Profound Tragedy.
Brevis ipsa vita est sed malis fit longior
Antigone, the sequel to Oedipus Rex, is another example of a Greek tragedy. In this story, Creon is king after Oedipus killed himself. Oedipus' two oldest sons go to war over whether or not Creon is the rightful ruler. After both brothers are killed in battle, Creon honors one with a proper burial for supporting him, while he leaves the other to rot. Antigone, one of the sisters, believes this is not fair that one of the brothers should be neglected, as she views both of them as equal despite their views. She defies Creon's laws and goes to bury her brother herself. Creon sentences Antigone to death, against the wishes of his own son. After Antigone is locked up in a tomb to die, Creon realizes the error of his ways and changes his mind, after hearing a prophecy spelling out bad things if he doesn't. It is too late, however, as Antigone has killed herself within the tomb, Creon's son killed himself out of grief for Antigone, and Creon's wife kills herself after her son dies.
I think the tragedy of this story comes from Creon's failure to save his loved ones. In the end, he tries to change his erroneous ways, only to be too late. I think this story matches up well to my current understanding of tragedy. The only thing different about this particular tragedy compared to Oedipus was that the "hero" (Antigone was the main character but wasn't the one tragedy happened to) had a flaw that brought on his downfall. In this case, it was Creon's inability to listen to the advice of others, as he could have prevented all of this by seeing his error sooner through listening to Antigone and Haimon.
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I thought Dan Ariely's argument about how we are not always in control of our own decisions is a pretty accurate one. In his TED talk, he argues how we are often influenced when asked a question in a way so that we believe we are answering the question based on our own preferences, but are really answering with what the inquirer of the question expects us to give. The person being asked the question often answers with whichever answer is easiest to give, be it because the person answering is not knowledgeable enough to formulate a response based on their preference, or simply because they do not know their preference on the matter. I think this is very true. I buy lots of tech-y things online and I often see marketing techniques designed to get people buy additional things that they don't need or will never end up using.
I don't really think this TED talk has that much to do with the tragic arts. The connection is that often in tragedy, the main hero arrives at the same outcome no matter what choices he makes, so in a sense, he is not the one determining his own path, but fate. While I can see how that kind of has to do with the TED talk, in that one doesn't really make his or her own decisions, I think the two scenarios are different. In tragedy, the hero is not really "tricked" into making choices, his outcome happens to be the same no matter what. Oedipus is an example of this; he lives his whole life trying to make choices that would lead him away from the prophecy, yet he ends up fulfilling it anyways. It's not like he was presented with a choice and was influenced into choosing to sleep with his mom. The story of Oedipus the King is truly a tragic story. In this Greek play, Oedipus lives his whole life affected by the actions taken to prevent a prophecy from occurring. The prophecy, first heard by his parents, stated that Oedipus would grow up and end up killing his father and sleeping with his mother. In order to prevent this, Oedipus's mother gave him up to be tied up and nailed to the side of a road. Unknown to her, Oedipus actually survives. Oedipus hears about the prophecy as he grows up, and takes his own precautions. Despite this, he ends up killing his father anyways, and gets married to his mother, without knowing about it. He then proceeds to destroy himself upon discovering what has happened, blinding and exiling himself.
This story is a perfect example of "when you try your best but you don't succeed," and is tragic because of it. This story reaffirms what I have already learned about tragedy. Before, I mentioned how tragedy stems from losing while there is a chance for victory. Oedipus is a clear example of this, how everything done to thwart the prophecy seems to work, but in the end, the result is the same. In addition, I have also mentioned before that I learned how tragedy stems from a character's desire to preserve his sense of dignity. Oedipus's self inflicted fate at the end of the book is undoubtedly tragic, as he fell from a position of high respect and honor, all because he has found out about the sins he has committed. All in all, I found the story of Oedipus to be one that was entertaining and one that lines up well with my current understanding of tragedy. Miller's main argument in his piece Tragedy and the Common Man can be summed up in the quote, "the possibility of victory must be there in tragedy." This quote itself is significant because of the truth within it. If somebody loses something that they cannot possibly attain, then it is not sad when they do not attain it. It is only tragic when they have a chance to attain something, and then work towards it but only to fail in the end, after much effort. In this regard, Miller argues that the essence of tragedy arises when a hero character is ready to give up everything in order to secure his personal sense of dignity. All the tragic events that take place within the story follow this desire, and the true meaning of the tragic story stems from this struggle. In this regard, that the desire to not be displaced is the driving factor of tragedy, Miller proceeds to argue that tragedy is relevant to today's society, if not more relevant than ever.
Miller's argument about tragedy offers a perspective that I have not considered before. I think part of the reason is that I simply have not seen enough tragic stories to be able to come to the conclusion that all the character wants is to maintain his dignity. That being said however, I think the quote that the possibility of victory must be present for tragedy to occur makes perfect sense, and I can clearly see why something would or would not be tragic depending on the presence of the possibility of victory. In addition, I too thought that the tragic arts were an archaic art form, but I can now see how it is relevant today. Alain de Botton's main argument in his TED talk was basically that we live in a society in which we are judged for our own success and failure. According to Botton, we control each and every aspect of our lives, and because of this we take our failures very seriously. He contrasts our current society to old British society, in which someone who is poor would have been described as "unfortunate". He argues that in our society, the same person would instead be described as a "loser". He says that although it might be a good idea for there to be a world where everybody is in their place based on merit, perhaps we do not need as a society to take on such a harsh view of people's failures.
In this regard, Botton claims that we can borrow something from the tragic arts. In tragedy, bad things happen to the protagonists because somebody screws up. In essence, everything bad that happens is brought on by themselves. Unlike society today, however, the protagonists in a tragic story are not looked upon as losers. Instead, they are met with sympathy from the viewers. Botton argues that we can live in a better world if we borrowed some of the sympathy we have for tragic characters and give it to the people we meet. In addition, he argues we should look past someone else's materialistic goods and instead look at the person themselves. I'll be honest, I don't know a whole lot about tragedy. The only tragedy works of literature were old pieces like Hamlet. Based on this, my conclusion of tragedy is that it is about a situation that seems like it is going pretty well, but takes a turn and becomes sad and everybody dies. The perfect example of a tragedy is Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, in which they get together and it seems alright for a while because they're both together, but then they die. I'm not even sure if Romeo and Juliet is considered a tragedy, but in my mind it's the perfect literary example.
After doing a bit of looking around online, I found that my initial impressions of tragedy are pretty accurate. Basically, a tragic play is one that makes its characters suffer for the enjoyment of the audience. It's pretty dark, if you think about it, taking pleasure in the suffering of others. What I found interesting was that a part of tragedy is that the suffering is due to the actions of the "hero" of the story, which is to say that it's not enough that terrible things happen to the protagonists, but the terrible things have to happen because of the protagonist's actions. Furthermore, I found that tragedy did not always come in the form of a play, but used to be ceremonial events in ancient Greece. Back then, it wasn't for entertainment, unlike in later times. In addition, I also learned a few more details about tragedies. In them, the protagonist has some sort tragic flaw that causes their downfall. In addition, it is the ability for the protagonist to hang on to who they were despite the bad things that happen to them that make tragedies cathartic, and the examinations of human nature that make it interesting. All in all, what I learned basically confirmed what I had previously thought about tragedies, and helped augment my knowledge with details. |
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