This week in my tragic life, we watched a TED Talk by Dan Ariely. This was a very interesting one, and one of my favorites that we have watched so far, I think. Ariely talked about how we may not actually be in control of our decisions as much as we think we are. He used many examples through illusions, different types of forms, and more. One of the examples that he used that I thought was interesting was the table illusion. There are two tables, one that looks longer then the other, but in reality, they are the same size. Even after showing that the tables have the same length, our brains still don 't see it as the tables having the same length. This was so interesting to me, because when I actually thought about it, I realized that he was right. Even after he put the two lines on top of each other, once they went back to their own tables, it went back to looking like one table was longer than the other. Honestly, I didn't even want to think about it anymore after that. It was too crazy to even comprehend. I feel like this can easily be applied to Oedipus. Within the play, Oedipus was never really in control of his decisions. He thought he wasn't going to be following the terrible fate, and neither did Jocasta when she found him, not even knowing it was her son. Through the power of fate, they were brought together without them even thinking about it. That's some wild stuff, man. They get so focused on trying to avoid the fate, that they don't even realize that they are already following it perfectly.
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Oedipus is honestly one of the craziest things I've ever read. For something so old, it was really insane when you think about it. A man trying to avoid his fate for his entire to life, only to figure out that he's been following it the whole time. Honestly, it's like the biggest middle finger to Oedipus ever. It truly was a tragedy. Even though he was a cruel and rude guy when he was ruling, you can't help but feel at least a little bad for him. I feel like one of this biggest themes in this play was in fact fate. The idea that you can't avoid fate, and no matter what you do it'll find you and you'll be stuck with it. He didn't even know that he was part of this fate, so really, you can't even blame him that much for it. If anything, it's Jocasta's fault. She should've just left and gone somewhere completely different in the first place. Like, no where even near where she would think that her son would go. I feel like she'd at least try a little harder instead of just marrying some random guy that was brought in. Shouldn't the fact that he KILLED her old husband give it away. Anyways, it's all just the most crazy things ever. Jocasta kills herself, Oedipus stabs his eyes out for really no reason. Just to "try to see the truth" or something. It's a little too late to see the truth, buddy. Poor guy. I feel like this shows kind of the basic elements of what a tragedy is. It has all of the things that people think of when they think of tragedy. Death, a depressing ending, etc. It's kind of like the original tragedy, if you want to think about it that way. This week, we read Tragedy and the Common Man by Arthur Miller. One of his main arguments to begin with in this paper is that tragedy is not just for nobility, even though some of the most famous ones seem to be like that. A tragedy isn't just for the upper-class, anyone can have a tragedy happen to them, including the "common man" in the words of Miller. He moves on to explain how we as the readers feel that tragic feel when a character is willing to do anything to get what he wants, which is to secure their dignity. I find this interesting because when you think about it, it's very true. People care so much about their dignity and they will do anything to make sure that it stays perfect. I also find it quite interesting how he talks about how there must be a chance for success in a tragedy. This makes sense because no one would think that tragedies would be good if you knew there was no chance of them succeeding in the end. This piece really changes what I thought about tragedy. Of course, I didn't think that all tragedies were just centered on a royal family, king, etc. But I did think it was kind of weird that when you think about, some of the most famous tragedies focus on royalty. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is the conflict between two houses. It is nice to know that there are some out there that show the struggle for common people too. The TED Talk about success was very interesting. De Botton brought up many points that I never really thought of when it comes to a topic like this. Something that really stuck out to me with this was the idea of envy, and how he explained it. He talks about how envy is one dominant emotion that rules society. The closer in age people are, the more likely you are to envy them, and when you can't relate to someone, you don't envy them. This whole idea seemed to really make sense to me, and I never really thought about envy being something that rules our society. Even when we are all pretty much equal, we will still all envy someone. De Botton's whole talk can really relate to the idea of tragedy, with the feelings of envy and failure seem to be key elements in tragedies. In several of the tragedies, many characters resort to violence or self-harm due to envy or failure. In Romeo and Juliet, the failure in Juliet's plan to be with Romeo ended with the death of both of them, and ultimately ending in the failure of the both of the families, with many unneeded deaths. This TED Talk really helps open your eyes on such things. For someone who has taken Honor's English all of high school, I have little to no knowledge on what a tragedy is. I want to say that it's the generic sad, depressing, disastrous things, but I feel like I remember one of my teachers saying that tragedies don't alway have to be sad stories. I don't know if this is true, this could just be something random coming out of my mind, but I feel like it's true. Other than that, I really know nothing. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, right? Who knows. Well, after doing some research, I now know that I was somewhat right. Basically, a tragedy is "a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in the audience." Straight from our lord and savior Wikipedia's mouth. So, I mean, I was kind of right. It can be sad and depressing stuff that makes humans suffer, but it can also be something that makes the audience feel pleasure. So, maybe it can also be some depressing stuff, but also make people happy. I guess I was kind of right. |
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