Plot vs Character in Tragedy Essay

Queen. PLOT As opposed to CHARACTER In Tragedy In the immortal creation Poetics Aristotle mentions half a dozen formative components of tragedy — ‘Plot’, ‘Character’, ‘Thought’, ‘Diction’, ‘Spectacle’ and ‘Song’.

And among them ‘plot’ gets the before attention and importance. Aristotle claims ‘plot’ to be the soul of misfortune. In his look at character as secondary for the plot. This individual in his publication Poetics opines “Plot is definitely the fundamental point, the spirit of tragedy, whereas figure is supplementary. ” [Chap—7].

It is just in the framework of talking about ideal plan that Aristotle refers to persona. Aristotle categorically states that there can be a tragedy devoid of character, nevertheless there can never be a tragedy without storyline. According to Aristotle, you will find two sorts of plot—simple plan and intricate plot. In simple plot we find simply ‘peripeteia’ or maybe the reversal of situation, and complex plot shows equally ‘peripeteia’ and ‘Anagnorisis’ and also the sudden finding. Besides these kinds of main two, ‘ plot’ can be based on scenes of sufferings.

A perfect plot is usually one which arouses pity and terror and brings about the outlet of thoughts. But the suffering of all characters cannot excite pity and terror. In case the tragic hero is a extensively bad man, his sufferings will not arouse the desired tragic emotions. And if the tragic hero is known as a thoroughly good man, his sufferings will shock us.

So the sexual arousal levels of shame and terror demands the description of any person who is neither very good neither very awful. The ideal personality should be a person of advanced sort. Thus, character is subordinated to plot. Misfortune depicts activities, and not personality; it is the plan which uncovers the character.

In the classical tragedies of Greece emphasis is unquestionably laid about plot. Sophocles’ King Oedipus, Aeschylus’s Agamemnon or Euripides’s Medea is really plot-oriented. But in modern or social tragedies, character can be closely assimilated with the conditions of life—with different interpersonal forces.

Bradley’s definition of disaster as a story of exceptional calamity of a individual who falls by prosperity to misery changes our focus on character. Synge’s Riders for the sea or Ibsen’s A Doll’s Property exhibits more suitable prominence of characters. Last but not least the above dialogue we can accept the fact that the proper mixing between ‘plot’ and ‘character’ is the singular requisite of a good tragedy.

And an effective tragedy copy writer knows how to offer the readers or the audience with all the blend of the two of these and make them mutually contributory to each other.