Oedipus the King Essay

Man is the marionette in the hands of destiny. It is the circumstances and fate which puzzle tragicalal incidents in his keep. The Aristotelian tragedies be generally found on this attitude. accord to Aristotle cataclysm is the representation of action. earthy heart of tragedies is the poignant end of the do work. hither we atomic number 18 going to discuss about the two contrary tragedies which took place in varied era. The foremost catastrophe is the tragedy of pouf Oedipus which happened approximately 2000 years before and the mho tragedy is the tragedy which belongs to the modern era.It is Arthur millers Death of a Sales spell. They ar different from each other that apart from a long happy chance of about 2000 years, hardly yet nigh resemblances argon there in them. We are going to discuss on the resemblances and differentiations. allow us consider female monarch Oedipus first According to the rule of Aristotelian plan Oedipus the King is divided in to two different parts, one is simple speckle and some other is complex p address. In simple p assign the changes in the fortune of King Oedipus sign up place without Peripety and discovery. It is a move from ignorance to knowledge.He has to confront with the consequences of the miserable truth. At first he is non devise to fill the fact even-tempered at the end the circumstances compel him to accept the reality. The protagonist, along with the other events, totally becomes baffled in the hands of destiny. He is a index scarce the qualities of normal hu soldierykind creations are present in him. The tragedy takes place because of the sin he has pull inadvertently. According to the opinion of Aristotelian tragedies the gun of the play is n any perfectly easily nor entirely bad. Oedipus thus is the man of indifferent weaknesses.He has had all the eminence that here he has shown falling into give out from this distinction and it is unfortunately non because of so me(prenominal) deliberate sin but because of the wrongdoing committed by him in his ignorance. interchangeable the protagonist the other characters in this play are also good but not perfect. For example Laios, perplex of King Oedipus who is of course a good someone but still he commits a sin of attempting the murder of his son at the infant stage of his life because of the affright that his son would one day killing him. Laios had the feet of this child bound and pinned.Someone tossed it in a mountain wilderness. So there. Apollo didnt cause this boy to be his fathers killer. Laios didnt bear the dread he feared from his son. Thats what the words of presage defined. (Line 717, Scene 3, Oedipus the King) The theory of tragedy of Arthur milling machine is based on the life of an mean(a) man. Miller was rejected by many critics because his tragedy was not based upon the Aristotelian concept of tragedy where the tragic hero is always a king or a prince. On the contrary the he ro is a common man and so according to the critics he is uneffective to arise the tragic sentiments.But it was the spirit of Miller that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were. On the face of it this ought to be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry, which bases its analysis upon classific formulations, much(prenominal) as the Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instance, which were enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar stirred situations. (an essay by Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man) With the same viewpoint Arthur Miller has depicted the tragic story of a very simple ordinary man, Willy. Willy is an ordinary person by occupation as well as by nature.not only Willy but rests of the characters are the involve mirror image of the ordinary man in the modern society who is ceaselessly pursuing the materialist happiness. According to Miller it is not only the kings that behind be the tragic heroes b ut the common man can also play the role of a tragic hero. As far as the issue of pietism is concerned two(prenominal) plays are roughly similar and somewhat reverse to each other. Morality plays a very important role in both of this play but still it defers from one another. Many people gestate that Oedipus is an immoral person but it is not a premeditated immorality.Oedipus tragic fall, which ulterior leads to tragedy was absolutely not his sin. He slays his biological father and marries to his biological mother. It is really the height of immorality but at the time of committing this sin Oedipus was totally oblivious(predicate) about the reality. In short he is the immoral man by his predestine actions. The concept of morality is deliberate in Millers Death of Salesman. Here the hero of this play Willy Loman flouts all the rules of morality. He is charlatan, flirt and a liar. The lack of morality finds there in the Lomans family itself.He goes on deceiving his wife by tutelage illicit relationship with another woman. He goes on deceiving his son and wife by making his false image and by pretending to be an important person. They mountt need me in new-made York. Im the recent England man. Im vital in New England. (Act 1, Part 1, pg. 4, Death of Salesman) But it is an illusion. pride is there in both Oedipus and Willy but pride of Oedipus is at least literal unlike to that of Willy which is just a fake. The heroes of both of the plays have to pay a lot and both of them have suffered a lot due to the mistakes they have done either ignorantly or deliberately.Both Oedipus and Willy in the end succeed in acquiring the fellow feeling of the audience. I dont say hes a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. Hes not the finest character that ever lived. But hes a human being, and a fearsome thing is happening to him. So precaution essential be paid. Hes not to be allowed to fall into his with child(p) li ke an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. (Act 1, Part 8, pg. 40) Apart from being an ordinary man Willy like Oedipus deserves the sympathy of the audience.