Hubris destroys people, it can blind people to the reality of their situation and leads them to their downfalls as shown by the characters in Sophocles’ plays Antigone and Oedipus Rex. By looking at Oedipus and Creon, the careful reader can see how the excessive pride of each character leads them to their doom. In the play Oedipus Rex an example of Oedipus’ excessive pride is when he is asked to move aside by the former King of Thebes, Laios and Oedipus refuses. Oedipus’ pride overwhelms him and drives him into a murderous rage, as Sophocles illustrates, “the groom leading the horses forced me off the road at his lords’ command; but as the chariot lurched over towards me I struck him in my rage …He was paid, back and more!” (Oedipus Rex 43). In his rage, Oedipus kills the old man and his fellow travelers.
When actions are to be taken into consideration by him it seen that he situation is horrible, which Hamlet feels he has no control over. He allows his anger towards Claudius to let him fall into a madness. The depression Hamlet is encountering is due to the actions that King Hamlet is demanding of him. He cannot complete the task asked of him of his procrastination, which causes him to nearly take his own life. “To be or not to be, that is the question; whether’ tis nobler in the mind to suffer...” (Shakespeare Act 3, Scene 1).
In Macbeth’s as well as Shakespeare’s thinking, all people in this life are just bad, stupid actors- shouting and running about and generally making a lot of noise and fuss but not much sense, and then they die anyway and become completely meaningless. With another metaphor, he considers his life is not different from an idiot's tale which is full of bombast and melodrama, but without meaning. Shakespeare may be so depressed when he wrote these final lines that he considers life as walking shadow and not real enough. In my opinion, when writing these lines, Shakespeare want to send us a message that life is something that we have to take as it comes and it is unpredictable, when being brought to life we have to accept it and to necessarily beautify it. The naked truth is
How far do you agree that ‘The play King Lear presents us with a bleak and cruel world and offers us no comfort at the end?’ Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ falls under Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, with the fact that the characters are royal, and therefore have an enormous amount to lose. Moreover, the destructive downfall of not only King Lear but most of the characters in the play is due to the fatal flaw of pride in the king. The embellished language in the play is mainly in verse, and coupled with the unusual language forms of The Fool and Edgar as ‘Poor Tom’, this further links the play with the traditional definition of tragedy. ‘This fellow has banished two on’s daughters and did the third a blessing against his will.’ Untangling the meaning on The Fool’s words can be difficult, but it is clear he is the voice of reason and wisdom whispering in Lear’s ear throughout the play. Despite all this negativity, it would be a great over-simplification to assume that the overall play ‘presents us with a bleak and cruel world and offers no comfort at the end’, though this is an easy assumption to make given the obvious bleakness that infects the play throughout.
Hamlet kills Polonius behind the tapestry because he suspects that it might be Claudius, but when he unveils the body and discovers that it is Polonius, he shows no sign of guilt at all. He acts like he is “convinced that he is the complete master of an obviously unhealthy situation” (Prosser Pg. 125). A person who wants nothing more but justice for the death of a loved one would feel bad for killing an innocent person during the process, but that is not the case with Hamlet. He shows no sign of guilt or remorse towards the death of Polonius, because he is clearly past the point of justice and is seeking revenge.
281-286). It was not the loss of personal property or spoils of war that infuriated Achilles, it was the face he lost when Agamemnon snatched away his prize for the sake of reminding all that were present that he, though not a great warrior like Achilles, was still the greater man. His ire raised, the childish Achilles cries to his immortal mother Thetis to do the unthinkable, “go and sit beside [Zues]… persuade him to help the Trojan cause, to pin the Achaeans back against their ships, trap them round the bay and mow them down” (1. 485-488). This is how the mighty Achilles hopes to demonstrate his greatness; have his comrades mown down so that Agamemnon could see his folly for disgracing
This lack of self-centeredness is observed through the actions of Hector throughout the entire epic and his compassion for others is prominent in his notion of Greek justice. When Hector firsts steps into the plot of the Iliad, we witness his passion to fight and protect his city. In fact, Hector calls out his brother for not fighting. If Paris had not taken Helen as his prize, then this war may have never occurred. In book three, after Paris’ responds to Hector’s criticisms, Paris offers to prove himself in a fight with Menelaus in order to settle the war.
Yet while Caesar may not be unduly power-hungry, he does possess his share of flaws. He is unable to separate his public life from his private life, and, seduced by the populace’s increasing idealization and idolization of his image, he ignores ill omens and threats against his life, believing himself as eternal as the North Star. Antony - A friend of Caesar. Antony claims allegiance to Brutus and the conspirators after Caesar’s death in order to save his own life. Later, however, when speaking a funeral oration over Caesar’s body, he spectacularly persuades the audience to withdraw its support of Brutus and instead condemn him as a traitor.
Why Cassius Can Be Considered Weak No character is the most powerful in the play. Cassius is powerful, but not the most powerful in the play due to several elements that other characters display better than Cassius himself can. -Submissive Can be seen as an opposite to counter his manipulative trait or his foresight (1), he is unable to express his opinions to Brutus and the conspirators. His words have no weight, and are unable to change or impact decisions made by the conspirators. → He is unable to convince Brutus to give the command to get rid of Antony, along with Caesar, as Brutus’ words and rejection to the suggestion carry more weight, which are able to influence the rest of conspirators.
In the play Othello by William Shakespeare change is represented not so much by its presence but by its absence. This play is about how an inability to change will bring about tragic consequences. The main characters in Othello are Othello, Iago and Desdemona. All of these characters fail to change throughout the course of the play and consequently are the cause of their own downfall. The characters maintain their restricted attitudes throughout Othello.