Greek Tragedies in a Modern World, Theater, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Theater

Greek Tragedies in a Modern World

Greek Tragedies in a Modern World From the times of Aristotle to modern day Boal people have tried to come up with a definition of tragedy that encompasses all of the works they feel to be tragedies. However, there are always a few exceptions to their rules that make their thesis insubstantial. Those who define tragedies all have different elements that they say are necessary in classifying something as a tragedy. Unfortunately for us, no one definition has ever been settled upon that everyone agrees with. The one factor that does seem to be present in every interpretation of what is necessary in a tragedy is the catharsis that is brought up in the viewer. Without that emotional reaction, whether of pity, empathy, sympathy, or perturbation, a work never seems to be classified as a tragedy. O’Neill wrote Desire Under the Elms borrowing themes from the myths of Phaedra, Medea, and Oedipus. He was trying to create a Greek tragedy in the setting of his time. Racine wrote Phedre in classic Greek style, attempting to create a Greek tragedy that had been written in the modern day. Both of these plays sought to entwine the modern world with Greek tragedies. While they each have distinctly different ways of accomplishing their goal of writing a modern Greek tragedy, they are both tragedies in their own way and bring about the similar effect of Catharsis. Jean Racine wrote Phedre based on the Greek myth of queen Phaedra, wife of Theseus, who lusted after her stepson and, when he rejected her love, accused him of raping her and hung herself. Because of her accusation Theseus cursed his son which resulted in his death. While Racine sets the play in Troezen and kept it in its original era, he changed the myth so that it was Oenone, the nurse, and not Phedre that told king Theseus his son had made advances towards Phedre. By doing this, Racine made Phedre a more pitiable character with whom the audience is more capable of sympathizing. She is seen more as a incapacitated bystander rather than a ruthless, malicious offender. By reducing her offence to that of allowing Oenone to act, Racine gave the opportunity to pity Phedre because she was not directly guilty for Hippolytus’ death. Doing this enables the audience to look at her internal agony rather than pass over it because they are repulsed by her actions. He changed Hippolytus’ character so that he was actually in love for the first time with Aricia, rather than feeling nothing for any woman, so the whole element of female jealousy was introduced. By changing the story in these ways Racine shifts the characters that the audience feels pity for and makes the play easier to relate to. At the end of the play, the audience feels sympathy for Hippolytus because he is the innocent victim of both a mother’s improper lust and a father’s quick-tempered stubbornness. For Phedre the audience feels sympathy for her dilemma; the fact that this all started because of Aphrodite’s curse that was not her fault, and the fact that she was tormented by a love that could never be. They do not, however, pardon her actions, or lack thereof, that are a result of those feelings. For Aricia the audience feels happy that she got her kingdom back, but they feel bad that she got pulled into all of this. She is very much the innocent bystander in all of this, along with Hippolytus. The two of them make up the tragic heroes who suffer because of the circumstances they are surrounded by, but not by any fault of their own. The audience feels little or no sympathy for Theseus due to the fact that he is portrayed as a man with loose morals who makes judgments too quickly. Racine’s Phedre is a tragedy that sticks very closely to the Greek definition of what makes up a good tragedy. It takes place in one day, the plot is singular, people from a high status quickly fall because of some flaw, the fates are directly involved in the lives and emotions of the characters, and some sort of catharsis is achieved. Racine reaches his goal of writing, what can most closely be called, a Greek tragedy. In the case of Desire Under the Elms, O’Neill seems only to subscribe to Greek myths for the ideas that form the foundation of this play. His approach in this play is very modern in approach. He sets the play in modern New England, using the common working man, Ephraim, as his Theseus. The play does not revolve around the fall of some noble character; instead it shows the pains of the average man. The play is complex in plot and takes place over an extended period of time. The only real links between Phedre and Desire Under the Elms is the incestuous love between mother and stepson and the characters that make up both plays. Theseus is paralleled by Ephraim, Abbie plays the role of Phedre, Eben takes the position of Hippolytus, Minnie seems to parallel Aricia, and the second wife takes the role of Aphrodite, but places the curse on Ephraim rather than Abbie. While Racine keeps the love between Phedre and Hippolytus unrequited, O’Neill permits them to have a love that is mutual and very real. O’Neill adds other sub-plots which strengthen the effect of the tragedy as a whole. By shedding light on Ephraim’s past and the struggles he has gone through, the audience can better understand why he acts the way he does and feel some sort of sympathy for him. By having Abbie kill their child to prove her love to Eben, O’Neill accentuates the anguish that they both suffer which heightens the emotions the audience feels in watching them. Bringing the conflict between son, father, and claim on the farm allows for the initial conflict that is the driving force at the start of the play and that gives motivation for Eben’s initial actions. It also heightens the irony at the end of the play because no one got what they originally wanted. While O’Neill’s tragedy uses Greek themes, it is more of a modern tragedy with a Greek base. While both Phedre and Desire Under the Elms are derived from Greek tragedies, they take very different approaches to creating a modern-day Greek tragedy. While one sets the play in Greek times and adheres to the formal requirements, the other goes for the effect that Aristotle says tragedy should induce. There is no doubt that they should both be considered tragedies, if for no other reason than that they both fulfill requirements that have been set for tragedies. While they may fulfill different requirements, the essential effect of catharsis is achieved, to one degree or another, in both. By using different methods to achieve this catharsis, they would seem to be different types of tragedies; one Greek, one modern. The fact still remains that the plays do evoke emotions either of pity, sympathy, empathy, or perturbation, and because of this, deserve to be called tragedies. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1180