Tragedy: ?A Glass Menagerie? By Tennessee Williams Essay, Research Paper

The word ‘ tragedy’ has various meanings and applications. The one dictionary meaning explains tragedy as a story with an unhappy ending while the webster dictionary elaborates it as a drama showing the ruin or down fall of the principal character dealing with the sorrowful or terrible side of life.

Over the ages the criteria of tragedy has changed according to the preoccupation of that era. According to Arustottle’s definition of of tragedy in the poetics, the protagonist was essentially a person of significance—- a high ranking individual. E.g in Shakespeare playes the protagonist is almost always the king or person of noble birth, later, though the concept changed during the eighteenth and mid nineteenth century when middle-class characters become heroes of tragic plays. Arthur Miller refutes the requirement of a person of significance as criteria of tragedy “ I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in it is higest sense as kings were.”( Tragedy and the common man)

According to Aristotle, the main purpose of tragedy is to arouse pity and fear in the audience. Aristotle felt that plot is “the soul of tragedy” and this through the structure of the plot that the protagonist can be brought from his ordinary and happy state down to misery and ruin. As a result pity felt towards the protagonist that the same circumstances may befall the audience, showingboth emphathy and identification with the hero.

Aristotle’s concept of Hamarita is perhaps the most important and universally accepted criterion of tragedy, though in many modified forms. Hamarita is that ‘tragic flaw’ in the protagonist, which sets him apart from the ordinary people. ‘The flaw inspite of it is leteral meaning is not viewed as a failing at all it is a deviation—— a crack in the character” as Arthur miller calls it — that compels the protagonist to act in a particular manner. The flaw may imply ‘ his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he concernes to be a channange to his dignity. A tragedy and the common Man, Arthur mirror. Thus courage and dignity in the face of adversity and oppostion become ingredients of a tragedy.

‘ A Glass Menagerie’ by Tennessee Williams is a moving play presently four characters all living in their won worlds of fantasy, avoiding reality almost wishing is would go away.

Tragedy demands a protagonist and a protagonist needs to be a person of somw significance – if not of rank ten of character. If we take amanda as the protagonist, we need to scan her character closely to look for that tragic flow—— that quirk in her personality which sets her apart from the ordinary. Nothing comes to mind except her feeble attempts at keeping the home fires burning. She lives in a world based largely on her imagined past. From these exaggerated images she draws the norms for her hapless children. Amanda does not evoke pity and fear so important in tragedy so her case for the protagonist need be dropped.

Love too is an unlikely candidate given his daily retreat to the world of movies to avoid the prospect of returning to the dim households. Also his desertion in the end closed his case.

Laura, the fragile daughter is the wpitome of the long-suffering heroine, who has developed the escape mechanism of illness to run away from the harshness of reality. Her ‘tragic flaw’ is probably her escapism —- her elaborate world of the glass animals which are so fragile a shore against the shelf can break them. What then is the driving force that impels her to secure her personal dignity. Is it the resignation to her circumstances, to her mothers incessant instructions but the resignation was not always there. In tho instances she feigned sickness to escape from her mothers insistence.

A tragic play invokes pity a fear in the audience, Laura may qualify for pity because of