Friday, October 15, 2010
We All Think We're The Tragic Hero
This week, we've been learning about tragedy. Specifically, we've started on "the tragedy": Oedipus Rex. A tragic hero is someone whose life is going fine, then turns tragic. Usually, this is a death, a loss of fortune, or a lost connection with a person. We also talked about and watched parts of modern day tragedies, such as The Mission, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and the Wrestler. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the emotions of the characters because they seem so real. They could be us. The protagonist of the last book I read, named Yossarian, thought he was a tragic hero. He complained about having to put his life on the line and having a failed lifeline. But he really doesn't count as a tragic hero because the story started with him in a bad scenario. His life is seldom good. These are my observations.
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This is a good overview of what we studied this week. Also, I found your observations interesting. Maybe you could work on the grammar? But, I could too.
ReplyDeleteI partially agree with you about the definition of a tragic hero, but I think the definition could evolve over time. An example of this would be the book called sixteen minutes. It is about this high school boy who is not respected by his peers and commits a school shooting.His life goes further down hill from the crime he committed. At the end of the book he admits what he did was wrong and he slowly gains his friendships back. This example challenges the idea of the tragic hero because the character is not well respected from the start of the book, but the audience can connect to the character and feel his pain.
ReplyDeleteDo you think this is why we, as humans enjoy watching tragedies so much? It's wierd to think that we all can be this tragic character, even if it seems to be true a lot of the time.
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