Antigone by Sophocles picks up almost exactly where Oedipus leaves off. After Oedipus passes away, his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, return to Thebes to try and help their brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, avoid fulfilling a prophecy that predicts they will kill each other in a battle to be the new King of Thebes. However, upon Anitgone’s arrival, she learns that both of her brothers have died, and that her uncle, Creon, has inherited the throne. She also learns the one of her brothers, Eteocles, has been given a proper burial, but Creon issued a law, banning the burial of Polyneices because Creon believed he was a traitor. Antigone decides to defy the law and gives Polyneices a proper burial, and is caught. Creon decides to lock her away in prison, and she kills herself. Meanwhile, Teiresias, a blind prophet, Antigone’s fiancé, Haemon, and Creon’s son, plead with Creon to release Antigone. Creon finally gives in but found out that it is too late, and they find her dead in the jail cell. In mist of despair, Creon’s wife and Haemon also committed suicide, and Creon is left in distress and sorrow. Believe it or not, I think that Antigone is more tragic than Oedipus was, however, I did enjoy and prefer reading Oedipus. Much like Oedipus, Anitgone fit Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, nearly perfectly. Aristotle defines tragedy as, “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, a s having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language... in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.” This play fits nearly every aspect of Aristotle’s definition, and is truly tragic in nature.
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Dan Ariely provides an insightful, thought provoing look into how exactly our brain plays tricks on us as humans in his TED Talk. Ariely argues his point by presenting the audience with a picture of two tables next to each other. Now, at first glance, the table on the left appears to be longer. But, Ariely proved that they are in fact the same length. He goes on to argue that most of our decisions are made based on how they information I presented. He refers to this as “cognitive illusions”. Another example of cognitive illusion is a study that was conducted on advertisement customers of The Economist. When customers were presented with tree separate choices- a print only subscription for $89 a web only subscription for $125, or a web and print subscription for $125, most customers ended up choosing the third option. Web and print was the most popular choice because people thought they were getting a good deal considering it was the same price as a web subscription. However, when the third option, web and print, was removed, the customers preferred to choose the print only subscription for $89, because it was the cheaper option. This goes to show that how information and choices are presented to us truly do impact our decisions. Although it wasn’t directly mentioned in the TED talk, I believe that this talk relates to tragedy in the way of how often the characters fall for illusions. An example of this is in Oedipus, he was told that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. This event was considered to be “fate”, and it drove all of Oedipus’ decisions throughout the entirety of the play. I’m going to be honest here, I dreaded reading this play. Due to the plot of it, I was scared that I would be cringing too often to actually learn anything from it, but I was very mistaken. After learning how to lift the terrible curse placed on Thebes, Oedipus dedicates himself to find the murderer of Laius, the last King of Thebes, and will not rest until they are found. He goes on to question citizens, including a blind prophet who told Oedipus that he was in fact the murderer of Laius. Oedipus doesn’t take this well and runs to his wife, Jocasta, who tells him not to believe what prophets say and goes on to tell him a story of when a prophet was wrong before-or so she thinks. She tells him of how she and King Laius had a son who was prophesied to kill Lauis, and sleep with her. But the son was killed, so it didn’t come true. This doesn’t sit well with Oedipus because as a child, an old man told him he was adopted and that he would eventually kill his real father and sleep with his real mother. And there was that one time Oedipus killed a man at the crossroads…which sounds eerily similar to the way Laius died. Ignoring Jocasta’s warnings, Oedipus looks further into the past and finds a messenger and shepherd who spilled their guts about how Oedipus was abandoned as a baby and adopted into a new family. Jocasta realizes that she is Oedipus’ mother and is so horrified at what has happened that she kills herself. Shortly afterward, Oedipus realizes the he is Lauis’s murderer and that he’s married too (and having children with) his mother. In horror of this realization, he gauges out his eyeballs and is banned from Thebes. This play was a roller coaster ride that I thoroughly enjoyed. While reading this play, I began to realize that it was the perfect tragedy- at least according to Aristotle. This play had everything Aristotle said was necessary. There was a hero who makes a mistake and a tragic ending to the tragic tale. Overall, I really enjoyed this play and feel like I actually learned something from reading it (yay). In the essay "Tragedy and the Common Man" by Arthur Miller, he provides an insightful look at tragedy and how it applies to the common man. His main argument (that I saw as interesting) was how there is a common pattern within tragedy. Miller discusses his definition of tragedy, and it really altered my perspective on tragedy as a whole. He believes that the “tragic feeling is evoked” when a character is prepared to “lay down their life to secure his personal dignity.” He goes on to explain how the “underlying struggle in works such as, Medea and MacBeth, is that the individual is attempting to gain his rightful position in society.” These quotes in particular, were the driving factor in my perspective change when it comes to tragedy. I’ve never thought of there being a pattern or theme within tragedy. I’ve always thought of it as a sad event that happened to people, I’ve never looked deep enough into it, to notice the fact that there is an obvious pattern. But while reading Oedipus, I noticed how accurate Miller’s argument was. The whole reason Oedipus was looking for the murderer was to show what a great king and leader he was. He does this over and over again, until the end, when he figures out that he was the one who killed Laius. And even after that, he kept his word and punished himself (quite severely) for it. He did this to prove to everyone that he was good on his word, he had promised a punishment for the killer, and he fulfilled it. Overall, Arthur Miller’s essay on tragedy was extremely insightful and helped me look into tragedy on a deeper level. Usually when we watch Ted Talks in class, I can't wait until it's over- I'll literally be counting down the minutes. I'm not sure if it was his accent, his humor, or the fact that I had drank 20 ounces of coffee before coming into class that day, but I was really captivated by this lecture. Throughout this video, Alan de Botton discusses the human view of success and failure and how that ties into tragedy.
One idea that he focused on that really stuck with me was that fact that as humans, we have an unrealistic idea of how we want our lives to look- our careers, family, finance situation. Of course, no human realizes this is unrealistic until their fantasy comes in contact with reality and anxiety about their life ensues. It really brought to my attention to my own desires, and whether or not those are achievable in the reality I live in. Another part of the speech that stuck out was when Botton mentioned that some people are more fortunate and will therefore have an easier to achieving than those who are not as fortunate. And unfortunately, this means that bad people are at the top of our society and good people are at the bottom. It really opened my eyes to my privilege and how I treat people who may be less fortunate than I am. He connects these discussions with tragedy by stating the fact that just because someone lost, does not mean that they are a loser. He explains this further by connecting this to Hamlet, and how he isn't considered a loser by most because people sympathize with him, even though he had many losses in his life. This is relevant in our world, because humans don’t sympathize with others enough, we are too worried about our own desires and needs to care. I know that I know very little when it comes to tragedy. I use the word tragic sarcastically with my friends and family and I know others do as well, but I didn't think much of it until now. I know that the theme or element of tragedy originates from Ancient Greece, but apart from that I have no clue about the origin story of tragedy. I've never thought in depth about tragedy, I guess I've always thought that it was a word used to describe a sad event. Like when there is a mass shooting, or an epidemic spreads worldwide. Besides those specific examples, I am lost. Upon further reading, I have discovered that my previous belief was sort of right, tragedy is defined as a form of drama based on human suffering that pleasures an audience. It is basically of form of entertainment that relishes in people's sufferings, which seems rather sick to me (but oh well). I was also somewhat correct in that fact that tragedy originated in Greece, but in my reading, I also discovered that tragedy has been morphed throughout the years by Romans and various amounts of Europeans. I also discovered that there are different types of tragedy (i.e. revenge tragedy and tragedy of the commons) and that different authors can think of tragedy in completely different ways. For example, Aristotle thoughts on tragedy differ greatly from William Shakespeare's opinions, there is really no wrong notion to tragedy, as long as someone if suffering! Overall, I am rather impressed with the amount of correct knowledge that I actually knew, but am very intrigued in the new information I learned. Especially when it comes to how tragedy has differed from Ancient Greece to now. I am very excited to continue looking into this! |
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