In Kafke's "Before the Law", we read of a man who travels to a place called Law. The Law is a gate, and it is guarded by a doorkeeper. This man simply asks if he can go in, and is told by the doorkeeper, "It is possible, but not at the moment." The door is open, and the man peers through, wondering why he cannot go in. The doorkeeper explains that he can go if he truly wants, but there are more fearsome gatekeepers than himself up ahead. So, the man decides to wait. He waits for his whole life, attempting to beg and bribe the doorkeeper to let him in, and when he reaches the end of his mortal life, the man asks the doorkeeper why no other soul has tried to pass through the gate. He, on the brink of death, is told by the doorkeeper, "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it." This parable can symbolize the difficulty of getting laws changed, or even on a more general level, personal struggles people have, and their own personal "laws" that they cannot seem to break. As people, there are things we wish to be able to change about ourselves or the things around us. While we are young, we try to go out and conquer these things, but might get discouraged. These discouragements are our "doorkeepers" that stop us from doing what we want and need, even though we could walk past them if we really wanted to. The tale of the man can be likened unto the story of Antigone. She wants to change a law made by Kreon, and she sacrificed everything that she held dear to protect her brother's dignity and defy Kreon. Antigone chose to not be affected by her own doorkeeper, but Kreon was burdened by his. His doorkeeper was his immense pride. When he overcame this, he was able to pass through the gate, and was able to understand what needed to be done. An overreaching theme in tragedy, and life in general, is that if you don't try, nothing will ever change. You must fight and work to make a difference, and if you don't, you will be forced to sit and watch nothing happen.
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The story of Antigone shared some key points with the tale of Oedipus Rex. I suppose that you could say that tragedy runs in the family. However, in this play, it is not Antigone that is the receiver of tragedy, but rather Kreon. Antigone's decisions are the roots of the play, but Kreon is the character who had the most to learn, the the one who suffered the most. Those who remain alive at the end of the tragedy are the ones that suffer the most. Some might say death is the easy way out, some might say it is a heroic act, but either way, a dead person isn't around to feel the effects of whatever tragedies occur. Antigone, Haimon, and Eurydice died in tragic ways, but it is their deaths that formed the tragedy around Kreon. Kreon's pride was the greatest tragedy of all. As it says in the book of Proverbs, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall." Kreon's pride was the cause of his epic downfall. If he had been able to see past the law to what his people desired from him as a leader, all of the following tragedies could have been avoided. “Believe in what someone else says for once… But it’s no shame even for a wise man to learn and relent.” With this quote, Haimon is telling his father that he must swallow his pride and take trust in another, at least this one time. Kreon would still have a wife, son, and niece if not for his prideful actions. Kreon's actions mimic Oedipus's in the way that they both refused to believe Tiresius, even though he hasn't ever been wrong before, and they both agreed to trust him before he spoke. This takes a look at the blinding power of pride, and the unwillingness of people in power to admit their wrongs, even when it is vital. In a TED talk given by Dan Ariely, he speaks on how our human nature allows us to be easily influenced. This thought is a frightening one, and shows how we are not in control. Since we are influenced with incredible ease, anyone can be in charge. So many variables come into how we make decisions, and those variables are easily manipulated with greater or fewer decisions. The choices surrounding our options greatly affect what we choose. The amount of choices to make after the decision also affect us subconsciously. Decision making in "Oedipus Rex" is mostly poor, as he chooses to do things he really shouldn't. But his surroundings significantly weigh in on what he chooses. He chooses to search for the killer because he thought it would make the future better. Tragedy is all about decision making, and how the decisions presented may be slightly weighed to trap the protagonist into choosing a certain way to move the story along. We are not in control of all of our decisions, data is easily manipulated and skewed, all depending on the questions asked. Tragic characters are no different. In Joseph Krutch’s article, The Tragic Fallacy, he states that tragedy is “essentially an expression, not of despair, but the triumph over despair and of confidence in the value of human life.” He then says that tragedy is has its own art form. Tragedy is up to the reader to see and understand, and that all works of art actually have happy endings. I wholeheartedly agree that all tragedies have happy endings, but I believe that instead of the word "happy", I would choose the word "completed". With every good work of literature, the ending always comes with a sense of completion as the characters complete their journey with death or some tragic end. In short, all characters get what they deserve, and that results in a completed end. He also strongly claims that, tragedy is not, then, as Aristotle said, the imitation of noble actions, for, indeed, no one knows what a noble action is or whether or not such a thing as nobility exists in nature apart from the mind of man. The same action might conceivably be made the subject of a tragedy and the subject of a farce, depending upon the way in which it was treated. To say that "tragedy is the imitation of a noble action" is to be guilty of assuming that there may be something inherently noble in an act distinguished from the motives which prompted it. This article challenges what many people believe tragedy to be. It challenges the idea that it is solely based on human suffering and will always end horribly, and instead be based on triumph and finish with a happy ending. This is why the article is called The Tragic Fallacy. Krutch exposes the mistaken belief of tragedy and drops a truth bomb on how it should really be viewed. The story of Oedipus is truly tragic. His story is one of pain that he brought upon himself and that he tries in vain to undo. The story of Oedipus reminds me of Hercules' story, only in reverse. Hercules begins as a small, humble man who works his way into a godly state. But for Oedipus, the story starts out with him being mighty with godlike power, but that power turns to defeat as he basically self destructs when he is hit with tragedy. He was once the “mightiest of mortals”, as Zeus's priest once said, but this once mighty mortal went from hero to zero as his story unfolds. What started Oedipus' failure was the prophecy given by the oracle, that he would kill his father and share a bed with his mother. This prophecy sent our hero spiraling as he tries to avoid these things. But little does he know that the prophecy is already in motion, and that Oedipus has already committed these sins. This trying in vain to undo what was already done is what caused his tragedy. His father had passed from this mortal life, and then his wife and mother, Jocasta, realized what was going on and she killed herself to get release from this awful thing. Because of this tragedy that had befallen upon our hero, he takes drastic measures and gouges his eyes out, for he then says, “What good are they when there is nothing sweet to see?” Oedipus is in a pretty bad place when the play ends, and in the final scenes, it focuses on what tragedy can be; human suffering. "A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success" is a TED Talk given by speaker Alain de Botton that is about, obviously, success. But within the message of success given, the theme of tragedy could be realized in many things that he had said. One thing that de Botton had said that connected success to tragedy was that success was very personal. When you succeed or fail by your own doings, it can be either crushing or exhilarating, becoming personal. The same thing can be said about the genre of tragedy. The characters and their circumstances in tragedy are designed in such a way so that the readers are able to relate with them, creating a very personal feel. Because of this personality that is felt, the feelings of human pain presented in tragedy is even more present. The genre of tragedy is interactive and very personal, and these elements are what makes it such a renowned topic of human emotion. At first glance, tragedy and success have nothing in common. But after hearing this TED talk and closely examining the similarities, the two subjects could be cousins. I believe that this goes to show that there are many topics in literature that have more to them than meets the eye, and that it just takes some examination and work to uncover the truths in them. In Tragedy and the Common Man, the author explains that tragedy is all dependent on circumstance. The position that the character, hero, or love interest is in, determines the tragedy felt by them. We, the readers, are common men. As Arthur Miller says, "It is the common man who knows [this] fear best." The fear found in tragedy is so terrifying to some because it is the fear that the common man experiences. We have all experienced tragedy at some point in our lives, and this tragedy, as Miller described, is "the heart and spirit of the average man." Without experienced tragedy, men would never have an ultimate goal to strive for. Without tragedy, our lives would be lacking the needed force that pushes us to become better humans. This article states quite eloquently that the common man thrives from tragedy. The common man uses it as a crutch when it first happens, but later in our own character arc, we use the effects of the tragedy as a strengthening tool. The effects of tragedy makes us the people that we are and work towards being. Tragedy is frequently occurring, and as such, is a part of storytelling, and also natural life. when approaching tragedy and the common man, the author must be sure and precise with all elements involved. Miller says, "No tragedy can therefore come about when its author fears to question absolutely everything, when he regards any institution, habit, or custom as being either everlasting, immutable, or inevitable...tragedy must preach revolution." This work by Arthur Miller clearly illustrates that tragedy and the common human live inside of one another. Tragedy is present in our lives frequently, and it does not take an expert to see that. Try and evaluate your life, just to see what story you are living. Are you just a common man living the story of a tragedy? When I think of the genre of tragedy, I think of pain and anguish and the gnashing of teeth. Tragedy is not a pleasant thing, but it is an interesting thing. When defining tragedy in a general way, Aristotle claims: "Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious and complete, and which has some greatness about it. It imitates in words with pleasant accompaniments, each type belonging separately to the different parts of the work. It imitates people performing actions and does not rely on narration. It achieves, through pity and fear, the catharsis of these sorts of feelings. (Poet. 1449b21–29).” As Aristotle said, tragedy is an uncomfortable subject to deal with, thriving on pity and fear. The genre of tragedy is based on human suffering, and with that basis, the subject performs a philosophical experiment to see how the suffering in the text affects the reader. In the Tragedy article on Wikipedia, the author mentions how tragedy invokes a feeling of catharsis. Catharsis is the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. Catharsis is the basis for that philosophical experiment. Tragedy allows repressed emotions and feelings come forth while reading it, and that makes for a very interesting experiment. There is tragedy in literature, but also tragedy in our natural world. That tragedy is the tragedy of the commons. The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action. The tragedy of the commons can be considered in relation to environmental issues such as sustainability. The commons dilemma stands as a model for a great variety of resource problems in society today, such as water, forests, fish, and non-renewable energy sources such as oil and coal. Tragedy can be found in many different mediums. It's in literature, in the environment, and in human life. Tragedy is an ancient practice that has been continued to this modern time, and it is a vital element in many works of literature. |
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