“Write now”

1. “Write now” • Select one of the following quotes from the play and explain if you agree or disagree with the quote. • We are only women, we cannot fight with men. • Impossible things should not be tried at all. • Good lives are made so by discipline. • Money! There is nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. • There is no happiness where there is no wisdom. • There is nothing so comfortable as your own safe skin! • Words are not friends. • Who can say that a man is still alive when his life’s joy fails? He is a walking dead man.

2. Tragedy Aristotle

3. Imitation of an action • Replicating an original action, feeling, or item. • Serious moral implications • Not limited to one character; an entire action

4. A Play: The Necessary Medium • Play = One Day • People can come together to experience the same emotions

5. Purpose • Catharsis (i.e. the purging of strong emotions or relieving of emotion tensions, especially through certain kinds of art) • Watch the play • Feel the emotions (fear, pity, sympathy, etc.) • Purging of emotions • Play = controlled environment • Better together than alone

6. Unity! • Action – simple plot; no subplots • Time – no more than 24 hours • Place – Cover one physical space

7. Stages of the Tragic Hero

8. The Tragic Hero • Better than the average person • Good fortune to Bad Fortune

9. Hamartia • Change that comes or a mistake that the hero makes. • Change DOES NOT have anything to do with the god’s or divine will. • Change depends SOLELY on the free will of the hero.

10. Peripety • The action performed by the tragic hero accomplishes the OPPOSITE of the action’s intent.

11. Recognition • The hero must realize that his/her actions have created their own bad present or future. • Recognition comes by their own reasoning! • Cannot be through means of other people (a letter, a character telling them, etc.); needs to be a real change of belief

12. pathos • Last item for the tragic hero • Destructive or painful act that the character experiences (e.g. death, stabbing eyes out, etc.) • This final emotion/action is necessary for the hero to be considered tragic.

13. What the tragic hero is noT! • Person from good moral figure to bad moral figure. • No fear or pity is created • Morally repugnant • Wicked person from bad to good fortune • Least tragic of all • Does not evoke sympathy, fear, or pity • No reason for a wicked person to have good fortune if the goal is to purge oneself of negative emotions. • Wicked person from good fortune to bad fortune • Creates sympathy (good) • Does not create fear or pity (bad)

14. Who is the tragic hero? • Directions: • First, decide who the tragic hero of the play is. • Second, make of list of how the character fits all four stages of the tragic hero.