It is clear that a modern and ancient audiences use different concepts and words to express their emotional credentials with tragic characters. According to Aristotle concept of pity and fear in more detail, that indicates why ancient audience may not apply to the modern theater. Aristotle legendarily recognized characteristic emotions produced by tragedy as eleos and phobos which simply means pity and fear. The concept explanation provides a valuable idea as to how ancient audience replied to tragedy. However, to take advantage of his insight, we must clearly understand his concept of pity and fear. Words, after all, change their meanings over time, just as cultures do. Even though pity exists in Modern Greek, it does not define of correspond with Aristotle’s version. Aristotle concluded that it was clear that the idea that the emotions vary from one society to another (Sophocles lines 389-725).
When analyzing the ancient Greek audience’s expectations and responses to tragedy the term sympathy may be out of place. According to Sophocles’ Philoctetes, it is completely possible that the sympathy is the suitable term to symbolize a modern audience’s response to the play. According to Sophocles’ Ajax, particularly in his Philoctetes, the tragedy most concentrates on eleos. The concept of Tragic Emotions across the Ages displays that there has certainly been a change in sentimental values from ancient to modern Greece, in the word as in art. The paper will compare female acts in ancient Greek tragedy and Modern Greek tragedy. In ancient era, Greek tragedy plays were written and performed by men, therefore, the neglecting presence of women in the theater. Masculine identity and conflicts remained a key factor in theaters in ancient Greek. Tragedy eventually makes a pretense of knowing how women should act and what they are and has a range of clichés to draw on in describing them.
It is believed that the myth of Oedipus as a scapegoat is a metaphor for the early scapegoat ritual. The rituals ceremonies were done when the society was in the state of emergency. In the explanation of the myth of Oedipus, Thebes the great king and tragic victim of fate, have helped Aristotle to be a model for tragedy (Sophocles lines 389-409). The play also expresses Freud as the illustration of the psychosexual growth of a male child. Finally, Rene Girard is stated as the apotheosis of scapegoating as well as collective oppression. For Sophocles, the parable of Oedipus was the treatment of the common feature of human predicaments. The agon or conflict and its purpose are the vital aspects of the Western theater.
The conflict is between the power of the gods (Oedipus) in ancient Greece and the new the humanistic impulse that is presented by English Renaissance (Othello). Oedipus is a symbol of the burgeoning theme of Greek humanism, the impulse of the greatest person who rises above the society. The Oedipus is a story about the nature of human evolution, discovered in metaphors that concentrate on human pursuits like sailing and agriculture. Oedipus is a parable in which the character goes backward and not forward in time. The protagonist realizes that, instead to be the solution to the problem he becomes the cause of the plague that threatens them. However, oracle guides Oedipus and ensures he remains an agent of free will. He recommends and enacts his punishment. He converts his terrible crimes dictated by fate into a gesture of personal responsibility (Sophocles lines 103-409).
Both Oedipus and Othello suggest a certain amount of sympathy. While the two characters might be guilty of some wicked personalities, they become bad protagonists. The story reveals that there are some distinct differences between the two characters. While their tragic flaws, hamartia, contribute to the precise role in their defeat, each is exceptionally different. For Othello, in his life doubt and personal insecurity are not manageable. It is this lack of faith in Othello and with his surrounding people, results in causing him to develop susceptibility to Lago suggestions.
For Oedipus, it is opposite of this. Pride compels him not to be able to be accepting the Oracle's readings. In this light, Oedipus saw himself different from Othello because humans make the configuration that Othello is struggling against Oedipus. For Oedipus, fortune is the biggest configuration alongside which Othello must do participates in the battle. In the end, both characters play a key part in each one’s downfall, yet each one is emerging differently. Oedipus is known for his quick and violent temper, and he is born royalty. Contrary, Othello is shown to be calm and persuasive in his conversation, and he is a very successful military commander. However, he is born as a commoner.
At the beginning of Oedipus, he was sure of whom he was and the place he came from. One of the key essential motifs of the tale is the idea of metaphorical blindness and ideas of how Oedipus used to claims that everyone around him is blind. He believes he was the only human who could see. However, via Sophocles and Aristotle concept pity and fear makes Oedipus discovered that he has no idea who he was. Therefore, he has been blind all along and almost neglecting figuring it out. The motivation gives him a defining moment to realize that he was a different person. His blindness was his biggest downfall that he could not see. This lead to the question that Sophocles ask, whether an individual and in this case Oedipus will ever think who they truly are without a defining moment.
In the tale of Oedipus the King, Sophocles depicts the key personality Oedipus, as a good-natured person that has bad frailty and judgment. He seems to make an unwise decision and is convicted to deep suffering because of his arrogance. In the agreement with Aristotle, Oedipus suffers it all because of his individual pride. One day Oedipus discovered that there was prophesy that portrays him killing his father and thereafter marrying his mother. Consequently, this proves that Oedipus has an oedipal complex. Oedipus complex is the ability of a boy to be obsessed on his mother and competes with his father for parental attention. At some point, Oedipus realizes that there is a difference between his mother and his father (Sophocles lines 800-813). The Delphic oracle revealed prophesy and told Oedipus that he would execute his beloved father and later on marry his mother. He was horrified by this prophesy, and he left Corinth.
Works Cited
Sophocles. Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. New York: JHU Press, 2010. Print.
