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Everything about modern tragedy
Essay on what is tragedy
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Tragedy by today’s terms is quite different from the tragedies of decades and centuries past. Although the simple definition of tragedy is an event that causes great sadness, the term tragedy has taken on a much deeper meaning throughout the centuries. In past centuries and/or decades, tragedy may have fallen on an entire group of people or on one individual or family. However, a large portion of the population felt the sadness whether it was a country, church congregation, village, or smaller community. Today’s tragedies may be experienced by many thousands of people or an individual or family, but the sadness tends to remain there. In the past, even minor events were felt deeply by all in the community. Today, the event almost needs to be catastrophic in nature to invoke the feelings of an entire community either on the local level or world level.
Past tragedies which effected large populations included the Potato famine, the first nuclear bomb, the Holocaust, volcano eruptions, world wars, polio --- to name a few. As example of a smaller community tragedy could be seen during the American’s movement into the west. Families would leave the comfort and luxury of their eastern homes to explore and settle west. The tragedies they suffered included harsh winters, starvation, sickness, loss of a child or other family member, lack of resources, wildlife and clashes with Native Americans. When a family suffered such tragedy, word spread throughout t...
The environment after the disaster to include major life events. The support received whether or not it is social support from family members, friends, teachers, classmates or whomever might have been close to the child.
Some things are not as they seem. “Ring Around the Rosie” seems like a pleasant children’s nursery rhyme, but many believe it is actually a grisly song about the Black Death in Europe. The Black Death was a serial outbreak of the plague during the 1300s. During the Black Death, more than 20 million Europeans died. One-third of the population of the British Isles died from the plague. Moreover, one-third of the population of France died in the first year alone, and 50% of the people in France’s major cities died. Catastrophic death rates like these were common across all of Europe. However, just like the poem “Ring Around the Rosie”, the true effects of the Black Death differed from what many people believed. Though tragic, the Black Death caused several positive societal changes. Specifically, the Black Death helped society by contributing to the economic empowerment of peasants and disempowerment of nobility that led to the decline of manorialism, as well as by encouraging the development of new medical and scientific techniques by proving old methods and beliefs false.
In the book Heat Wave A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, by Eric Klinenberg expose how a number of social, political, and economical factors created one of the largest and most traumatic events in recent history. The Chicago heat wave in 1995 was a disaster, which led to over 700 heat-related deaths in Chicago over a five days period creating. Most of the victims of the heat wave were poor elderly residents of the city, who didn’t have any relative or were neglected by the public officials and was unable to purchase air-conditioning units for their home. Most of the elderly isolated themselves and refused to open windows or sleep outside in fear of crime. Alot of lives were loss or in destress because of isolation, poverty and media who played a major role by portraying the countless deaths on the natural disaster and highlighting of negative activities especially in the urban area
The Great Depression was brought about through various radical economic practices and greatly affected the common man of America. Although all Americans were faced with the same fiscal disparity, a small minority began to exploit those in distress. Along the trek westward from Oklahoma, the Joad family met a grand multitude of adversity. However, this adversity was counteracted with a significant amount of endurance exhibited by the Joads and by generalized citizens of America.
The result of the warring and increased dependence caused extreme hardships on Native Americans. “As war became endemic in eighteenth-century North America, Indian villages and countryside bore the brunt of the fighting” (first peoples) as crops were destroyed and tribes were forced to move from their land due to the destruction and constant violence. European imperialistic wars, had extremely negative effects on the communities and way of life once lived by Native Americans. The relationship between European colonies and Native American tribes is very unique.
No, the “English Tragedy” does not relate to the Queen, that is the first fact that should be established. Instead, it is about English, the language itself. George Orwell warned readers of the negative consequences stemming from the degrading quality of English in both 1984 and his essay “Politics and the English Language”. In both pieces of writing, Orwell is able to demonstrate the effects that language can have on the thoughts of those who speak it. In 1984, he is able to emphasize how the lack of language can limit thought, and ultimately society. In “Politics and the English Language”, Orwell demonstrates how bad English will, “construct your sentences for you” (Orwell, 6) and make the language into a meaningless jumble. Although Orwell wrote in the earlier part of the 1900s, the bad English that he wrote about is still relevant today. Dying metaphors, meaningless words, and pretentious diction are still used in writing by the mainstream media despite the warnings of Orwell.
Over the course of this semester I’ve read The Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis in which he discusses the cross-global history of the devastating famines and natural disasters that effected significant portions of the world in the late 19th century. In reading through the chapters it made clear to me that Davis placed the blame on a number of factors. However, in this paper I will only be discussing three that I found to have the most significance.
...aphy of Catastrophe: Family Bonds, Community Ties, and Disaster Relief After the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire." University of Southern California. 88.1 (2006): 37-70. Web. 5 Mar. 2014. .
Throughout the centuries, from Ancient Greece to the 20th century, though much has changed with the times, the basics of tragedy have not been altered - the tragic hero does something and is destined to die.
In 1864, the Sand Creek Massacre occurred which was very brutal. Four hundred Indians were living in the area at the time and thought that they were safe from the United States Government but suddenly the government began to kill all of the Indians on the settlement. This wasn’t the only place where this happened. This was happening in almost every
The most hotly debated of which has been the population of the Native American 's from the time of Columbus through the Revolutionary War. According to our readings of Alfred Crosby 's paper on the “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America”, he offers the following reasoning behind the debate. “Unfortunately, the documentation of these epidemics, as of the many others of the period, is slight, usually hearsay, sometimes dated years after the events described, and often colored by emotion. Later in his paper, Crosby details how the Native American 's continued to suffer from diseases during the same time that the new settlement of Plymouth was struggling to survive and well into the 19th century. While the exact population of the Native American 's will never be known or completely agreed upon, the common message from all parties is that as more and more Europeans arrived, the Natives suffered and their population decreased. Neal Salisbury, Professor of History at Smith College, agrees with Crosby and our dominant view concerning the impact of diseases afflicting the Native Americans during the Colonial period. He also argues that the “Puritan Colonists were also aware of how the diseases were affecting the tribal populations (Salisbury pg.
It is amazing how many things we take for granted. We make plans for the day, and don't think twice about how those plans can be taken away in the blink of an eye. I never thought much about it myself, until I was faced with the shock, and undeniable truth of my cousin's death. I don't think anyone really thinks about tragedy until they are actually faced with shocking news.
The tragedy was a large part of people's lives in ancient Greece. Tragedies became prominent long before Christ was born. A tragedy, or goat-song, usually were seen during festivals in ancient Greek times. Tragedies gradually increased in seriousness until they were given utmost importance. Greek tragedies began at a festival in honor of a god, there were three great tragic authors, and all tragedies include a tragic situation.
Tragic events can happen as a result of accidents, misunderstandings, or specific situations, hence, they relate little to others. However, tragedy is rooted in the order of our universe because it reveals hypothetical situations that can occur at any time or place. This feeling of uncertainty arouses feelings of pity and fear because we can imagine ourselves having to face tragedy. In Aristotle's Poetics, Aristotle defines tragedy as, “a representation of an action of serious stature and complete, having magnitude, in language made pleasing in distinct forms in its separate parts, imitating people acting and not using narration, accomplishing by means of pity and fear the cleansing of these states of feeling” (Aristotle, 26). A dramatic composition that captures the true essence of suffering and awakens our senses is one that Aristotle would call a tragedy worthy of our praise. He notes, “It is clear first that decent men ought not to be shown changing from good to bad fortune (since this is neither frightening nor pitiable but repellent) and people of bad character ought not to be shown changing from bad to good fortune (since this is the most untragic thing of all, for it has none of the things a tragedy needs, since it neither arouses love for humanity nor is it pitiable or frightening)” (Aristotle, 36).
The Dictionary defines a tragedy as “any literary composition, as a novel, dealing with a somber theme carried to a tragic conclusion”. I would have to expand to say that I believe a tragedy is more of a dignified style of writing that seriously expresses sorrowful or terrible events as they relate to the sometimes heroic individual (the protagonist) of a story. Tragedy as a whole seems to probe the role of mankind in the universe. It plays to the questions of humanity, such as will mankind forever be torn between the forces of good and evil? It also poses the question, is the cause of suffering outside of ourselves, as in fate, or in the evil designs of our enemies, or even the work of the gods? If not, then is it internal? Do we bring suffering upon ourselves through arrogance, self-preservation, or the tendency view ourselves with grandiose illusions?