Tragedy Essay Examples

Tragedy has its origins in Ancient Greek, it was a kind of performance to honor Dionysus. They were performed as competition between three playwrights. Actors who took part in the plays were all man and they all wore masks. They wore masks to impersonate satyrs. According to Aristotle ‘’ Tragedy depicts the downfall of a […]

The tragic hero, Julius Caesar, can be considered a tragic hero in Greek tragedy. This is because the hero must have noble birth, like Caesar. Additionally, the hero must possess a fatal flaw that brings about their demise. In Caesar’s case, his fatal flaw was his pride. Despite being strong and powerful, his excessive pride […]

“Maggie, a Girl of the Street” is a story revealing the cruel environment of the low-class people in New York, written by Stephen Crane. Maggie was a girl born in a poor family; in this family, she did not receive any care and love from her parents. She first worked in the shirt factory; after […]

Willy Loman, like millions of others, dreamed of improving himself and his family. Willy’s life and death, I feel are extremely tragic, he has been working as a travelling salesman for the last forty years of his life, never really amounting to anything and not until the very end of his life has he managed […]

The purpose of a tragedy, as stated by ancient philosopher Aristotle, is to evoke pity and fear in the audience. According to Aristotle, the tragic hero should be someone of high social status, intensifying the impact of their downfall. However, Death of a Salesman goes beyond this idea and applies it to ordinary individuals. This […]

As a tragic hero, Othello should be viewed within the context of Aristotle’s Poetics, within which contains the theories of tragedy and the traits a tragic hero must possess to ensure his downfall. These are seen as flaws which cause the hero’s own downfall regardless of external influences. It is undeniable that Othello bears some […]

‘Romeo and Juliet’ was a play written by William Shakespeare in 1595. William Shakespeare died on St. George’s day, 23rd April, 1616, making ‘Romeo and Juliet’ one of his earlier plays; written in what is now described as his second period, from his joining the Lord Chamberlain’s men in 1594 to the opening of the […]

Throughout the “Withered Arm” the main characters: Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge experience lots of tragedy, and due to this, the book makes the audience empathise with the two of them. The following paragraphs will examine the lengths and extremes of these tragic events, and therefore conclude who deserves our sympathy. Rhoda Brook is a […]

‘A View from the Bridge’ is a 19th Century play, written by Arthur Miller. It is a tragic play about love, passion, lust and deceit. The play focuses on one man: Eddie Carbone. He lives with his niece, Catherine and wife, Beatrice. As the play develops, we see his changing personality due to the arrival […]

I have decided to look at the poems “Mid Term Break” by “Seamus Heaney” and “Out, Out” by “Robert Frost”. Both of the poems are about the tragic death of a young boy. However, they are written in different ways and both have conflicting viewpoints. “Mid Term Break” is an autobiographical, a personal account of […]

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, who was widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. He was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glove maker and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. At the age of 18, […]

For my essay I am going to compare the tragedies of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and decide whose is the greater. I will look at how Shakespeare exploits language to heighten drama and tragedy for the audience. William Shakespeare wrote ‘Macbeth’ around the year 1606. It is widely thought that the play was written for […]

‘The Great Gatsby’, written by F Scott Fitzgerald, is undoubtedly a deeply tragic novel. There are many tragic elements about it, many of which I shall be looking at in greater detail. The title character and protagonist in the novel is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious and fabulously wealthy man living in a gothic mansion in […]

The Great Leap Forward is recognized as one of the main distinguishing features of the Maoist paradigm. Ultimately the Great Leap led to famine, where between the years 1958 and 1962 more than 30 million Chinese starved to death. 1 The startling nature of the famine is that for about twenty years after it occurred, […]

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) is a Spanish poet and artist who, along with others like Dali and Picasso, became well-known during the inter-war period. While their predecessors in the late 19th century occasionally maintain a satirical view of human existence – even Ibsen plays, in their bleakest moments, possess a touch of playfulness – Lorca’s […]

William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a five-act Elizabethan drama that adheres to Aristotle’s guidelines for Tragedy. Marcus Brutus serves as the tragic hero of the play due to his elevated social status and well-intentioned nature. Unfortunately, he tragically becomes involved in the misguided assassination of Julius Caesar, resulting in a destructive path […]

Many people know the story of Oedipus Rex. Since the day of his birth, Oedipus was doomed to commit a horrific deed. He was prophesized to murder his father and sleep with his mother. Sophocles put this Greek tale into words and created a famous tragedy. The story of Oedipus Rex follows a Hero’s Journey. […]

Argumentative/Persuasive Essay Hamlet; The Tragic Hero In many plays there is always one person that is the tragic hero. They always possess some type of tragic flaw that in turn leads to their tragic deaths. In the Shakespearean play Hamlet the main character Hamlet is considered to be a tragic hero. By carefully analyzing the […]

TOPIC: Who is , Elesin Oba or Olunde? Please give reasons for your answer in a carefully written essay. Please use “Being, the Will, and the Semantics of Death” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Criticism 155-164) and “Tragedy, Mimicry, and the African World” by Olakunle George (Criticism 207-222) in your essay. The Real Tragic Hero […]

Ibrahim Kari Unit 2. The opening act of King Lear effectively demonstrates the initial situation and downward movement of Aristotle’s structure of tragedy. When King Lear the tragic hero announces: “Know that we have divided… From our age” this is where the initial situation in the play begins and is the main flaw that will […]

Bruce Dawe themes Bruce Dawe is a poet who inscribes not only controversial pieces of poetry but also poems that depict his own personal experiences in life. As many would say it Dawe is “an ordinary bloke, with a respect for the ordinary” because he writes as a delegate to the everyday Australian. The two […]

Discuss the dramatic devices Williams uses in the play to suggest that Blanche is doomed. A Streetcar Named Desire is a tragedy that is unlike a traditional tragedy in that the characters in it are not struck by some calamity or fall because of unwise choices on their part. Instead, we enter the play in […]