It is easy for a modern audience to look upon the actions of Master Frankford in Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness and recoil in disgust. While his actions may be starkly seen as emotional abuse today, within the world of the play his...
On November 22nd of 1963 tragedy struck the United States and made global headlines. John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, had been assassinated while on a motorcade through Dallas, Texas – accompanied by first lady Jacquelyn Kennedy and Governor John Connally....
As a Romantic, Keats maintained a tragic concern with the importance of dramatic irony – or, as noted by Schlegel, the ‘secret irony’ in which the audience is aware of the protagonist’s situation and his own ignorance of it. In ‘Lamia’, this notion is evident...
Romeo and Juliet, a tragic love story written by William Shakespeare. A pair of star-crossed lovers that fall in love. Unfortunately, fate is against them and the misfortune is what leads to a tragic and sorrowful ending. Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it...
In John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse; or Virtue in Danger, Act I, scene i. plays a crucial role in establishing the theme of appearance versus reality. Because this play is a continuation of Colley Cibber’s Love’s Last Shift, it is imperative that the first scene of...
The Oresteia by Aeschylus is a trilogy of tragedies expressing the strength women possess, but, on the flip side, it also expresses the cowardice of some men—one man in particular. This man’s name was Aigisthos. Aigisthos is only present in the first and second plays...
The Oresteia opens with a plea from a watchman: “I ask the gods for release from this misery” (3). This petition reveals the plight of many Aeschylus’ characters. The curse on the house of Atreus is one of corruption, and it is a curse that...
The genre of revenge tragedy has been both popular and unique in its ability to simultaneously arouse feelings that appear to be unrelated in its audience: vengeance and sympathy. What makes this genre vary from play to play, however, is the author’s ability to either...
Cassandra’s final monologue in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon plays a transformative role in terms of the movement of the plot and, upon close examination, functions as a key for many of the tragedy’s larger themes. She begins by equating prophecy, be it the physical act or the...
The motive force in Hamlet’s experience lies in his ultimate identification with his father in death and God’s reality, including the implicit, favorable judgment assumed to have been bestowed on Hamlet’s father, in contrast to the present ignoble life of his mother with Claudius: Made-to-order...
In the Oresteia, Aeschylus presents his three books (“Agamemnon”, “The Libation Bearers”, and “The Furies”) so that the narrative progresses from madness and lack of justice in “Agamemnon”, where Clytemnestra receives no penalty for her homicide, to Athena’s establishment of a justice system so that...
The themes of misinterpretation and passivity are threaded throughout Beroul’s text “The Romance of Tristan”: characters often misread signs and events, as well as each other. There are several key misinterpretations in the story that reveal where the author’s true sympathies lie. Because most of...
Aeschylus’ Oresteia is undebatably one of antiquity’s greatest surviving tragedies. Driven by the universal struggles of justice versus injustice, fear versus obligation and parent versus child, the play follows one ill-fated family through the passion, hatred and destruction that, through ultimate pain and suffering, eventually...
Several years ago I met a lovely English man. He was visiting the neighbour of a friend. We were sitting on my friends front veranda having a couple of beers when this lovely man joined us and told us the tragic story about a young...
The English Restoration significantly impacted the work of the artists of the day. As England moved from a monarchy under Charles I, to a commonwealth under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, and then back again to a monarchy with Charles II on the throne, artists,...
Thanks largely, if not entirely, to Shakespeare, audiences today can immediately recognize the promise of a romance in any title featuring the names of two characters. “Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Tristan and Isolde,” croons the leading tagline of the 2006 adaptation of the...
Eugene O’Neill’s classic American tragedy Desire Under the Elms tells the story of characters that are driven by a number of common, and therefore competing, desires. Many believe that O’Neill intended the Desire Under the Elms to refer to the desire between Eben and Abbie,...
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzche discusses at length the duality inherent in the development of art. This duality is caused by two opposing principles termed Apollinian and Dionysian. These two principles are employed in August Strindberg’s Miss Julie through the main character of Miss...
Be´roul’s The Romance of Tristan exhibits the inevitable, predetermined relationship between Tristan and Yseut. Neither Tristan, Yseut, nor Mark is able to interfere with the lovers’ relationship, suggesting that fate takes away choice and freewill in love. Other characters, such as Frocin, prove that one’s...
At first glimpse, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame has absolutely nothing in common with the model provided in Aristotle’s Poetics. Where Aristotle claims the most important element of any tragedy is plot, Endgame seems to have no plot. Where Aristotle discusses the importance of speech(es) conveying moral...
William Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy Hamlet presents a universal protaganist who defies to Aristotelian tragedy conventions to wholly embody the struggle of the human condition – Hamlet’s psychological transition from disillusionment to a state of resolution. Hamlet, a christian humanist, provides a unique introspection into the...
Berthold Brecht’s explicit intention to impose an emotional distance between dramatic actors and the viewing audience stands in opposition to the use of propagandistic techniques intended to heighten sympathy and runs contrary to notions of theatrical realism. Brecht’s distancing effect involves smashing any passive emotional...
John Webster’s The White Devil portrays an inherent brutality within the human condition, which, while humanity may strive to do good, ensures its ultimate destruction. He draws on genuine fears of the Jacobean era to attribute immorality to every aspect of human life, hinting at...
Indubitably, Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ is largely reminiscent of the archetypal Grecian tragedy; evoking an overwhelming sense of pity/catharsis for the female protagonist. However, the constituents of said ‘tragedy’; though in essence prevalent throughout, are discordant throughout the majority of Hardy’s novel. It...
Both Don Quixote and Hamlet are exceptional examples of madness being used to drive a narrative. Their madness speaks to all of us though a multitude of different means. Showing us that there is reason behind their madness, despite what first impressions give us. Asking...
“When something seems the most obvious thing in the world, it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.” How does Brecht attempt to ensure that the obvious is absent from this play? Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it...
“Three Sisters” is Anton Chekhov’s only true tragedy, featuring a large ensemble cast of characters facing a downward succession of horrible events. Of all of the characters in the play, Natasha is the only one who seems to gain power by the end. In reality,...
Virgil and Livy were the authors of two substantially different works; one a propagandist epic in the style of Homer, the other an informed account of Rome’s history. This said, it is interesting to note Virgil’s inclusion of short historical narratives within the fictional tale,...
This week, I chose to read Elizabeth Howe’s article “The Arrival of the Actress”. The portion of the article that stood out to me the most was the discussion regarding the fact that there has been great deal of confusion as to exactly what solidified...
Pablo Picasso is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century, with his artistic contributions spanning multiple movements including cubism, surrealism, and expressionism. His works are celebrated for their skillful technique and their ability to evoke powerful emotions in their...
