Tragedy Essay Examples

In the play Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus touches one of the fundamental political problems – the nature and essence of power. The bearer of the highest and unlimited power in this play is Zeus. Aeschylus endows him with features that do not evoke sympathy from the audience: Zeus in this tragedy is despotic, cruel, and, at…

A Greek tragedy is very unique in its structure, composition, and language. The tragedy usually begins with a prologue in which one or more characters introduce the drama and explain the background. It involves a Chorus of some sorts, which says or explains the situation that is developing on the scene and also includes a…

In The Poetics, Aristotle defines plot as “the combination of the incidents or things done in the story”, but a closer reading of the development of ‘plot’ as a crucial element of tragedy reveals that it is much more complicated idea. In this assignment, the attempt has been to understand two things; firstly, how Aristotle’s…

Every historical event has a narrator and critic who criticize the first version of the story. Plutarch wrote about Julius Caesar, on the other hand, Shakespeare criticized it. Both of them chose the assassination event as a historical moment. Shakespeare who is unlike Plutarch focused on the marginalized characters as Brutus and Cassius more than…

The play King Lear by the great writer Shakespeare is a masterpiece like all of the rest of his plays. It is known as one of the greatest tragedies. Every play contains elements or themes which the writer subtly tries to explain to the audience. King Lear successfully highlights some very important themes and motifs…

The themes of sight and blindness in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles are definitely expressed many times throughout the entire play. The play by Sophocles expresses the themes of sight and blindness from two entirely different angles. One angle that it is shown/expressed in is physical blindness. This is for the reason of Teiresias being actually…

Aristotle (384-322) B.C. defines plot as the ‘soul of tragedy’ and has given much importance on it. ‘The arrangement of incidents’ (Ch.6) is what Aristotle describes the concept of plot. The story is formed through the incidents which serve as the raw material and the way in which these events are structured into a rational…

Sophocles’s, Oedipus Rex, is a story of fate. Oedipus, the new king of Thebes, set out his brother-in-law Creon to find the cause of a mysterious death of the old king, Laius. Creon reports back to Oedipus stating that once the murderer is brought to justice, Thebes can go back to normal and everyone can…

Oedipus Rex, one of Sophocles’ seven remaining plays, is a perfect example of a tragedy. Tragedy, defined by Aristotle in his work the Poetics, “is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude”(Aristotle, sec. 1, part VI). What Aristotle meant in saying this is, tragedy is a representation of…

Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as the instrument to the suffering of others. In August Wilson’s play ‘Fences’ the reader is introduced to its main protagonist and tragic hero, Troy Maxon. In this story Troy has made conflict with almost every character through his natural cynical ways. Troy has…