Tragedy Essays

As one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, the story of King Lear reflects the two extremes of human nature–love and loyalty, lies and betrayal. In such a complex world, Shakespeare ironically contrasts the physical qualities to the deeper meanings of blindness and sight throughout the tragic lives of the King …

The Aristotelian tragic hero is defined as a “lifelike” person who demonstrates both good and bad qualities through speech and action in a consistent manner. Moreover, the tragic hero, due to a personal error in judgment or tragic flaw, is the cause of the tragedy in a play. In Jean …

By definition, a tragedy invokes pity or fear on the audience while telling a story of misfortune as a result of reversal of situation. This is usually due to the protagonist’s hamartia, or character flaw. All this is present in Sophocles’ play, “Oedipus the King”. The play can also be …

William Shakespeare based his play “Othello” on a story called “Hecatommithi” by Giraldi Cinthio’s. This was a collection of a hundred tales that was printed in Italy in the sixteenth century. It is thought that Shakespeare read the original Italian version and got inspired to write his own. In writing …

Usually, in novels, the main character’s strength overshadows his weaknesses. In the Greek tragedy “Antigone”, however, the main character of the same name has as many strong points as weak ones. In the next paragraphs, I will point out Antigone’s strengths, weaknesses and, finally, the evolution of the character throughout …

In the play “Hamlet” written by William Shakespeare, is a play that revolves around tragedy and revenge and this revenge leads to Hamlets death and people that were close to him. Hamlet’s pursuit to revenge his father’s death blinded his morals and intelligence and lead to his untimely death. It …

The different portrayals of female characters Antigone and Lysistrata illustrate the fundamental nature of the proper Athenian woman. Sophocles’ Antigone allows the reader to see that outrage over social injustices does not give women the excuse to rebel against authority, while Aristophanes’ Lysistrata reveals that challenging authority in the polis …

According to Aristotle, a tragic hero in a Greek drama must meet certain requirements. The tragic hero must be of noble birth, be basically good, must have a tragic flaw, and must have a moment of realization at some point in the work. Although Antigone is the namesake of the …

Tragedy is a theme that is shown throughout the play A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is the man that this tragedy is shown in. The story of Sir Thomas More is one of which a man must choose between what his king wants and his own morals. …

From the beginning of the novel it is clear that tragedy will taint the life of Hardy’s protagonist. As Hardy equates Hamlet and Tess from the start, we learn that he sees Tess as a virtuous victim and therefore as a tragic heroine. This is no surprise as a view …