Aristotle Tragic Hero Essay Example

Aristotle Tragic Hero Essay Example Aristotle Tragic Hero Paper Aristotle Tragic Hero Paper Essay Topic: Burial Rites Tragic Heroes However, tragic heroes have occurred repeatedly in the history of literature. Shakespeare had his own brand of raging heroes like Othello, Romeo, Macbeth and Hamlet. These famous Shakespearean characters did not match the tragic heroes of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides on whose works Aristotle had based his theory but they are tragic heroes none the less. For example, the tragic flaw of Hamlet was inaction. Now we can argue at length whether or not Aristotle would categories Hamlet as a tragic hero because such a thing was unheard of in his time. Consciously or unconsciously, Milton also gave us a tragic hero In Satan of Paradise Lost. Again, It may be a little hard to digest that a biblical villain can be Interpreted as tragic hero but such is the beauty of literature. Satan is hero because he has excellent leadership qualities. His famous dialogue, better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven clearly shows his command over himself and the people around him. He stands for knowledge instead of faith. His tragic flaw is narcissism; he is too much in love with himself to look beyond. Therefore, if we set aside the Christian values, which of course did not exist in Aristotle time, then Satan could easily be a tragic hero. Modern writers have presented absolutely simple and ordinary people with no heroic elites whatsoever as tragic heroes. The most appropriate example would be Wily Loan from Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Loan Is a small-time businessman, too small In stature to be a hero In the Aristotelian school but he struggles on to achieve his American dream. He overlooks his own failures by Investing Nils nope In Nils sons success Ana In ten Ana Don Nils sons respect Ana t American dream evade him and lead him to suicide. Over the years Aristotle tragic hero has been interpreted by numerous authors with improvisations, variations and different perspectives but all of them can be traced jack the original description of a tragic hero by Aristotle recorded in Poetics. Characteristics of a Tragic Hero 1. Goodness: First and foremost the character should be good. (Poetics) Humphrey House interprets the word good as ethically good and not as serious as some other critics have said. This characteristic of goodness lays the very foundation of Aristotle concept of tragic hero because it helps arouse the feeling of sympathy or more appropriately pity for the character. A bad mans fall from grace may evoke sympathy but pity is an emotion that is aroused for a character that is inherently good. Goodness emphasized by Aristotle is not morality, as we understand it today. Aristotle wrote in the pre-Christian era and thus there are no Christian values of dutifulness, humility, chastity, charity and so on in goodness. For Aristotle, goodness would be associated with courage, temperance, liberty, gentleness, truthfulness, friendliness and even wittiness. 3 To illustrate a post-modern interpretation of the quality of goodness in a tragic hero we can analyses the work of J. K. Roiling, which is the Harry Potter series. It is essentially a fantasy novel series in seven parts. It is set in present day England and creates a whole new world of magic within the realm of existing reality. It makes you wonder if your next-door neighbor whom you always considered weird is actually a wizard belonging to this secret magical world. The protagonist of this novel-series is a teenaged wizard, Harry Potter. He has the legacy of having destroyed the darkest and most powerful wizard of all times, Voltmeter at the age of two. Harry loses his parents in this incident and is brought up by his maternal aunts family (reluctantly and negligently). Thus, he does not have NY knowledge of his magical status until he gets an owl (letters in the magical world are delivered by owls) from Hogwashs school of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the age of eleven asking him to Join school. With this, his adventures in the magical world begin where he discovers his past and creates his future all the while struggling to stay alive. Harry in spite of having suffer a great tragedy at a very young age and struggling a continuously during the course of his life is not a tragic hero because he represents hope for the magical community and thus cannot afford to fall. Many readers have interpreted the character of Harry Portions (a magical subject analogous to chemistry) professor, Severs Snaps as that of a tragic hero. Snakes character swings with every book in the series becoming bad to worse. In the beginning, he is portrayed as an villous villain Decease nee seems to nylon a secret grudge against Harry and goes out of his way to make life difficult for him at Hogwashs. As the series progresses the cause to the grudge is revealed, it is a sour relationship Snaps shared with Harry father when the two were in school together. Snaps has a reputation for urging Dark magic and was once a devout follower of the notorious Voltmeter. The build up to Snakes character is such that until the moment of discovery one does not know his tragedy, which happened to be his love for Harry mother, Lily. In the tussle between Dark arts and Lily, he chooses the former and loses her forever. However, he continues to love her even after her tragic death resulting from dark arts. Her death turns him around. Behind the faded of dislike, he protects her only child Harry and finally lays down his life for him. All this comes in a flashback at the ND of the last novel of the series. In this case, the change from ignorance to knowledge is not for the character but from the readers, which is the exact reverse of what would happen in Classical Greek tragedy that Aristotle describes. Now it may be argued that Snaps is more of a Byronic hero that a tragic hero which of course has some degree of truth. How can a character who is already fallen be a tragic hero? However, if we look closely Snakes death that happens Just after the flashback leading to discovery is a fall and it arouses a tremendous effect of pity for IM on the part of readers because the emotion of pity is laced with the guilt of having misunderstood him along. If goodness in a tragic hero is not obvious, it is goodness nevertheless and therefore Snaps is as much a tragic hero as Oedipus. Appropriateness of Character: Beater interprets appropriateness to be nothing at variance with that of the class to which the individual belongs. _3 Lucas goes a step further by saying true to type. _3 House argues that Aristotle did not want the poet to create merely typical characters. He writes, There is no word in Greek at all corresponding to type_3 The rod appropriate translated from Greek roughly means fitting but fitting what or who is open to interpretation. The Aristotelian tragic hero always has a high station in society, so we may assume that the character must fit a position of power but that is too simplistic an assumption. Aristotle is descriptive not prescriptive. He describes the Greek society he lived in, where a man could not rise above the class he was born in and women were not even citizens. Thus when we says that women are inferior and slaves are insignificant even if they happen to possess goodness then he means that the audience would not take such a hero with the seriousness due to a tragic hero. However, he does not suggest that female tragic hero cannot exist. The same Sophocles who wrote Oedipus Rexes wrote a tragedy named Antigen, which has a female tragic hero. Antigen is part of the Thebes plays. After Oedipus leaves Thebes, there is a battle for the throne in which the two sons of Oedipus end up killing each other. Croon, the brother in law of Oedipus become the king and orders one of the brothers to be left to rot on the battlefield because he was the aggressor. I Nils Is ten worst Tort Insult to a Greek warrior Ana lupuss gaunter Antigen cannot digest this dishonor meted out to her brother. She is torn between her love for her family and her loyalty to the King. She decides to give her brother a burial and is caught doing so. Croon gives her a death sentence but her courage and sense of duty wins her the sympathy of the people of Thebes. The tragic flaw of Antigen is her arrogance, her determination to act alone. That is why she rebukes help from her sister and lover (Screens son) leading to her self-inflicted death. Antigen is an appropriate character because she is a womanly woman as Humphrey House puts it. She is sentimental, loving, believes in doing the right thing and is courageous fitting her royal status. Had she been blindly ambitious like Lady Macbeth or unfaithful as Cleopatra then Aristotle would have found her manly and therefore inappropriate. Likeness of Character The third is to make them like (Poetics) The most acceptable interpretation of this characteristic is likeness to original. Beater interprets it, as like THE reality Butcher says, character must be true to fife 4 Aristotle does not mention like what? and thus we are free to make our own judgments. Thus, the most likely meaning of like would be bearing resemblance to real life r simply believable. Consistency Consistency is an irrefutable characteristic of any character. A character has to have consistent to seem real or believable. However, consistency does not mean predictability. Aristotle clearly states that a character can be consistently inconsistent. Consistency can be interpreted as a coherent pattern of behavior or habitual tendency. For example, Oedipus of Oedipus Rexes, is a man associated with retreats and thus we expect him to keep his word and gouge out his eyes in repentance. It is shocking but believable. However, if a low-lifer like Ago of Othello shows the same kind of repentance then it would be an inconsistency. This is because there is no prior indication given by Shakespeare that the character of Ago may have such potential. Hamlet or Tragic Flaw The hero should be an intermediate kind of personage not pre-eminently virtuous or just. (Poetics) Aristotle clearly states that a hero should be less than perfect. He does not describe what moral imperfections he must have. It has already been established that morality in the modern sense does not hold good for interpreting Aristotle. misfortune Is brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some error of judgment. (Poetics) If we compare the two above statements quoted from Poetics, we can safely conclude that Aristotle is deliberately separating, the hero as being less than perfect and the error in Judgment that brings about his downfall (Hamlet). Hamlet Is not Inclusive AT ten moral constrictors In a Nero. As Butcher says, Hamlet is not a moral state but a specific error which a man makes or commits. Therefore, when we say that pride and Jealousy is the Harming of Othello then we are not being technically correct. The tragic flaw of Othello was his error in Judging Ago and putting his trust in the wrong man. Most modern critics have interpreted Hamlet as error which is derived from ignorance of some material fact or circumstance. However, it must be understood that a tragic hero who has a Harming that matches Aristotle description word to word can be found only in Classical Greek tragedy where Destiny is the villain and the hero falls not for his own flaws but for trying to outsmart Destiny In a majority of he tragedies written since, the tragic heros Hamlet arises out of the inherent moral imperfections in him. Conclusion To conclude lets take the example of Chance Achebes novel, Things Fall Apart. It is set in a tribal forest of the lower Niger. The tragic hero is a man named Awoken, about whom the narrator says, His whole life was dominated by fear, fear of failure and weakness. In addition, Awoken never showed any emotion openly unless it was the emotion of anger. Fear is Ginkgos moral shortcoming and his fear gives rise to his anger. In the novel, it is his anger that leads to his downfall.

How to Write a Research Proposal in Ecology A Complete Guide to a Successful Assignment

How to Write a Research Proposal in Ecology A Complete Guide to a Successful Assignment Writing a proposal is a crucial step in the course of any research, because without a successful proposal the project in question will simply not come to be. It is especially true in the case of ecology papers. Conservation efforts and environment protection are an extremely hot topic these days, and at any given moment, there are likely to be dozens of similar propositions. It is your job to make your work attractive enough to be chosen over all the alternatives. What Is a Research Proposal: General Characteristics and Goals A research proposal provides a short summary of your proposed research that allows the reader to make conclusions about its originality, viability and relevance. It defines the major questions or issues you intend to address, outlines the general area that your research covers and describes the context of your work (existing studies and debates on this and related topics). The structure of a proposal can vary: different disciplines, colleges and departments have their own preferences. However, a few things remain unchanged: 1. A Research Proposal Is not an Article Writing peer-reviewed articles and writing proposals follow completely different patterns, and the experience you may already have in the field of academic writing can be misleading when you attempt to prepare a proposal. Articles traditionally begin with a detailed elaboration of the background against which you carry out the research. You should carefully describe your theory or hypothesis and the methods you are using. Although a proposal should mention all these things, they are not at the forefront. You should understand your proposal as a marketing pitch – its main goal is not to describe your proposed research, but to persuade the reader that this research is worth pursuing. 2. Study the Guidelines If you think it is obvious, then you will be amazed how many proposals are rejected simply because their authors do not bother to pay close attention to instructions. Don’t start drafting the proposal with the intention of fitting it to the guidelines later. Pay close attention to every word: In addition to technical things like font size and section titles, they contain hints to what, how and where you should write and what you should not include at all. 3. You Are Just as Important as Your Research The examiners evaluate not just your research – they evaluate you as well. Do you have the necessary skills and expertise? Do you have any experience with the research methods you intend to use? Do you have sufficient background knowledge in this field of study? You have to prove not just that your research proposal is sound, but that you can successfully carry it out, too. 4. Put Special Effort in the Title Remember that you are selling your research, and every marketer knows that if you have not grabbed the customer’s attention by a catchy title, then you have already lost him/her. Make sure your title: Does not contain questions. You don’t have anything to show yet, so questions only add up to ambiguity; Is easily comprehensible. You should drive your message home, not make it appear more scientific-like; Is laconic and straightforward. If you cannot make it short, probably your research idea is too vague; Shows why anybody should care. Make it immediately obvious that there are better reasons to do this research than your being interested in it. 5. Do not Beat about the Bush This is the most important aspect of writing a research proposal. Get to what exactly you propose to do as soon as possible, providing as little background as you can get away with. The examiner is not interested in the context and the theoretical construct of the issue you intend to address. He/she wants to know the gist of the proposed research and see why it is exciting. If you spend half the paper setting up the background, you may not bother about proceeding further – the reader has already lost all interest. How to Select a Suitable Topic for Your Research Proposal in Ecology 1. Define the General Direction Ecology is a discipline that covers a lot of ground, and unless you have a very definite idea of what you want to write about, you cannot waste time randomly stumbling around trying to come up with a topic. Usually this stage isn’t very difficult, as your research direction has to be connected to the overall theme of your current course. Try to identify a direction that appeals to you or has connection to your previous research. For example, if the course is mainly dedicated to conservation and reintroduction efforts, you can narrow it down to a particular region – e.g., Australia. 2. Do a Literature Review Once you know in what direction to move, you can start gathering the sources and checking out the existing body of knowledge on the chosen field of study. The easiest way to do it is to choose a few keywords related to the subject matter, and run searches with them using academic resource search engines and databases. Some examples include BioOne (dedicated to ecology and environmental science) and Jurn, DeepDyve and Google Scholar (multidisciplinary ones). You can also get help from your research supervisor or a library assistant. 3. Identify the Gap in the Knowledge Study the literature and check if there are any noticeable gaps in the existing knowledge on the subject. Literature review will help you understand what studies have already been done and if there are ideas, issues or problems that haven’t been addressed or require deeper research/another methodological approach. For example, if you encounter a research dedicated to the success of koala reintroduction efforts in the Mt. Lofty Ranges region of Australia, you can zero in on the fact that the population living there, although relatively large, descends from just six animals that were reintroduced to the area in 1965, which makes it highly inbred. 4. Single out the Problem and Prepare a Purpose Statement Now that you’ve identified a meaningful gap in the research, it is time to identify the problem you intend to tackle and answer 4 whys: Why it is important; Why you chose this subject; Why you believe you have the necessary qualification; Why others should care about the topic. The mere existence of the gap in the knowledge does not mean the topic is worth researching. There should be a problem worth researching: one that promises real results and is feasible in terms of expense/return ratio. Now you are ready to select a topic; here are a few examples: Koala Conservation Effort: The Issue of Inbreeding among the Mt. Lofty Ranges Population; Use of Fracked Gas in Cooking: Potential Ecological and Health Risks and Viable Alternatives; Coral Reef Die-Off in the Gulf of Mexico: Most Common Causes and Potential Countermeasures; Contamination of T. Testudinum Seagrass with Microplastic: Potential Implications for Marine Ecosystems; The Influence of Agriculture-Caused Greening in the Level of CO2 Emissions in India and China. Writing a Research Proposal in Ecology: A Step-by-Step Breakdown A research proposal doesn’t have a predetermined structure – different disciplines, universities, departments and even faculty members have their own regulations and preferences. Sometimes you receive a detailed template to follow, sometimes your supervisor gives you a general structure, sometimes it can even be relatively freeform. Anyway, the structure we show here is just an example of what you usually have to include in an ecology research proposal – if the guidelines you got from your university are different, you should follow them. This structure can help you better understand what goes where. How long your research proposal is to be fully depends on the college guidelines. It may range from just a few hundred words to a few thousand. 1. Title We have already talked about the title above. There is only one thing to add – do not try too hard to make it an ideal fit for your future research. Currently the title’s job is to attract attention and persuade the assessor to accept it. You will have time to revise it to better reflect the nature of your work while you do the research – after it is accepted. 2. Abstract A short and to the point statement of the nature of your proposed research, usually about 100 words or 3-4 sentences. Identify the problem or an issue you want to address in as few words and as straightforwardly as possible. 3. Context No research exists in isolation, and here you should show the current state of the field of study and how well you are versed in it. Provide a general report on what is currently known, what is the general consensus among the scholars, whether there were any recent debates on the topic. This way you both lay the groundwork of your research, explaining the existing state to those who may be unfamiliar with it, and show your acquaintance with the literature on the subject. If you use any direct citations from the literature you’ve gathered at this point, quote them according to the guidelines you have received. Usually it is enough to mention the author’s surname and the publication date (e.g., â€Å"It has been mentioned in a recent study on carbon monoxide emissions in the North Atlantic region (Nylan, 2017)†). 4. Questions Narrow the field of research down to the definite, concrete questions you are going to answer. Examiners often reject proposals because they are too vague and broad, which makes them unfeasible to complete in the allotted timeframe or with the relatively limited resources. For example, if you study the effects of microplastic on marine life, you may narrow it down and focus specifically on the lifecycle of parrotfish, its single yet common representative. 5. Methodology Your research should be not just feasible and important; you should also carry it out using suitable methods. In this section, you describe how you will approach your task. Tell if your research will be primarily library-based or you are going to do field work. Which libraries are you going to use? What kind of empirical data are you going to collect? How will you do it, and what methods will you use to process and analyze it? Is your expertise enough to use these methods in order to provide trustworthy results? 6. Significance and Originality Although your research has to be firmly grounded in the existing knowledge on the subject, it shouldn’t just rehash what is already proven. In this section you explain why your research is novel, how it expands and adds to what is known on the subject, how it can help further investigations in it and how it affects other disciplines. 7. Bibliography/ This is simply the list of all the sources of information you have used so far or intend to use in your research. Don’t try to create a comprehensive list of everything written on the topic – your current bibliography does not limit what you can later use in your work. Post-Writing Stage: How to Polish Your Ecology Research Proposal The quality of your proposal defines whether your research will be accepted. In a sense, it even determines the course of your future career, especially if it is your first fully independent research project. Therefore, don’t be in a hurry to submit it once you’ve finished writing. Take your time and apply some post-writing polish. 1. Check Grammar, Syntax and Spelling You may believe that at your academic level you don’t have to bother about such trivial things. However, chances are that you overestimate your mastery of English. Even experienced academic writers make mistakes, and few things spoil the impression more than an obvious blunder you’ve missed. At the very least, use a grammar-checking tool. Better yet, hire an editor or a proofreader. 2. Check if Your Research Question Is Alright Is it narrow enough? Is your proposal in general feasible? Do you manage to convey your interest and excitement about your research? Have somebody you trust read your proposal and ask him/her what impression it makes. 3. Check for Plagiarism Are you sure nobody did this research before? Check your sources once again. In addition, make sure you have properly quoted all your literature and listed it in the bibliography. 4. Check for Style A research proposal’s style should be simple and straightforward. Ideally, even somebody who does not know anything about ecology should be able to grasp its meaning. Therefore, avoid long and complex sentences, unnecessarily complicated words and jargon. 5. Check the Guidelines Did you strictly follow all the guidelines? Reread them once again and go over the entire proposal with a fine-toothed comb. Lack of compliance with instructions can get even an otherwise very promising proposal rejected. If even after carefully using this guide your supervisor says that your research proposal needs additional work, don’t be discouraged – it is perfectly normal. Moreover, it is a good sign – if your supervisor doesn’t outright reject it, it means that its core is sound. Usually a research proposal goes through 3 to 4 iterations before it is finally accepted. Follow the steps above, listen to what your advisor has to say, and your efforts will eventually pay off.

What causes homelessness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

What causes homelessness - Essay Example 1995). The point is that the category of homelessness is rather huge, and there are many people, who may be considered as homeless. The more important thing is that classical homeless people have some, let’s say, classical reasons to live in such way. The reasons are the following: alcoholism, mental diseases, physical disabilities and simple laziness and life weakness (Shlay, Rossi, 1992). Recent sociological researches showed that such vision of homelessness is quite typical for almost all the people, and indeed these patterns of poverty are truthful in majority of cases, but still there are some essentially different situations when it turns out that people become homeless (Lee et al. 1990). For example, such exceptional cases may be bankruptcy, mortgage delinquency (which may be a result of job loss) etc. In general, there are a lot of huge economical problems that make people homeless. Actually, these problems are on the top of the list of reasons of homelessness. Also, we can’t forget about a huge group of mentally sick people unable to function in society in adequate way, so they go on streets trying to survive. Scientific researches showed that the level of mental diseases has grown with development of big cities. Psychologists think that the reason of such tendency is that people can’t stand rapid pace of globalization, so they begin mentally â€Å"breaking† or using drugs and alcohol (Mechanic, Field, 1987). The main point is that people start feeling their weakness and negligibility in this world; they feel lonely and unable of doing anything. Another economical reason of homelessness is increasing level of prices and especially the land ones and housing costs. There are many families that cannot afford buying an expensive house that would fit their families, or even cannot afford any housing at all (Freeman and Hall, 1987). The