Tragedy In Oedipus Rex And Antigone By Euripides - 784 Words

The three Greek plays compared in this paper are the famously known Greek tragedies; Oedipus Rex and Antigone by Sophocles and Medea by Euripides that not only have the common genre of tragedy, but share the same motifs; homicide, suicide, and suffering. What is intriguing about these commonalities is that these playwrights, Sophocles and Euripides, use them. Homicide is an act when a human permanently harms another leading in death and these plays like to use it quite a bit. In Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, the main character Oedipus (king of Thebes) realizes he had killed his own father: â€Å"...your father slew his father†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Oedipus Rex Sophocles 62). He is saddened to find out he did so, but he is not the only character to discover a†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"I will, though sadly† (Oedipus Rex Sophocles 63). In Antigone, towards the end of the play Creon receives word from a messenger that Antigone had committed suicide (because she heard the wail of h er son’s death) and is mentally destroyed, â€Å"Ah woe is me! I am all whelmed in utter misery!† (Antigone Sophocles 50), Creon’s suffering leads him to leave the palace and his actions show a variety of ways humans cope with tragic events -I would just distract myself. Lastly, in Medea Medea finds her own way of getting revenge of Jason because he cheated on her. Medea not only killed his wife Glauce but as well his children, â€Å"What! That is it? O woman, you have destroyed me!† (Medea Euripides 42), â€Å"Some common sources of trauma include; rape, domestic violence, natural disaster, severe illness or injury, the death of a loved one(everyone in Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Medea), and witnessing an act of violence† (Trauma Adams). All these traumatic events leave a person mentally scarred resulting to some morbid choices. Suicide is when someone takes their life. This act is looked down upon not only by society but also religion --Christianity in particular. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’s wife Jocasta(also his mom) commits suicide from the grief of finding out herShow MoreRelated Comparing Female Characters in Euripides Medea and Sophocles Oedipus the King and Antigone1555 Words   |  7 PagesComparing Female Characters in Euripides Medea and Sophocles Oedipus the King and Antigone      Ã‚  Ã‚   In the times of the ancient Greeks, women had an unpretentious role. They were expected to do take on the accepted role of a woman.   In most cases, a womans role is restricted to bearing young, raising children, and housework. In Sophocles Oedipus   the King, Antigone, and Medea, the dominant female characters impacted upon men with authority and political power.   It is Read More A Tragedy Makes A Hero Essay1019 Words   |  5 PagesA Tragedy Makes A Hero Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy. A tragedy can be described and executed in many ways, whether it is through cinema, television or a play for theatre, as long as it has a solemn kind of ending. It is characterized as a very sad event, action, or experience for a certain character in the piece. According to Aristotle’s â€Å"Poetics,† a tragedy needs six elements, a plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody, as in many dramas do, butRead MoreThe Origins of Greek Theatre Essay2307 Words   |  10 Pagessoon enough its fields of interest spread to various myths along with historic facts. As ancient drama was an institution of Democracy, the great tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides as well as the comedian Aristophanes elevated public debate and political criticism to a level of aesthetic achievement. Euripides and the ethologist Menandros, in the thriving years of Alexandria and later on during the Roman domination, reached a beau ideal level and through the Romans managed to form WesternRead MoreThe Festival Of The Gods Of Wine And Fertility1562 Words   |  7 Pageswere angry, or sad in tragedies, and even be comical for the comedy plays. Some of the masks were double sided so that the actor could play more than one part in the performance. The shape of the mask was designed to amplify the actor s voice, making his words easier for the audience to hear. The actors wore thick soled shoes, and costumes were bulky in order to make them seem larger and taller than they really were. The theatrical forms of plays that were produced were tragedy, comedy, and satyrRead MoreSophocles The Golden Age1864 Words   |  8 Pageschoir of boys at a celebration of the victory of Salamis in a battle they had been fighting. Years later, he defeated Aeschylus, who was known to be a play writer also dealing with tragedies and other various kinds of plays that he wrote in his time. In 441 BC Sophocles was beaten in an Athenian play competition by Euripides. From 468 BC, however, Sophocles won many awards for his dramas and was noticed for his playwriting mind. Sadly, Sophocles life ended near 406 BC at about the age of 90 which wasRead MoreAncient Greek Theater1235 Words   |  5 PagesCheese’s, or not letting you hang out with that dreamy hunk Bryan on Saturday. For Oedipus, killing his parents was not something petty he threatened when he got too worked up, but rather his fate. This suspenseful and masterful plot, conceived by the legendary playwright Sophocles, was one of the many groundbreaking works to come out of fifth century BC Greece. Works of ancient Greek theater, particularly Oedipus the King, embodied the spirit of innovation that fifth century BC Athens was knownRead MoreThe Origins Of Drama And Theatre2001 Words   |  9 Pagesaccredited to inventing theatre and drama. In Greece during that time, at the height of popularity, were the sto ries of the well known flawed heroes and their journeys. Ancient Greece Comedy was a popular type of play in Ancient Greece, only second to Tragedy. These types were described in many details in Poetics, by Aristotle. He expressed that a comedy is â€Å"an imitation of inferior people - not, however, with respect to every kind of defect: the laughable is a species of what is disgraceful. The laughableRead Moretheme of alienation n no where man by kamala markandeya23279 Words   |  94 Pagesï » ¿ANTIGONE KEY LITERARY ELEMENTS SETTING This tragedy is set against the background of the Oedipus legend. It illustrates how the curse on the House of Labdacus (who is the grandson of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and the father of Laius, whose son is Oedipus) brought about the deaths of Oedipus and his wife-mother, Jocasta, as well as the double fratricide of Eteocles and Polynices. Furthermore, Antigone dies after defying King Creon. The play is set in Thebes, a powerful city-state north of Read MoreThe Gods vs. Man Essay1966 Words   |  8 Pages history men have always wanted to be like the gods. It is something that is seen over and over, mans universal struggle to be like the gods. Is it mans fault that he wants to be like the gods? Or is it the gods fault? The story Oedipus Rex by Sophocles shows that mans arrogance and fallible personality is the cause of this struggle for superiority. The Greeks dealt the most with gods, melding their daily lives with religion. The Greeks have had multiple Gods overRead MoreThe Renaissance and It’s Affect on William Shakespeare’s Works2369 Words   |  10 Pagesgenre of tragedy is rooted in the Greek dramas of Aeschylus (525-456 B.C., e.g. the Oresteia and Prometheus Bound), Euripides (ca. 480?-405 B.C., e.g. Medeaand The Trojan Women) and Sophocles (496-406 B.C., e.g. Oedipus Rex and Antigone). While Shakespeare probably did not know Greek tragedy directly, he would have been familiar with the Latin adaptations of Greek drama by the Roman (i.e. Latin-language) playwright Seneca (ca. 3 B.C.-65 A.D.; his nine tragedies include a Medea and an Oedipus) (Schwartz