Comedic Violence in The Medea, The Oresteia, and Antigone Essay

Comedic wildness in The Medea, The Oresteia, and Antigone Almost no Greek tragedy escapes the use of wildness. The Medea, The Oresteia, Antigone, and other classic works of Grecian tragoidia all in all involve huge components of violence in many prominent places, and for all of these stories, violent exercise is an integral part of the play. Medea, especially, is a character worthy of pedigree in this regard her tumultuous life can be bizted accurately along a path of aggression and passionate fits, and her bloody level lends tension and ascendance to the cathartic events of the gripping Medea. In contrast to this turbulent streak of brutality in Grecian tragedy stands the world of Greek comedy. Violence in comedy is just as much a part of the plot as it is in tragedy however, this superficial parallel ends the similarity amid the two types of stories. Violence in a comedy has its own motives, its own consequences, and its own types of influence, and these differences accum ulate to bring a whole new, non-tragic light to the ideas of violence and action in the overall storyline. Between Greek tragedy and comedy, every aspect of violence is different, and the ramifications of this disagreement are far-reaching. A first comparison of violence in the midst of The Medea and Lysistrata leads to an important and ironic conclusion. In The Medea, violence is a pivotal component of the storys message. Medea herself is easily the most physically violent character in the story, and her methods in its plot resort to pain and death when there is conflict in need of resolution. Despite this, the actual tension in the story is not born of violence rather, it is born of love and social strife. Jason, Medeas husband, is taking a n... ...akes something a comedy and what makes something tragic. Works Cited Aeschylus the Oresteia trans. Robert Fagles, New York Penguin Books, 1976. Antigone by Sophocles. Translated by R. C. Jebb. no pag. http//classics.mit.edu/Soph ocles/antigone.html Euripedes. Medea, in Euripedes I. Ed. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. dough University of Chicago Press, 1955. Goldhill, S. Reading Greek Tragedy, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1986. Heidegger, Martin. The Ode on Man in Sophocles Antigone. In Sophocles A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Lucas, F.L. Euripides and His Influence. NY cooper Square, 1963. McDermott, E A (1989) Euripides Medea The Incarnation of Disorder. Pennsylvania State UniversityUSA