Individual Abuse of Power Reflected in the Politics and Drama of Ancient Greece
The Greeks believed that too much power entrusted in one person was dangerous. They were the first democratic society in a tumultuous world of kings and emperors, and they were proud of their ideology. Considering their fervent belief in rule by many, its not surprising that many Greek dramas revolve around an individual hero or a king's fall from power because of pride or some other personality flaw. Well-known characters in some of the greatest Greek tragedians' plays illustrate this idea. In Aeschylus's Agamemnon, the title character is a returning king who behaves arrogantly and thoughtlessly. He is murdered by his wife and his kingdom falls apart. Sophocles's character Oedipus ends up killing his father, losing his kingdom and his wife and mother, and becoming a blind, wandering outcast for the rest of his life. Jason in Euripides's Medea deserts his family for a new marriage which he hopes will further his station, but his old wife kills his new wife and his children, ending his hopes for a shining future. The evolving theme of an individual's weakness and subsequent downfall supports the Greek's democratic system, where no individual becomes too powerful.
Agamemnon is a great warrior, but not a great family man. On his way to the Trojan war, he sacrificed his daughter to the gods so that his ships would be able to arrive safely and swiftly. This is an especially rotten thing to do because the war is being waged to reclaim just one woman, Helen. It is hard to justify killing one’s own daughter so that somebody else can get his wife back. However, war is what he is good at, and if he didn’t sacrifice his daughter he would be letting down ...
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...ach fall from their power into death or despair. They had become too powerful, too arrogant, and too ambitious, and so the gods cut them down. This pattern of kings falling from power because of weaknesses and character flaws is very common in Greek dramas. The Greeks were proud of their democratic system, and their dramas reflected their belief that their society, ruled jointly by representatives of the people, was best in a world full of unstable and dangerous monarchies. The gods despise men who rise too high and seek to become too great. So do the Greeks.
Works Cited
Aeschylus. Agamemnon. Greek Tragedy. Eds. A. Cook and E. Dolin. Dallas: Spring Publishing, Inc., 1992.
Euripedes; Medea; Trans. Rex Warner. The Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama: Third Edition. Orlando: Harcourt, 2000.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1991.
Like other heroes of the war, Agamemnon is a powerful king. He was able to raise men to follow him to Troy. He is referred to by the epithet “sheperd of people” (III, 156). In the underwold, Achilleus tells Agamemnon,
Odysseus and Agamemnon are heroes who fought side by side to take down the city of Troy during the Trojan War. In Homer’s The Odyssey, why is Agamemnon slaughtered when he arrives home while Odysseus returns to find his loved ones still waiting for him? The reasons for the heroes’ differing fates are the nature of their homecoming and the loyalty of their wives.
Epstein, Richard A. The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic. New York: Academic, 1977. Print.
In The Prison Notebooks (1971) Gramsci does not associate hegemony with the governance of a solitary individual or any structuralist energy phenomena, such as a discourse, collective conscience, deep structure or culture. Instead, hegemony from a Gramscian perspective signifies a variety of different organizations of people and agents in state formations, such as a structure, a practice, an apparatus, a unity of opposing structures or a function of leadership (Gramsci, 1971). Hegemony is always considered to be a process (Gramsci, 1971). In other contexts, hegemony may refer to a level or moment, which is equal to an evolutionary stage of leadership. Hegemony also may refer to a social grouping related to a particular social, political, cultural,
Gramsci conceived of hegemony when he was imprisoned by Mussolini’s Fascist regime. He was interested in understanding how a state could remain in power and maintain its control even when so many people were oppressed by it. Gramsci developed his concept of hegemony to understand how forces of power can lead people in the lower class to maintain the status quo rather than rebel against it even in the face of oppression. He maintained that control does not always happen through violence or political and economic coercion but also through ideology. He states that hegemony is the “political leadership...consent in the life and activities of the state and civil society” (Gramsci SPN Q10,I§12). In this sense, Hegemony is defined as, “the ‘spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group” (Lears 1985: 568).
Euripides. Three Plays of Euripides: Alcestic, Medea, The Bacchae. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1974. Print.
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon there are many different opinions about what kind of king and commander Agamemnon was. Some argued that he was good, while others dispute that his motives were wrong. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, gained a strong hatred for him, after he sacrificed his own daughter so he could go to war. Many believe that this was not necessary and could have been overcome. The chorus seems to agree with this to an extent, and feels that Agamemnon could have prayed and requested that he not sacrifice his daughter.
In Ancient Greece the existence of gods and fate prevailed. In the Greek tragedy King Oedipus by the playwright Sophocles these topics are heavily involved. We receive a clear insight into their roles in the play such as they both control man's actions and that challenging their authority leads to a fall.
Also recycling as spoiled societies in well developed regions. I Believe we consume way more then we need because we know it 's will be reused for a good cause but all that waste is generating more working for recyclers which in way is counterbalancing the environmental benefit. In Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter he spoke on a study that was done at the university where they observed the paper towel usage in a men 's restroom over a period of time. First with just a trash can and then the second time the recycling bin included the study found that that people used about half a hand towel more where there was a recycling bin (pg 266). “The increasing consumption found is partially due to the fact that consumers are well aware that recycling is beneficial for the environment: however the costs of recycling are less salient”(Minter 267). I believe the reason why recycling isn 't technically working is because we consumer see recycling as a first option when it 's actually should be sacred process that should be used in rarity. We as consumers need to think conserve instead of
... his place as a king, to losing his wife and children. The audience feels pity for him because he was trying to save Thebes. However, the audience always knew Medea had some evil characteristics to her when she betrayed her family with no shame or dignity to escape with Jason. The Medea and Oedipus the King both have the same criteria Aristotle states in Poetics. Tragedies depict the downfall of the noble heroine and hero through their fate, hubris and the will of gods. They did not die at the end but they did experience a change from high prosperity to a low prosperity.
In Aeschylus’ The Agamemnon, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra have to make tough decisions throughout the play, decisions they believe are justified. The actions of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are not justified because they are caused by their blinding hubris and desire for power. Agamemnon makes the choice to kill his daughter just so he could lead his troops to Troy. Clytemnestra kills her husband, not just for revenge, but for his position and power as king of Mycenae. They make selfish choices and do not believe they will be punished for them. By exposing their true motives, Aeschylus makes it clear they are not justified in their actions.
Agamemnon is the first part of the trilogy known as the Oresteia. Agamemnon is a story where the main character sacrifices his own daughter to a God, Artemis to win a battle and then his wife revenge him for the sacrifice. The concept of fate plays an important role in the tilogy Agamemnon which led to the tragic endings of the play. According to the meaning of fate it means the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as predetermined by a super natural power. Fate is what send Agamemnon to the war with Menelaus to fight against Paris, fate is what predetermined Agamemnon to sacrifice his own blood for the sake of his ship and companions and fate is what determined Cassandra his wife to plot to kill him and to revenge him for her daughter.
Oedipus is depicted as a “marionette in the hands of a daemonic power”(pg150), but like all tragic hero’s he fights and struggles against fate even when the odds are against him. His most tragic flaw is his morality, as he struggles between the good and the evil of his life. The good is that he was pitied by the Shepard who saved him from death as a baby. The evil is his fate, where he is to kill his father and marry his mother. His hubris or excessive pride and self-righteousness are the lead causes to his downfall. Oedipus is a tragic hero who suffers the consequences of his immoral actions, and must learn from these mistakes. This Aristotelian theory of tragedy exists today, as an example of what happens when men and women that fall from high positions politically and socially.
People Need to Recycle In the United Sates, where the population is inflated every year. The amount of space for landfills decreases every day. The need for recycling should not be asked, it should just be done out of habit. Everyone in America needs to recycle, to help the lamdfill problem, help the environment, and help produce new products from recycled goods. In America there is about two-hundred and eight tons of residential and commercial trash generated a year, 4.3 pounds per person a day (Prichard 1A). This is an overwhelming amount of trashed produced yearly. When people recycle this number can be drastically cut. But many people do not practice and use recycling. Consumers and businesses should use the three R’s; recycle, reuse, and recharge (Prichard 1A). Consumers and businesses are producing more garbage than ever before. As a result, we are rapidly running out of landfill space. In 1979 America had close to 18,500 landfills, and by 1991 that number was nearly cut in half (Prichard 10A). Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, and Illinois will reach their maximum limit on landfills by the year 2005 (Prichard 10A). This whole garbage problem has forced us to try other options. Many of these options have been very unsuccessful. People have tried burning their garbage, that cause pollution to the environment. Some states even resorted to dropping their trash in the ocean, only to have the very same trash float ashore later. Dumping it on other states leads to feuding neighbors. Indiana passed a law to block imports of out-of-state trash, but a federal court ruled the law illegal (Prichard 10A). Instead of trying to find new ways to dump our trash, we need to find b...