Oedipus the King Sophocles - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Oedipus the King

SophoclesSlide2

IronySlide3

Dramatic Irony

Occurs when the audience is privy to knowledge that one or more of the characters lacks. The technique can be used in for comic or tragic effects. In Homer’s

Odyssey

, the long-absent Odysseus’s disguised as a beggar provides poignant dramatic irony as he encounters various beloved family members and hated rivals but, for the sake of his intended revenge, must refrain from revealing his true identity. Again, the audience is flattered by being allowed to share in the omniscient point of view often reserved for the author. (Hamilton 46).Slide4

Tragic Irony

When dramatic irony occurs in tragedies, it is called tragic irony. The audience knows from the opening scene of

Othello

, for example, that the malevolent

Iago

is plotting his demise of the noble general who he pretends to serve faithfully, and that his epithet, “honest

Iago

,” is entirely ironic.

In

Romeo and Juliet

, we watch in helpless dismay as the rash

Mercutio

wholly misconstrues his friend Romeo’s motives for refusing to respond to

Tybalt’s

challenge. Unlike

Mercutio

, we know that Romeo is secretly married to Juliet, the daughter of his family’s enemy. Rather than demurring out of fear, he is trying to appease the insolent

Tybalt’s

challenge, who has just become his cousin by marriage.

Mercutio

takes Romeo’s courtesy for cowardice, steps in the fray, and inadvertently triggers the series of deaths that devastate both families. (Hamilton 46)Slide5

Cosmic Irony

Refers to an implied worldview in which characters are led to embrace false hopes of aid or success, only to be defeated by some larger force, such as God or fate. For instance,

MacBeth

believes that he is protected by the weird sisters’ prophecies, but he is betrayed by their fiendish duplicity, and Arthur Miller’s Willy

Loman

kills himself to secure his family the insurance payment that his suicide will, in fact, make invalid. Shakespeare’s

King Lear

, is a tour de force cosmic irony, in which several characters congratulate themselves on a triumph or a narrow escape, only to be destroyed shortly afterward. (Hamilton 46)Slide6

Structural Irony

Refers to an implication of alternate or reversed meaning that pervades a work. A major technique for sustaining structural irony is the use of a naïve protagonist or an unreliable narrator who continually interprets events and intentions in ways that the author signals are mistaken. For example, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s boy narrator, believes at first that the rascally King and Duke are the brave and erudite noblemen they claim to be, despite signs of their shady past and specious learning. Other narrators may be unreliable not because they are gullible but because they are mentally incapacitated. The narrator of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is paranoid and hallucinatory. (Hamilton 45).

Another means of creating structural irony is to relate the same events from the perspectives of different narrators. (Hamilton 45)

An example,

Everybody Loves Raymond

, Deborah and Ray are continuously fighting over items that are not important or insignificant yet whenever they interpret their argument to the audience both have different versions of what the argument actually entails.Slide7

Situational Irony

takes place when there is a discrepancy between

what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen.Slide8

Characterization

Characterization is the method used by

a writer

to develop a character.

The term characterization refers to the various means by which an author describes and develops the

characters

in a literary work.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/characterization.html

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary TermsSlide9

Direct Characterization

The author directly states a character’s traits.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/Images/MoviePics/e/emperorsnewgroove.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/movies.php%3Fid%3D2677&h=297&w=200&sz=16&hl=en&start=18&tbnid=vS9555-OU70L-M:&tbnh=116&tbnw=78&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddavid%2Bspade%2Bemperor%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official_s%26sa%3DGSlide10

Indirect Characterization

An author tells what a character looks like, does, and says, as well as how other characters react to him or her. It is up to the reader to draw conclusions about the character based on this indirect information.

http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/liveaction/pirates/downloads/desktops/POC_desktop2_small.jpgSlide11

ArchetypesSlide12

Fire vs. Ice

Situational Archetype

Fire represents knowledge, light, life and rebirth while ice like desert represents ignorance, darkness, sterility and death.Slide13

Tragic Hero

Noble Stature

: since tragedy involves the "fall" of a tragic hero, one theory is that one must have a lofty position to fall from, or else there is no tragedy (just pathos). Another explanation of this characteristic is that tragedies involving people of stature affect the lives of others. In the case of a king, the tragedy would not only involve the individual and his family, it would also involve the whole society.

http://dt.pepperdine.edu/courses/greatbooks_i/old%20gbi%20files/The%20Characteristics%20of%20an%20Archetypal%20Tragic%20Hero.htmSlide14

Supernatural Intervention

Symbolic Archetype

The gods intervene on the side of the hero or sometimes against him.Slide15

Archetype: Father-Son Conflict

father

and son are separated and do not meet until the son is an adult; often the mentor is loved and respected moreSlide16

Archetype: CrossroadsSlide17

Archetype: ScapegoatSlide18

Archetype: The Wise Old ManSlide19

The Quest

Situation Archetype

This motif describes the search for someone or some talisman which, when found and brought back, will restore fertility to a wasted land, the desolation of which is mirrored by a leader’s illness and disability.Slide20

The Fall

Situation Archetype

Not to be confused with the awareness in The Initiation, this archetype describes a descent in action from a higher to a lower state of being, an experience that might involve defilement, moral imperfection, and/or loss of innocence. This fall is often accompanied by expulsion from a kind of paradise as penalty for disobedience and/or moral transgression.Slide21

Outcast

Character Archetype

Figure banished from a social group for some crime against his fellow man (could be falsely accused of a crime or could choose to banish himself from guilt)Slide22

Catharsis

Produces Catharsis in Audience

: catharsis is a feeling of "emotional purgation" that an audience feels after witnessing the plight of a tragic hero: we feel emotionally drained, but exultant.

http://dt.pepperdine.edu/courses/greatbooks_i/old%20gbi%20files/The%20Characteristics%20of%20an%20Archetypal%20Tragic%20Hero.htmSlide23

ConflictSlide24

Foreshadowing

The use in a literary work of clues that suggest events that have yet to occur.

Use of this technique helps to create suspense, keeping readers wondering and speculating about what will happen next.

http://www.hyperborea.org/journal/images/foreshadowing.jpgSlide25

Suspense

A feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about the outcome of events in a literary work.

http://www.baggas.com/blog/images/warworlds.jpgSlide26

Symbol(ism)

Anything that stands for or represents something else. An object that serves as a symbol has its own meaning, but also represents abstract ideas.

http://wynn.house.gov/images/American%20Flag.gif

http://www.homeschooloasis.com/wedding_rings2.jpgSlide27

FlashbackSlide28

TragedySlide29

FlashbackSlide30

ImagerySlide31

HubrisSlide32

ToneSlide33

ThemeSlide34

AllegorySlide35

Apostrophe