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Example research essay topic: Pity And Fear Point Of View - 1,946 words

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Is The Persians a proper tragedy or just a piece of dramatized military and civic propaganda? Can it be both? Illustrate your answer with close reference to the text. The Persians is the only Greek tragedy to focus on a subject other than mythology, and this fact in itself should tell us something about the playwrights concerns.

Why did Aeschylus not turn to mythology if he had a point to make about war? Greek mythology is full of wars and heroes, and playwrights of the time could find ample raw material to turn into plays if they adapted stories from mythology. Perhaps it was because the play was so blatantly propagandist in nature that Aeschylus deliberately steered away from mythology to show his readers that he was interested in real life rather than fiction. One is tempted to do wonder if there is such a thing at all as a proper tragedy. The Greeks are undoubtedly the masters of the genre, or at least its inventors. What makes a tragedy a proper tragedy?

Let us examine Aristotle's concept of tragedy and apply it to Aeschylus play, to see if it is really a tragedy, or if it does not fit the classical requirements for a proper tragedy. Aristotle defines tragedy as follows: Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions... Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality namely, Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody. (McManus Section 1, paragraph 1) Aristotle's famous definition sets up the following requirements for a work to be considered truly tragic: Pity and fear are the reactions that must be aroused in the audience by the action; Catharsis or purging of emotions must take place; The six vital parts, as cited above, must be part of the play. Aeschylus may be said to be guilty of a kind of reverse orientalism.

As Edward Said pointed out, the West created a construct of the orient by exoticizing it, and emphasizing the differences between the East and the West. MacFarlane points out that there was a fundamental difference between the Greeks and the Persians. In any great war story, the warring sides are seen to respect each other, and the message the writer gets across is usually that it is war that is to be despised, and not the people who are forced to become pawns in a gory game. MacFarlane, however, tells us that the Persians as they saw themselves were very different from the Persians as the Greeks saw them (captions to figures I and 2). The Persians saw themselves as disciplined warriors, but the Greeks saw them as an inferior race meant to be subjugated and abused. They had to be suppressed at all costs.

MacFarlane also gives us the following biographical details about the playwright, which show us that Aeschylus had something of a personal stake in the issue of the Greeks warring against the Persians, and that consequently, his idea of what was really happening could have been more than a little biased: The Persian Wars 490 BC - Aeschylus fought, and brother died, in Battle of Marathon 479 BC - Aeschylus fought in Battle of Salamis 478 BC - formation of Delian League, under Athenian leadership 472 BC: Production, and victory, of the Persians (tetralogy) Phones Persians Glaucus of Potniae Prometheus (Section 2, Paragraph 1) Since Aeschylus own brother died in the war, it is not unreasonable to assume that the writer was subjective about the issue. When a writer is unable to be objective, it is doubtful that what he writes will be universally applicable and unbiased. In any event, it is unwise to let biographical details rule ones judgment of a text; the text itself is the best referent for this assumption. The Persians is the second and only surviving part of a four-part series that Aeschylus wrote on the contemporary wars with Persia.

The Battle of Salamis is believed to be the event that he was referring to in the play. The play begins with a chorus meant to represent Persians; it is obvious that the Greek is presenting the issue from the other sides point of view, and this in itself makes us wonder if his approach is likely to be biased. The Queen is seen to be an unworthy leader, begging for the council of the elders since she does not know what to do: Advise me then, you whose experienced age Supports the state of Persia: prudence guides Your councils, always kind and faithful to me. [Lines 171 - 73 ] Unusually, the play begins at the end of the war. Soon after the beginning, a messenger runs in with the news that the Persians have been defeated. A gory description of how the Persian heroes died is outlined in the messengers speech, allowing the audience to wallow in the characters misfortunes. The ghost of King Darius is seen to be unaware of the loss, but when he does learn of it, he blames his son Xerxes for the failure.

He places the blame for the defeat squarely in the hands of the Persians, stating that What is this unexpected ill that weighs the Persians down? [Line 694 ] Obviously, we are meant to accept his version of events: that there is an ill that is plaguing the country, and that that is why they have lost the battle. Queen Atossa agrees with him, lamenting that: O you who in prosperity surpassed all mortal men by your happy destiny, Since, so long as you gazed upon the beams of the sun, You lived a life of felicity, envied of all, in Persian eyes a god, So now too I consider you fortunate in that you died Before you beheld the depth of our calamities. The whole tale, O Darius, you will hear in brief space of time: The power of Persia is ruined almost utterly. [Lines 710 - 17 ] Atossa, like her husbands ghost, believes that Persia is ruined. In this manner, Aeschylus leaves his audience in no doubt that the enemy themselves believe that they are lost. Their spirits are broken, and they have no faith in themselves or their country.

The messenger, on the other hand, reveals that the Greeks were proclaiming slogans of faith in their countrys grandeur and power. We are left in no doubt as to which is the greater army. It is only an army that has faith in its country and its leaders that can hope to win a war. Xerxes, the tragic hero of the play, comes in late and is not really given the opportunity for character growth. He does not do much more than lament about the fate of his people, and his failure to lead them into victory: Alas, wretched am I who have met this cruel doom which did not give the faintest sign of its coming!

In what savage mood has Fortune trampled upon the Persian race? What misery is yet in store for me, unhappy wretch? The strength of my limbs is loosened as I look upon this aged group of citizens. Ah, Zeus, I wish that the doom of death had buried me, too, together with the men who have been laid low! [Lines 910 - 17 ] Poor Xerxes cannot do much apart from wishing that death had taken him too; he is left with little choice in the matter. The chorus agrees with him, and joins in his lamentations. Instead of consoling him, they agree that he is at fault, that his men have died for him, and that he is responsible for crowding Hades with their dead souls: The land bewails her native youth, slaughtered for Xerxes, who has crowded Hades with Persian slain.

Many warriors, masters of the bow, our country's pride, a great multitude of men, have perished. Alas, alas, for our trusty defence! The land of Asia, the leading power of the earth, has piteously, yes piteously, been bowed to her knees. [Lines 924 - 31 ] As is apparent from Xerxes prayer to Zeus, Aeschylus neither knew nor seemed to care about the gods that the Persians worshipped. His intention was only to show that the Persians were lesser mortals, and he did not bother to research their culture or their beliefs. The chorus even assumes that the dead have gone to Hades. Why should dead Persians go to a Greek hell?

The lines smack of prejudice and ignorance, and one is forcibly reminded again of Said's thesis in Orientalism. Thomas Harrison suggests in his book The Emptiness of Asia: Aeschylus' "Persians" and the History of the Fifth Century that Aeschylus is doing something other than, for example, what Herodotus was doing in his Histories. Harrison seems to be outlining the difference between history and historiography. While Aeschylus seems to be creating a historiography an act of writing about a political event from a contemporary point of view to understand it implications, rather than to record the event in historical terms his text does not really encourage the reader to look at it from an objective, retrospective perspective. Instead, his view seems more biased and subjective than the perspective of a historiographer ought to be; for example, he looks at the war only from the perspective of the Persians, and even they (as the messengers testimony indicates) seem to be admiring the valor of the Greeks. Like all bad politicians, the chorus of elders looks back to the good old days when a better king ruled their kingdom, and opine that if he had still been there, Persia would not have lost the war: Oh yes, it was in truth a glorious and good life under civil government that we enjoyed so long as our aged and all-powerful king, who did no wrong and did not favor war, god-like Darius, ruled the realm. [Lines 854 - 57 ] the phrase aged and all-powerful seems an oxymoron, and implies that the chorus is merely looking back with sentimental fondness at a dead king.

The kings ultimate lack of power is exemplified by the fact that he is now a mere ghost, incapable of anything else but to blame his son for what has happened to his country after his death. Xerxes is far from being a great tragic hero, although there seems to be a grudging measure of respect for him at the end. He is certainly not the tragic hero that Aristotle had envisioned for a classical tragedy. At the end, we cannot help but be left with the feeling that we have been treated to glorious propaganda regarding the might of the Grecian forces. Aeschylus does not allow any dignity or respect for the Persians, but leaves us feeling that they are a sorry lot who deserved what they got, and that they are fit only to be subservient to mightier forces like that of the Greeks. Works Cited Harrison, Thomas.

The Emptiness of Asia: Aeschylus' "Persians" and the History of the Fifth Century. Connecticut: David Brown Book Company, 2000. MacFarlane, Kelly A. Persians I. Retrieved 22 March, 2006, from < web > McDonald, Marianne and J. Michael Walton. (Eds. ) Six Greek Tragedies.

London: Methuen, 2002. McManus, Barbara F. Outline of Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy. 1999. Retrieved 22 March, 2006, from < web > Said, Edward. Orientalism.

New York: Vintage, 1979.


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Research essay sample on Pity And Fear Point Of View

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