15 Examples of Tragedy

Within dramaturgy, it is called tragedy to theatrical works with a solemn tone that are mainly characterized by the fateful outcomes of their protagonists. Cultivated since Ancient Greece, the tragedy represents characters who are faced with an inevitable destiny (fatum or anake) because of a fatal mistake or a character condition such as pride (hubris). The fateful outcome is inevitable and the characters are punished by the gods, usually with madness or death. For example: Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles.

The word tragedy comes from the Greek tragoedia, which literally means 'song of the male goat' and refers to the song that was sung during the Dionysian festivals. The Greeks were the first to represent tragedies for all their citizens, since through them they were formed morally, ethically and civically.

Aristotle He was the first to study the tragic genre in his Poetics (IV a. C.), where he defined it as the highest of the forms of artistic representation, since it showed the events directly to the viewer (without the mediation of narrators) and because showed men higher than they really are, so that their fall from grace would generate a catharsis in the audience and, through it, purge the lower emotions of being human. In this way, the public left the theater being better people.

The conflict situations present in the tragedy can convey feelings of compassion and sadness, as well as fear. So much so that this term is used as a synonym for a sad and inevitable event to this day.

Although tragedy is no longer cultivated as a literary genre, it is considered that it gave rise to the appearance of modern theater and dramaturgy as we understand it today.

types of tragedy

There are two types of tragedy:

Components of the tragedy

The tragedy is composed of the following elements:

Structure of the tragedy

The structure of classical tragedy is composed of three moments:

examples of tragedy

1. Antigoneby Sophocles (441 B.C. C.). It tells the story of Antigone, who at the beginning of the tragedy mourns the deaths of her brothers Polyneices and Eteocles. Both died battling each other to win the throne of Thebes. His uncle and current king of Thebes, Creon, orders that Polyneices not be buried, so his spirit wanders the earth. Faced with this disposition, Antigone seeks to carry out her family duty in the face of civic duty and bury her.
2. King Oedipusby Sophocles (429 B.C. C.). It tells the story of Oedipus, husband of Jocasta, at the time of his greatest splendor, as king of Thebes. To save the city from the plague that plagues it, he begins to investigate the death of the previous king: Laius. Little by little the truth is discovered: Oedipus is the murderer he is looking for and he was the one who killed his father.
3. oresteia, of Aeschylus (472 a. C.). It narrates the end of the curse of the house of Atreus. It is a trilogy composed of three works: agamemnon, coephoras and the eumenides. In the first work of the trilogy, the return of Agamemnon from the Trojan War is recounted. In his home is her wife, Clytemnestra, who has planned her death as revenge for the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia. In the second part, the revenge process of the two children of Agamemnon, Electra and Orestes, is told. Electra recognizes Orestes from a mark on his face during Agamemnon's funeral. Then, Orestes kills Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (Agamemnon's cousin and his mother's lover). In the third and last piece, he shows how Orestes appears before a jury of Athenians known as Areopagus, to decide if the murder of Clytemnestra makes him worthy of the torment inflicted by the Furies. Orestes is found innocent thanks to the help of the gods Apollo and Athena.
4. The seven against Thebes, of Aeschylus (467 a. C.). It narrates the mission of seven warriors who must invade and take control of the city of Thebes. For his defense, King Eteocles sends his six best warriors to fight against them, the seventh being the king himself. Towards the end, the brothers Eteocles and Polyneices, sons of Oedipus, drag the curse that weighs on their lineage, which they know but cannot avoid, and fall dead, one by the other, after a fight fratricidal.
5. the supplicants, of Euripides (423 a. C.). It tells the story of the mothers of the fallen, who make up the Choir of Supplicants, who, faced with the failure of the expedition against Thebes and killed in battle, seek to bury the bodies of their children according to tradition Greek. Faced with the refusal of the Thebans, the Suppliants ask Theseus for help so that Creon allows them to perform the funeral honors. Finally, Etra, mother of Theseus, convinces him to help women to comply with divine laws.
6. Iphigenia among the Taurus, of Euripides (414 a. C.). It tells the story of Iphigenia, who, after having escaped death sacrificed by her father Agamemnon, goes to live in the country of the Tauruses and becomes a priestess of the temple of Artemis. Until there Pílades and Orestes have traveled, this last brother of Iphigenia, who must steal the statue of the hunting goddess from the sanctuary to take it to Athens. However, they are in great danger because the custom among Tauruses is to sacrifice foreigners to the goddess, and Iphigenia, who at first does not recognize her brother, is willing to carry out the bloody ritual.
7. The Lear King, by William Shakespeare (1608). It tells the story of King Lear, who, already very old, thinks which of his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, will be the one to succeed him in his reign, and thus be able to spend his last days of life in peace. To make this decision, they are subjected to a test of love and loyalty. Because of the responses of the two eldest who are filled with praise for his person, he decides that they, along with their consorts, begin to reign. But he will soon feel threatened as he is completely abandoned. Towards the end, the daughters make an attempt on the king's life, so Lear realizes that he should have chosen the youngest daughter, Cordelia, and ends up freaking out.
8. The Tempest, by William Shakespeare (1611). It tells the story of Prospero, an old duke and magician who, betrayed and deposed, has to go into exile with his daughter, Miranda, to a desert island where he will spend twelve years. In order to take revenge on his brothers and return and return to Milan, he creates a storm that makes them shipwreck. In the ship travel the usurper Antonio, his ally Alonso, King of Naples, and Fernando, son of the latter. The passengers are saved, but believe that Fernando has died, while Fernando thinks that the others have drowned. Fernando and Miranda meet, and fall in love at first sight. Próspero prepares some scares for Antonio and Alonso. The first falls down in terror and the second regrets his cruelty, reconciles with Prospero and recovers his son Fernando.
9. The castle without revenge, by Lope de Vega (1631). It tells the story of Cassandra, wife of the Duke of Ferrara, who maintains a secret love affair with the Duke's bastard son, Count Federico. After returning from the war, her husband discovers the adultery and seeks to punish Count Federico by keeping his disgrace a secret. She then sends her son to kill a disguised traitor who turns out to be Cassandra and, in turn, orders the killing of Federico accusing that he had murdered his stepmother because he believed that she was going to give birth to an heir who would take away his duchy.
10. Bernarda Alba's house, by Federico Garcia Lorca (1945). After the death of her second husband, Bernarda Alba secludes herself and imposes a rigorous and suffocating mourning for eight years on her daughters. Angustias, the eldest daughter and the only daughter of her first husband, inherits a fortune and attracts a her suitor, Pepe el Romano, who becomes engaged to her, but simultaneously falls in love with Adela, the young sister. When Bernarda finds out about this affair, she shoots Pepe, but he manages to escape. After hearing the shot, Adela believes that her lover is dead and hangs herself. At the end of the play, Bernarda says that Adela died a virgin to save face, and she demands silence, as at the beginning of the play.
11. Phaedra, by Jean Racine (1665). It tells the story of Phaedra, who falls in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, but fights this passion for a long time. When she is mistakenly informed that Theseus, her husband, has died, she confesses her love to Hipólito, but he, not reciprocating, runs away with Aricia, her true love. Phaedra blames her nurse Enona for her, who had advised him to let himself be carried away by her passion.
12. Splendor, by Goethe (1808). It tells the story of Faust, an empirical scientist who is forced to confront issues such as good and evil, God and the devil, sexuality and mortality. In his search for the truth and the meaning of life, he makes a pact with the devil (Mephistopheles) in which he gives up his soul in exchange for access to this knowledge.
13. Zaire, by Voltaire (1732). It tells the story of Zaire, a Christian slave who falls in love with her master, the Sultan. The couple is willing to get married, but the young woman's family forbids it. If she does, she will have to turn to the Muslim religion and forget the Christian community to which she belongs. A certain misunderstanding on the part of the Sultan adds mistrust to the story, which causes the play to end with a tragic ending.
14. In the burning dark, by Antonio Buero Vallejo (1950). It tells the story of Ignacio who is forced to enter an institution for the blind, run by Don Pablo. There he meets other blind people who claim to be happy, but to whom Ignacio then infects his sense of misfortune for the loss of "the most wonderful of the senses". One fateful day, one of the inmates murders Ignacio on the patio swings, in order to be happy again with his old beliefs. However, the influence of Ignatius' words has changed his mind forever.
15. death of a travelerby Arthur Miller (1949). It tells the story of Willy Loman, a sixty-year-old traveling salesman and tireless worker who one day decides to retire and live peacefully with his family. Throughout his career, he has lived with the obsession of pleasing people, but one day he discovers that after so many years of work they barely remember him. Towards the end of the play, Willy commits suicide and, as he says goodbye to him, his family still doesn't understand why, if he was such a popular salesman, no one has attended his funeral.

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