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LITR 4370
TRAGEDY Model Assignments Midterm2 Samples 2017 (midterm2 assignment)
Model Answers to Part 2. |
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Part 2. Learning about
Tragedy 2:
Revise, continue, improve, & Extend Essay
begun in Midterm1
. . . to include Sophocles's Family of Oedipus plays.
(Index)
Relearning Tragedy
When you
think of tragedy, some of the first titles that come to mind are plays, such as;
Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, and Romeo and Juliet.
Combining a theatre background with subsequent literature studies, I felt
really comfortable with my knowledge of tragedy coming into this course. These
texts are covered frequently in both types of classes. While in theatre
production, the ideas of tragedy and comedy apply more to the types of emotions
you want to elicit from the audience, the literary definition of tragedy is more
complex. What I realized while preparing a discussion lead assignment for
Eumenides and The Libation Bearers was that while I could classify a work as a
tragedy, I had never studied the genre specifically. Learning about the three
categories of classifying genre has made me realize that I had always been
taught tragedy primarily along the lines of the subject/audience identification
for the term tragedy, as opposed to the narrative genre.
Considering a work a tragedy was a way to signify that a
king like Agamemnon or some other character in a high position in life would
come to their downfall, often due to a tragic flaw that the character could have
avoided. While an oversimplified definition, it does tend to cover many
representatives of the genre. This tragic flaw, or hamartia, presents itself
repeatedly in the works that we’ve read, with it appearing in
Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, Oedipus
Rex, and Antigone. In Aristotle’s Poetics, this is escribed as a hero
“whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error
or frailty” (Poetics class page).
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is brought
down by his pride, pursuing the investigation after being warned not by
Tiresias. In Antigone, the tragic
flaw is not limited to one character, but two. Both Antigone and Creon are
brought down by their stubbornness. If this had been a comedy, they would have
worked out their differences and celebrated with a large party, but since it’s a
tragedy, they both stick firmly to their courses of action until it has resulted
in the deaths of Antigone, and everyone Creon cares about.
While the concept of the tragic flaw is common in
tragedies, it is not always the case with tragedy however. In my previous
studies, I had somehow managed to miss the idea that the restoration of justice,
as in The Eumenides where the revenge
cycle that had caused the deaths of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra is finally put to
an end by the ruling from the court of Athens. This counters the popular idea of
tragedy as “someone dies at the end,” and gives the characters the chance at a
more positive way of life after the end of the text. This idea of a restoration
of justice also appears in Oedipus at
Colonus. While Oedipus does die at the end, making it somewhat of a tragedy
by the subject/audience definition, his death is not brought about any kind of
tragic flaw. By the end of the play, Oedipus has regained much of his noble
bearing, and begins to take control of his fate. Because of the prophecy that
his death will bring a blessing to the land where it occurs, his choice of
Colonus represents him choosing Athens, a place of justice for the benefit of
this blessing.
Tragedy
is an important part of human nature, and as such, it is not just relegated to
the realms of the ancient Greeks, but is updated and evolves as time moves on.
Reading The Homecoming, where O’Neill
has updated the Oresteia to post civil war United States, shows how the nature
of tragedy can change over time. The motivation behind the murder of Ezra is
based on Christine’s love for Adam Brant, a more relatable theme at the time
than the revenge cycle portrayed in the original Oresteia. Even as early as
Hamlet, tragedy was being modernized.
While typically in older tragedies, the hero is a king or ruler of the society,
which makes their downfall even steeper, but creates a distance between the hero
and the common person. In Hamlet, the
hero is not a king but a prince. This brings the hero a little closer to the
level of the common man to make him somewhat more relatable, yet still keeps him
at a higher level to increase the amplitude of his fall.
Reading Lysistrata as comedy to directly compare with
the elements of a tragedy really made clear the contrast between the treatments
of ideas between the two. The contrast that stood out to me more than any other
was how war was treated as a nuisance that was keeping their husbands busy and
not at home with them. In Agamemnon, the herald describes the actual hardships
of war, “wretched quarters, narrow berths, the harsh conditions” (Agamemnon
667). The way the comedy treats war as something that is just happening, but the
characters don’t seem to be suffering any long term consequences from war is
stark contrast to the suffering that’s depicted in the tragedy where there are
real consequences to the events. Consequences and dealing with them are central
to the nature of tragedies. The entire Oedipus cycle is about consequences. Even
though Oedipus killed his father and married his mother unknowingly, he still
winds up paying for it the rest of his life. It is not until right before his
death that he has redeemed himself by living with the suffering that he caused.
The consequences result in the events of
Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus.
While the events of Lysistrata have
no long term consequences, Oedipus’s shame led to the deaths of his wife/mother,
and all of his children as the action continues through the cycle.
These elements of tragedy make for very complex
characters. Heroes in tragedies are never completely good characters, they
obviously have the flaw that will bring them down. But the villains are never
fully bad characters either. In romantic narratives, there are clear definitions
of the heroes and villains. Classic westerns, for example, had the hero cowboy
in the white hat who rode into town and set everything right. The villain in the
black hat is vanquished in the end and everyone headed towards a better
tomorrow. In tragedy, the battle is often fought within oneself. The hero is
also the villain, as the actions that lead to their downfall are often pursued
based on what they feel is right. While romances are popular because they end
with a feeling that everything will be alright, tragedy is a truer form of
mimesis, because it relates to the actual nature of human beings.
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