Aristotle once said, “A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning middle and end.” There are five key parts of a tragedy. First, displays the happy times. Second, is an introduction to a problem. Third, the problem worsens to a crisis or a dilemma. Fourth, the characters are unable to prevent the problem from taking over. Lastly, the problem results in some catastrophic, grave ending, which is the tragedy culminated. The play Death of a Salesman exceeds all the qualities of a tragedy.
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The first step of a tragedy, are the happy times. Willy said to Biff, “You’re comin’ home this afternoon captain of the All-Scholastic Championship Team of the City of New York” (Miller 88). It was Biff’s high school championship game and Willy was so excited to go out and support him at the game that night. That seemed to be one of the happiest and proudest moments Willy shared with Biff throughout the play.
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The second step of a tragedy is an introduction to a problem. Willy stated, “I suddenly couldn 't drive anymore. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, y’know?” (Miller 13). This was just beginning of the downward spiral of Willy’s problems. He was on a business trip up the east coast when suddenly he returned home surprising Linda by his early return. Throughout the entire play, Willy faces confusion and lots of flashbacks. During a
Willy's logical inconsistencies brings confusion towards the audience itself toward the start of the play; in any case, they soon turn into a characteristic of himself. Willy's conflicting conduct is the after effect of his powerlessness to acknowledge reality and his propensity to control or re-make the past trying to get away from the present. For instance, Willy can't leave himself to the way that Biff never again regards him on account of Willy's affair with another woman. As opposed to concede that their relationship is irreparable, Willy retreats to a past time when Biff appreciated and regarded him. As the play goes on, Willy disassociates himself more from the present as his issues turn out to be excessively too much, making them impossible to manage.
Another form of tragedy is the Shakespearean Tragedy.
The Essence of Tragedy: Loss and Lesson Every tragedy has a lesson equal in significance to its sorrow. When our lives are faced with perilous situations beyond our control, it is up to us to take from them what we need to. By distancing ourselves from the initial feelings of misery, we are able to take away lessons that we would not recognize otherwise. The use of tragic elements in A Separate Peace impacts the audience in a way other novels cannot, by using tragedy to invoke deeper meaning and sympathy within the reader, which in turn instills teachings that cannot be forgotten.
According to A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean tragedy have the following elements “although a tragedy may have many characters, it is pre-eminently the story of one person or at most two. The story leads up to and included the death of the hero. The story depicts also the troubled part of the hero’s life which precede’s and leads up to his death. The hero is a conspicuous person, a person of high degree. The suffering and calamity are exceptional, of a striking kind.
We learn that Willy is a salesman, who is has only had minor success. Willy blames this on the fact that he is not well liked. In the beginning of the play Willy has had a car accident and his wife Linda wants him to ask his boss if he can work only in New York instead of having to travel. When we see Willy in a flashback he appears to be happy and affectionate with his sons, who seem to return the affection.
When think of the tragedy, I automatically think of Greek plays and Shakespearean plays, which have some tragic endings. The point of a tragedy is main character or characters always have a fatal flaw which leads to their various downfalls, what makes it a tragedy is usually that the character themselves are of good intentions and are in fact trying to help or end a terrible situation. However, in the end because of these characters flaws they fail and often die. Some examples are Romeo and Juliet where the tragedy is their love that cannot be freely expressed because their families are enemies; another one is Oedipus Rex a Greek tragedy where the main characters flaw is pride.
In a tragedy, the protagonist’s (who is noble and powerful) life goes from good to bad. Some examples of acclaimed tragedies are Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) The main distinction between comedy and tragedy is that the comedy is a entertaining story with a glad ending while a tragedy is a thoughtful story with a morbid ending. We have to notice that ever Shakespearean Tragedy is unique in its way. There are very few observations which one may make about one of them which are applicable to others ( A.C.
Which in literature is a drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow. Hamlet is a Tragic hero because he is the protagonist, and he is the driving force of the tragic drama in the play. Evidence is that Hamlet is of noble birth meaning he has a higher social status than the average person in the play. Hamlet also goes through a reversal of fortune; in Act 3 Scene 3 he ha sthe perfect opportunity to avenge his father instead he opts not to kill his uncle. Hamlets anagnorisis results in his growing from ignorance to insight, he is usually comtemplating during the play in the end hes sure of what he wants.
Tragedy has been a part of drama since the time of the ancient greeks, an example of such a tragedy is Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Since then tragedy has been adapted to adhere to different societal views and conventions, such that of the american theatre. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, is an example of that. Both plays fall into the category of tragedy, but exemplify it through different aspects in their respective heroes. The roles of Oedipus and Willy Loman as tragic heroes convey the meanings of the works as wholes through the use of the literary devices dramatic irony and imagery.
Biff wants to retake the class in the summer but when he catches his father having an affair his perception of his father, his biggest role model, is shattered causing him to give up on the things he used to want to do. Willy represses this memory entirely and tries to blame others for Biffs behavior instead of himself. Willy also fools himself into thinking he is well liked and successful. In small moments of clarity Willy admits that people have made fun of his physique and no one talks to him anymore when he goes
This shows how willy can not admit his failure to his family. The main character Willy doesn’t want to show how deeply down he had fallen and is starting to lose hope on his
A tragedy is a dramatic work in which the principle character engages in a significant struggle ending in ruin and destruction. In creating his tragedy, Sophocles uses many techniques to create the feelings of fear and pity in his readers. This in turn creates an excellent tragedy. In Antigone, Sophocles does a great job at bringing out
Also still studied extensively and widely read are Shakespearean tragedies such as the plays Julius Caesar and Hamlet. The first contemporary example that came to mind for me was the film Avatar, where the hero in the story has made multiple errors in judgment that cause him to be outcast both from his human counterparts as well as his newly found tribe that he first was assigned to help destroy. This was both a popular and critically acclaimed film, an example of how the formula for a great tragedy according to Aristotle is still pertinent today. Many great fictional works still seem to follow Aristotle’s guidelines of a great tragedy, however modern cultural texts have multiple plot lines and often multiple tragedies. Modern films often contain aspects that could be considered ‘the Spectacle’, such as visual effects and do not necessarily detract from the story, in my opinion.
In doing so, they show the audience how each and everyone of them was slightly to blame for Willy’s tragic fate. Of Willy’s two sons, Happy is still infatuated with Willy’s dream. As he says, it’s the dream of being number one. Willy was never number one, nor did he ever really get close to being number one. In fact, for someone in Willy’s position this goal was quite impossible.
Tragic Hero Aristotle says that a tragedy shows the downfall of a hero through fate or a mistake. The character who must go through a struggle and who experiences a downfall is the tragic hero. Shakespeare follows Aristotle’s guidelines for a tragedy in his plays. In William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Brutus is the tragic hero.