As Alain de Botton delivered his TED Talk, he not only discussed his ideas about success and failure, but addressed tragedy briefly as well. De Botton's main argument about success is that you have to create your own standards and definition of what you want in life in order to be successful. The society we live in today not only tells us we can do anything we work our hardest at, but also expects us to fail. With these conflicting messages, it often leads to a depression when we do not reach goals which often are just out of our reach. We often sometimes view those who do not meet the goals expected as "losers." De Botton addresses tragedy in this talk as well when he addresses how society responds to tragedy in real life. We see newspapers with articles about tragedies, but instead of putting ourselves into the shoes of the people experiencing the tragedy, we look only at the tragic situation the way it is. However, when we think of characters like Hamlet, we do not view him as a loser per say, but we do see how tragedy affects his life.
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The word 'tragedy' (or often in this day an age, just the word 'tragic') is thrown around pretty often, but usually in a more comical sense to describe inconveniences in life as opposed to more dramatic or serious events, as demonstrated by Kim Kardashian in this photo. Before I do any research on the definition of tragedy, I think that tragedy is when sad or unfortunate things happen to people who don't necessarily deserve. When I hear the word "tragedy," I think of events like natural disasters, shootings, and unexpected deaths such as by car accidents or due to cancer. As it seems that I view tragedy in a sense of real life events, how is tragedy portrayed in literature? By definition, Tragedy is "a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying pleasure in audiences." It originated in the theaters of ancient Greece and is found most prominently in novels, poems, drama, and short stories. The oldest surviving form of tragedy is called Athenian tragedy and involves a form of dance-drama that was important in the theatrical culture of Greece. Another popular form of tragedy is known as revenge play, where the protagonist seeks revenge for an injury either real or imagined. Hamlet is an example of a revenge tragedy. My understanding of tragedy is somewhat similar to the literary definition of tragedy in the sense that it involves human suffering. I think that it's interesting how we enjoy reading about tragic events happening to lovable protagonists in stories, because in real life situations we feel sympathy for those effected by tragedy. I did not know about revenge tragedy prior to researching it, and I find it interesting that there is a whole other sub-genre of tragedy that even stories I know of (well, just Hamlet really) are considered to be! |
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