In the drama, Phaedra, by Jean Racine the author explores shame and guilt. Shame is focused on self-humiliation, while guilt is feeling immoral for committing a dishonest act. Racine depicts shame and guilt when Phaedra tells Theseus, “If it is not too late, then spare your son. Respect your flesh and blood, I beg of you, And save me from the horror of his cries” (4.4.1170-1619). Phaedra feels shame for not telling Theseus the truth so she begs him to spare his son, Hippolytus. Phaedra shows guilt of the punishment Hippolytus will receive and is asking Theseus to save her from Hippolytus’s cries. Phaedra’s shame and guilt causes Hippolytus’s death. Phaedra uses the time that her husband Theseus is in the underworld to try and get Hippolytus to desire her, …show more content…
When Theseus heard the news from Phaedra’s nurse, Oenone, that Hippolytus tried to rape her, Hippolytus responded that, it is Aricia whom he loves. Theseus didn’t believe his son and decided to let Neptune, the God of Sea, kill him. Phaedra was about to confess to Theseus the truth about how Hippolytus didn’t rape her and didn’t want to be with her until Theseus mentioned that Hippolytus is in love with Aricia, whom is a prisoner of Theseus. Phaedra becomes jealous and changes her mind. Phaedra tells Oenone “No. No. Their happiness is gall to me. Oenone, pity my wild jealousy. Aricia must perish, and the King. Be stirred to wrath against her odius race” (4.6.1257-1260). Phaedra thought Hippolytus was against loving woman because she told him she wanted to be with him and he refused to because she was his stepmother. Hippolytus didn’t want to commit incest and adultery. Phaedra becomes jealous when she is told Aricia has won Hippolytus’s heart and Phaedra isn’t able to. Phaedra’s jealousy was able to end Aricia and Hippolytus’s love for one
Shame is a powerful emotion that leads people to do things absentmindedly, that could lead to dreadful outcomes. In James Hurst’s “The Scarlet Ibis” Doodle is a disabled child that can not do things that others can do easily. Brother tries to shape Doodle into a regular kid, which ends badly. When Doodle doesn't improve at as fast as his brother wants him to, he only pushes him harder. Brothers sense of shame leads to Doodle being pushed too hard and eventually dying.
Phedra wants Hippolytis in a sexual way and in that way only and Tartuffe claims to be in love with Elmire. Both leading lives to save face for themselves. Both Phedra and Tartuffe are displaying
In Homer’s Poem, The Odyssey, Penelope is the exceptionally patient and clever spouse of the infamous hero, Odysseus, and the mother of Telemachus. One poignant factor of Penelope’s character is her patience and devotion which is displayed throughout the poem. With her husband absent for a great majority of her life for the later of twenty years and his location unknown, Penelope stays, patiently awaiting Odysseus’ return, all whilst preserving their estate and raising her son by herself. Throughout this time, she had many persistent suitors in pursuit of her, abusing her husband’s absence.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.
But, after angering Poseidon by blinding his one eyed cyclops son, Odysseus must go through brutal situations to get home thanks to the fuming god. The theme, the search for justice, is very prevalent in this text because of the fight between Odysseus and the suitors, the reunion of Odysseus and his wife Penelope and when Odysseus visits his father Laertes and Athena must restore peace because of the fight that breaks out there. To begin, the theme searching for justice is shown clearly when Odysseus returns home and kills the suitors. The text states, “Odysseus took aim and hit him with an arrow in the throat.
Penelope, his wife, is greatly affected; as many greedy suitors disrespect her and move into their home to try and win her hand in marriage. Throughout ‘The Odyssey’, the greed and folly of men play a huge part in increasing the difficulty and severity of Odysseus’s situations and ultimately change his fate and the directions of his journey. The greed and folly of men are largely represented by Penelope’s suitors. In the very first book of The Odyssey, the disgusting actions of the suitors were introduced to the readers.
In “The Odyssey” written by Homer, Odysseus has fought big creatures that you have never thought you would ever hear about, but the only real thing he cares about, is his wife, Penelope. Even after twenty years, Odysseus has never forgotten about Penelope. Odysseus may have made poor decisions, yet he was always loyal, trustworthy, and strong-hearted when it came to his wife Penelope. Odysseus made several wrong decisions in his travels after the Trojan War. Odysseus was loyal to a certain point, but if a Goddess asked you to do something you should act on it or something bad could potentially happen to you or a loved one.
Shame means that you feel remorse for something weather it is your actions or the actions of another. But having shame about a certain action or event doesn't necessarily mean that you have to regret or even take back what happened because there may be justifications and sometimes you can’t justify how you feel or why you feel that way. That being said shame is both the greatest motivator and the greatest deterrent, a lot of people build their lives around forces like shame. Amir is a character that is very concerned with what people think about him which leads him to publicly detaches himself from Hassan.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines guilt as “the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law” (Merriam-Webster). In the novel Fifth Business by Robert Davies, he explores the topic of guilt. Published in 1970 (Goodreads), the book goes into detail of a man’s life story and how he finds the deeper meaning of life. One of the main messages of this novel is that a person’s life is dependent on how they make decisions and how they deal with the consequences of it. This message is shown in the novel through the character’s journey to search for the truth.
The respectable male characters such as Odysseus treat women well, but mostly for their appearance and marriage potential. Near the beginning, after washing up on the island of the Pheaecians, he meets a girl and says, “Mistress: please: are you divine, or mortal? If one of those who dwell in the wide heaven, you are the most near to Artemis, I should say,” (8). To
In an epic poem, The Odyssey, by Homer, Odysseus struggles to come back home while his wife, Penelope, faces barbarous suitors who plague her house to court her for the marriage in order to claim the kingship of Ithaca. With an absence of the man of the household and a son who is not old enough to rule over the country and handle the domestic complications, Penelope endeavors to keep the household orderly and civilized. In order to prevent further chaos in the household, Penelope maintains her role as the Queen of Ithaca and Odysseus’s wife through her loyalty and cunning. For a woman who does not know when her man will return home, Penelope is extremely strong to keep hope and wait for her husband; thus, her unwavering loyalty to her husband
Polyphemus threatens Odysseus by saying “‘Come back, Odysseus, and I’ll treat you well, praying the god of earthquake to befriend you-his son I am, for he by his avowal fathered me, and, if he will, he may heal me of this black wound-he and no other of all the happy gods or mortal men’” (160, 564-559). Polyphemus wanted to make a deal with Odysseus; he would have his father make Odysseus’ voyage home smooth, and Polyphemus hoped that Poseidon could heal his eye wound. Polyphemus seemed to doubt that his father would help him with his blindness, which shows that their relationship is not close or strong. After Odysseus threatened to kill Polyphemus and says that Poseidon could not help his blindness, Polyphemus prays to his father, saying “‘O hear me, lord, blue girdler of the islands, if I am thine indeed, and thou art father: grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never sees his home: Laertes’ son, I mean, who kept his hall on Ithaca.
Theseus and Hippolyta wake up Lysander, Hermia, Helena, and Demetrius because Hermia has to make her final decision. With the love juice on his eyelids still, Demetrius confesses that he no longer loves Hermia and wants Helena to be the love of his life. Theseus overrides Egeus’s wishes, and he says the three couples will have a triple wedding. After Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus leave, all of them are unclear what exactly happened. Helena even says, “And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,/mine own, and not mine own” (4.1.176-177).
However, these contrasts between their personal thinking built most of valuable points in Odysseus' epic journey, and making a more intense story. To some extent, these women are not foolish at all because at least they are successful at leading people to believe that waiting is meaningful. The whole story happened during the dark centuries of women in Greece, when their value was limited behind men. However The “Odyssey” gives an opportunity to horror their role, also rejecting all erroneous preconceptions about the woman. Penelope -- a typical woman who represents for an image of a devoted wife, a mother of family and she is also an image of how women was treated at Greece.
Upon being left by her husband during a decade-long journey, Penelope’s depressed character, like Hecuba’s character, accentuates the misery of women during that time. Once stripped of the only source of power and happiness they had—men in society—women were deemed miserable, useless, and awful in society. Penelope spent years waiting for Odysseus, and the audience watches as a beautiful, popular woman, weeps over her missing husband and lives a long, melancholy life. Penelope grows impatient and stagnantly miserable; she begins to wish for death, for life was not worth living without her husband in her life. She begs, “How I wish chaste Artemis would give me a death so soft and now I would not go on in my heart, grieving all my life and longing for love of a husband excellent in every virtue.