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Knights in the middle ages
Knights in the middle ages
Knights in the middle ages
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In medieval times, knight-errants roamed the countryside of Europe, rescuing damsels and vanquishing evil lords and enchanters. This may sound strange to many people in this time, but what if a person read so many books that he could not determine the real from that which was reading? The Adventures of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes a prime example. Don Quixote, formerly Quixana, was not really a don at all. He was a wealthy, clever farmer who read excessive books about knight-errantry and became irrational. He persuaded a naive peasant named Sancho to become his squire, promising him fortune and a high spot in society. The book consists of many adventures these two had, both were convinced that they were doing brave and honorable acts of chivalry, when they were only two fools running around the countryside. Oedipus has a lot in common with Don as well as a lot of differences. Oedipus becomes king of Thebes. He is notorious for his intelligence and his ability to solve riddles; he saved the city of Thebes and was made its king by solving the riddle of the Sphinx, the mystical being...
Beowulf tells the story of one of the most heroic men of Anglo-Saxon times. The hero, Beowulf, is able to use his super-human physical strength and courage to put his people before himself. He encounters terrifying monsters and the most brutal beasts, but he never fears the threat of death. Beowulf is the ultimate epic hero who risks his life countless times for great honor and for the good of others. Oedipus Rex is a tragic play, which discusses the tragic discovery of Oedipus--that he has killed his father, and married his mother. He is self-confident, intelligent, and strong willed. Ironically these are the very traits which bring about his tragic discovery. Oedipus gains the rule of Thebes by answering the riddle of Sphinx.
In both articles of literature, there are places where their ignorance and eventual achievement of enlightenment is highlighted. In Oedipus, the King it is when he is accusing Creon of conspiring against him, calling him a “murderer” and supposedly having exposed him as a “robber attempting to steal…[his] throne.” Here, he does not yet realize that not only has not Creon attempted to overthrow him, but also that he is not the man who has already figured everything out about humanity as he thinks. He later does, fortunately, discover that he was not the true ill-fated man who never learned anything because he knew everything too soon. He discovers, after piercing out his eyes, that he has finally ar-rived at the truth of his life and that ...
Aristotle once said that “A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall.” Contrary to Aristotle’s definition, Willy Loman is a man of self-deception paired with misguided life goals. Being a salesman his entire career, Willy believes the goal of life is to be well liked and gain material success. Opposing the values and position of Willy, Oedipus is born a noble, and inherited wealth that Willy could only dream of. Even as a royal, Oedipus is as a man of noble cause. Although he is misguided unto his exile, Oedipus is not stubbornly deceived by himself, rather is misguided by his tragic flaw, his pride. While comparing Oedipus and Willy Loman using anagnorisis, it is revealed that Oedipus is a true tragic hero while Willy is not.
Oedipus lived his entire life in a dark shadow of ignorance, just like Nora. Oedipus' archetype of a tragic hero begins as an all-powerful, honorable king that believed he could solve any riddle, and acts rapidly on decisions. Oedipus lacked complete self knowledge, “I will speak out now as a stranger to the story, a stranger to the crime. If I’d been present then, there would have been no mystery, no long hunt without clue in hand” (Oe...
In the story of Don Quixote, a middle aged “gaunt” man sets off to become a knight-errant. Within the beginning chapters of the story, Quixote goes on a journey to prove himself as a knight. The narrator speaks sarcastically about Quixote’s and his adventures. On account of the voice of the narrator, perception is crucial relative to forming an opinion about Don Quixote and his journey of becoming a knight-errant. The constant opposition of the narrator in relation to Quixote’s goals and actions create a feeling of tension within the audience as the reader becomes perplexed in trying to figure out if Quixote’s journey can really be considered a knight’s errant. Still, despite the narrator’s sarcastic tone and Don’s idiotic actions, Don
Oedipus portrays a tragic protagonist absorbed in a web of illusion that he believes to be real. Oedipus sincerely believes that his life is reality and that he is the son of King Polybus, the King of Thebes, and the husband of Queen Jocasta. However, what Oedipus does not grasp is that he fulfilled the prophecy the gods sent for him.
While reading the play Oedipus the King, my response to the work became more and more clear as the play continued. When I finished the play, my reaction to the work and to two particular characters was startling and very different from my response while I was still reading. My initial response was to the text, and it was mostly an intellectual one. I felt cheated by the play because the challenge of solving the mystery of the plot was spoiled for me by the obvious clues laid out in the work. My second response was not as intellectual; instead, it came more from a feeling that the play evoked in me. I felt a strong disappointment in the drastic actions that Oedipus and Jocasta took at the end of the play. My two different responses to Oedipus the King, one intellectual and one not, now seem to feed off and to amplify each other as if they were one collective response.
Charters, Ann, and Samuel Barclay. Charters. "Oedipus the King." Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 1129-173. Print.
Don Quixote, our most noble of nobleman was blinded by his passion for devotion. He often came to the point of losing his reason. Don Quixote became a traveling caballero, or a knight errant. He did not travel far before it occurs to him that he had forgotten his squire, not that he ever had one. Though he knew he was without a squire he felt it was necessary to turn back. As the journeys travel on we see that Don Quixote has previously been termed the reasonable one. He is often very foolish along with a foolish squire, who becomes not only the voice of reason but allows Don to live in his fantasy as long as possible.
Oedipus Rex, the ignorant king, a character created for the very purpose of being the epitome of a tragic hero. Bound and kicked out of his homeland as an infant; a force he could not control, driving his fate, taking away his free will. The character of Oedipus created by Sophocles around 430 BCE is the precedent for all tragic heroes created in the time after Oedipus’s sinful conception. Oedipus is the embodiment of a tragic hero and possess all five of the major characteristics of a tragic hero as outlined by Aristotle’s definition.
Don Quixote is one of the oldest forms of the modern novel. Written in the early 17th century it follows the adventures of Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza. In Don Quixote, Cervantes satirizes the idea of a hero. Don Quixote sees himself as a noble knight among the ignorant common folk, but everyone else sees him as a bumbling idiot who has gone mad. Therefore, the novel’s longevity in the western canon is due to the humorous power struggle and the quest of a hero Don Quixote faces throughout the story.
The myth of Oedipus is one of a man brought down by forces aligning against him. Over the years, different playwrights have interpreted his character in various fashions. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus is a man who is blind to the path on which his questions take him and exemplifies the typical tyrannical leader in ancient times; in Senaca’s Oedipus, it is the fear of his questions that give Oedipus a greater depth of character, a depth he must overcome if he is to survive his ordeal.
Oedipus was willing to die to uncover the truth. Closure was needed for Oedipus the individual and Oedipus the king. Despite this need for closure, Oedipus remained blind to the clues in his path, plainly dismissing the ideas of other characters. Oedipus’ passion for knowledge was at least as strong as his blindness to the clues in his path. This blindness can be attributed to his pride. This pride gradually developed from h...
“Oedipus is, as it were, only a tragic analysis. Everything is already in existence, and has only to be unraveled.” Throughout the history of literature, there has been perhaps no other character quite as complex and convoluted as Oedipus. Whether it be the reality of his parents abandoning him to die or the mere fact that he married his own mother Jocasta, Oedipus has been continually analyzed and processed by scholars in an attempt to discover the means by which Oedipus arrived at his eventual outcome. To summarize, Oedipus, being originally from Corinth, travels to Thebes in search of his true heritage. After a series of events, Oedipus becomes the king of Thebes and soon discovers the truth. Once thorough deliberation has been given to
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.