Symbolizing Sight: Knowledge vs Ignorance in Oedipus the King Oedipus, the character of focus within Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King, is subject to the greatest of ironies due to the play’s motif of sight: through metaphorical sightlessness, which is a case of ignorance, he condemns himself and uses literal blindness as his own punishment. Having been characterized within the literary work as possessing both knowledge and ignorance of his upbringing, metaphorical and literal elements of sight are constantly used to shed light on Oedipus’s experiences throughout the duration of the play. Mostly metaphorical in its usage within the literary work, the characters regularly utilize the terms of “sight” and “blindness” in order to address levels of knowledge or lack thereof as they gradually unravel the story’s underlying truth. The character of Oedipus is a man considered to have great insight and intelligence due to his success in protecting the city of Thebes from the threat of the sphinx by solving its riddle. This makes the situation even more ironic when the audience learns that Oedipus has been ignorant of the true reasons for his placement as king.
Othello’s down fall has been argued countless times on whether it was due to his own weaknesses and incapability or through other influences and circumstances in which are beyond his control and abilities. However this perception is limited to an implausible and inadequate judgement of Othello’s down fall when the consolidation of Othello’s own imperfections and the irrepressible circumstances stimulated by Iago proves to be much more reasonable and conceivable. This concept can be exhibited through the prominent themes of jealousy, reputation and honour and appearance vs. reality. For Othello, jealousy is a deficiency that obstructs his sense of rational reasoning, but for Iagoit is the catalyst and fuel for his compulsive ambitions to ignite Othello’s calamity. Othello is a very gullible character and becomes immediately susceptible to any claims that he deems threatening in addition to his habit of skipping to conclusion abruptly , revealing the impact of his jealous nature.
According to Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and the most confirmed definition of the central character, Oedipus from the Greek play, Oedipus Rex, is considered of a classical model of the tragic hero. Oedipus, being the tragic hero of the play, must demonstrate an essential element to arouse emotions of pity and fear within the audience to achieve the emotional catharsis or purgation. With that being noted, Oedipus had to have some features and characteristics to ensure the state of purgation throughout the audience. In fact, Oedipus as a character in the play has all the features of the tragic hero Aristotle has concluded about. Firstly, for the reader to understand why Oedipus in the Greek play, Oedipus Rex is a classical example of tragic hero, one must know the theory.
Irony is often seen as an indispensable and crucial facet to Greek plays, or perhaps any play in that matter. Irony over time and still today has made literature evolve to a whole different level. It provides suspense and trepidation, and causes the piece of literature to become much more appealing and fascinating. Irony is in essence the use of terminologies to convey something dissimilar from and often opposed to their literal significance. Sophocles adores exploiting the use of dramatic irony in his prose.
Gellburg’s response to Slyvia’s outburst is not evidently displayed through speech, but through the use of Miller’s stage directions: ‘He is stock still; horrified, fearful’. The words ‘horrified’ and ‘fearful’ suggest that the news of such events came as a shock to him and undoubtedly indicate that he is affected by such news and is also stricken by Sylvia’s powerful, unexpected revelation of her feelings. Miller conveys the message that that Gellburg finally comes to understand his ignorant attitude as one that has led to his self-denial and self-hatred. It later becomes clear in the play that Gellburg is suppressing an important part of who he is, and in scene eleven, he confesses to a bottled-up desire of ‘going and sitting in the Schul with the old men and pulling the tallis over my head’. Sylvia, in her frustration with Gellburg, says ‘Don’t sleep with me again’ in a rather commanding manner.
After receiving this information, the reader is dazzled, how could he love these people who called him a “nutwagon”? Mr. Smith was underappreciated and treated poorly, but the most heart wrecking part of it, was that through the whole “abuse[ment]” he still
Blindness and Insight: Torvald’s Tragedy of Pride Pride has been the cause of many conflicts through the ages of time. It is said, that at the center of every conflict is a man’s pride. Pride is a human nature that clouds the thoughts and controls the emotions of people. Pride builds barriers of arrogance and vanity that blinds people of seeing what is really going on around them. In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the pride of Torvald blinded Torvald, and gave him a sense of manhood and superiority over Nora throughout the play until his pride was put to the test, and in doing so, revealed a weak and desperate man.
Othello: A Tragic Hero and an Aristotelian Tragedy I. Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare is one of his most acclaimed tragedies. “Othello’s story is a tragedy, and not just a very sad story, because it is a story of the destruction of a noble, deeply admirable man brought about through his own weaknesses, systematically exploited by a malicious enemy” (Porter, 2005, pg. 27). However, it has long been debated whether Othello satisfies the requirements of an Aristotelian tragedy. A.
In drama, the symbols play the most imperative role. Tom acts as the narrator of the play and also a character within the play. He underlines the play’s hostility between objectively presented reality and the memory’s alteration of reality. He sometimes speaks to the audience directly, to give a more direct explanation of what’s been occurring between the characters on stage. I felt remorse for Tom as I was reading the play, and it was as if I knew exactly what he was feeling; the sense of being trapped in a life in which he wanted no part of; what kind of life is that for a person?
Written in 335 B.C, he codified the genre of tragedy following his reading of the Ancient Greek Tragedians; Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus. He codified it using six clear terms. So in order to conclude whether or not Richard II was in fact a tragedy, I am going to investigate whether or not it conforms to all the conventions set out in the Poetics. In this Aristotle explains the tragic hero as an inherently flawed character who makes a crucial mistake, his hamartia. This means he undergoes a moment of peripeteia which forces him into a sudden realisation, his moment of anagnorisis.