Tragedy

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Tragedy
Much critical analysis of tragedy is based on
the Greek model of the tragic. One of the
forerunners of defining this type of literature
was Aristotle who wrote a seminal piece on the
subject entitled Poetics. Tragedy, as a genre,
stresses the vulnerability of human beings whose
suffering is brought on by a combination of human
and divine actions, but is generally undeserved
with regard to its harshness. It deals with an
overwhelming sense of uncertainty of the world
and forces the audience to focus not only on the
death of the character on stage but also with the
idea of our own deaths.
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Four Basic Elements of Tragedy
1. Has a protagonist with whom we can
sympathise or identify
2. The character should suffer and die (dying
roughly at the end of the play
3. The protagonist must inevitably die but the
audience should think this unjustifiable and
unacceptable
4. It must give us a sense of our own deaths.
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Other Elements of Tragedy. According to Aristotle
the protagonist must have a tragic flaw, a reason
for his failure. In Greek this is known as
HAMARTIA. It has been argued that a tragic hero
must fall from a high position to a low one.
Much Greek and Shakespearian tragedy deals with
royalty. The tragic has to do with a loss
identity. Millers tragedy has been described as
DOMESTIC TRAGEDY as it deals with the tragedy of
a socially inferior man.