Tragedy is used to vehicle the reader’s moral justifications, sympathy and ambiguities. This is caused by the character’s experiences, as they largely aggravate human discomfort and “question traditions and expectations when they seem too immutable.” (Azar Nafisi). The greatest of human discomforts is the conflict of moral pluralism, which evokes ethical ambiguities and sympathy for those who have transgressed. In the novel, Notes on a Scandal, the character Bathsheba Hart takes on an explicit and exploitive affair with one of her students, a boy at the tender age of thirteen. Q3 (122).
In their day and age these characters would be judged by many factors including social and cultural backgrounds, crimes committed and personal traits. Both of these writers seem to conjure their audience into a state where it compels them to relate to certain characters. Lady Macbeth certainly loses or suppresses her feelings of cowardice. Throughout her appalling invocation to the spirits of evil to “unsex her”, proving her ambition to attain her goal. In Jacobean times women were seen as inferior and even in the Victoria era, thus she required external forces to crush her conscience to allow her to fulfil her ambition.
In 'othello', The way the three women (Bianca, emilia and Desdemona) are depicted represent the ideal expectations of women in Elizabethan society. From a feminist perspective we can gather knowledgeable aspects of textual evidence that represent hints of struggles. Iago's belief for the suspected act of adultery and desire for revenge creates an apt example of his view of women; women are mere possessions. In (II.1.290), the feelings between Iago, emilia and Desdemona are dismissed and ignored. This creates a potential struggle to men not only for the balance of good and evil but also the ideology of sanity.
Iago’s murder of Emilia could also come from the general hatred of women that he displays. Emilia can be seen as a cover up to Iago’s true sexuality. When Iago tells Othello, “I am yours favour” it sets up the idea of Iago having homosexual feelings for Othello, these words sounding like a wedding vow. He certainly seems to take great pleasure in preventing Othello from enjoying marital happiness with Desdemona by framing her to be seen as unfaithful to Othello also he expresses his love for Othello frequently and effusively, for example; "…I lay with Cassio lately…. In sleep I heard him say, "Sweet Desdemona, Let us be wary, let us hide our loves!"
The gentleman pulls while the young lady pushes. There is tension is their attempted encounter, and what makes this drama even more powerful is that the two characters are not simply two ordinary lovers. Indeed, the gentleman who speaks the octave is emblematic of Death while the lady who speaks the sestet is emblematic of Youthful Beauty. Thus, the conventional theme of courtly love has turned into another conventional theme, carpe diem, since the young lady is being warned of death soon before she can fulfill her desire for love. More specifically, the reader first encounters a gentleman in a dustcoat.
Insidiously, violently, they have led them to hate women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs. They have made for women an anti-narcissism! A narcissism which loves itself only to be loved for what women haven’t got! They have constructed the infamous logic of anti-love.” I think this paragraph is stating that men have made women despise and doubt themselves when it comes to expressing their knowledge in any form, particularly in literature. And what is a greater crime than making women hate themselves for reasons that they cannot change?
She stands higher in the hierarchy, and feels that she has power over Jean. Jean is cautiously hesitant, and understand the risks involved in a love relationship with the count's daughter, but when Miss Julie finally almost offers herself, he can not resist the temptation, he starts flirting back, which means that they have sex with each other. Afterwards, it is up to the two possible consequences and the drama reaches its tragic point. Jeans inviting charm instead goes over to a very nasty tone and the mood becomes suddenly much worse. They begin to despise each other.
There may seem to be many motivations for villains throughout the times but as we study these scoundrels we find that generally they are motivated by pure jealousy, or a need of superiority. They utilize manipulation, both physically and mentally in order to achieve their goals and show a lack of remorse. Stephan King’s “Misery”, provides us with a very graphical depiction in Annie Wilkes a sadistic, mentally unstable retired nurse, who has a desire for power and control. Annie goes to tortuous extremes on her captive Paul Sheldon to realize this. Iago from Shakespeare’s play Othello is also a power hungry villain who enjoys having people under his control, he is driven by extreme jealousy and the motivation, revenge.
Through his use of verbal language techniques and devices, Shakespeare develops loving as an unwanted, painful, disease throughout his play Twelfth Night that ultimately can turn men into monsters. He both conveys this warning to the audience and makes the play interesting and attention grabbing for them by skilfully using metaphors, comparison, emotional language, rhyme and allusion. Twelfth Night is a timeless piece of literature thanks to the intricate verbal techniques that Shakespeare weaves with a purpose into the play. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare portrays love as a “hunger” to show that we are pained by it when we cannot satisfy it, drawing similarities between the ache of loving someone to “hunger pains”. He also uses a metaphor to convey his opinion that the need for love is as great as the need for food.
W. Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence is essentially a novel about a man’s struggle to free himself from the restrictions of society and to act out his most passionate desire--to paint. However, Maugham’s novel is also a story of its time and therefore reflects popular theories and ideas that were prevalent at the time of its writing. Included in these ideas is Hysteria, mentioned clearly when the narrators describes the doctor’s view of Blanche’s attempt to kill herself as “just a hysterical woman who had quarreled with her lover...it was constantly happening. (Maugham 123). The following will describe the development, symptoms and treatment of Hysteria.