features of romance. Moreover, not only is it important to teach romance, comedy, tragedy, and satire simultaneously because they overlap, it is also equally important in order for one to understand what exactly makes a comedy a comedy or what exactly makes a romance a romance. As we have seen genres blur together, but there are also certain guidelines that exist in order to help us categorize the works of art. In other words, romance follows certain criteria that makes it a romance just as comedy, tragedy, and satire do, and so understanding the characteristics of each genre allows the reader to have a greater comprehension of the overall text and generally what to expect.

In short, as I mentioned before Tragedy is a means of learning in multiple ways because not only do the characters learn more about themselves but arguably the reader/viewer has the possibility to learn more about human nature and thus themselves as well, so because of the bad things that happen one is able to learn from their mistakes and for this purpose tragedy is a necessary part of life.