The 4 Rs and Tragedy

1. Slideshow: How Artists See Antigone and Oedipus
     Artists view Antigone and Oedipus to be two characters of great moral stature, though possibly blinded or afflicted in some way, demonstrated by the skin tone or aural color around them. This is an interesting way to portray these two characters, especially when in a tragic story an audience is quick to label a character as a hero or a villain. These pictures take into consideration the possibility of sheer vulnerability, instead of a definite good or bad quality. This will be influential in the writing of my essay definitely.
2. "The Tragic Fallacy," by Joseph Krutch
     This essay is about the misconception that all tragedies are sad. All tragedies are a little tragic, obviously,  but they all have a deeper message of happiness buried beneath; whether the happiness is in the truth of Juliet's love before her suicide or some other way, there is a happiness to the sad storyline. I had not thought of this angle before, and so will try to incorporate this into my paper. It is an interesting point of view that will contrast nicely with the visual representation of tragedy that my class group created.
3. "On Wall Street, Pride Signals a Fall," by Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner
     Again, another interesting piece on tragedy in real life, though this time it focused on the tragic end of businesses. It seems that those businesses that are so arrogant as to proclaim themselves the best in the world have some kind of coincidental fall from grace, coming in the form of either profit loss, public humilitation of employees, or destruction of business. Hubris playing a large role in the actual downfall of the protagonist will be a large part of my paper I think, so this is very relevant to my thoughts and will be used as a source I'm sure.
4. "Tragedy and the Common Man," Arthur Miller
     Another essay that claims that tragedies are not merely sad pieces, but subtly optimistic so as to teach man a lesson, it also spouts the idea that the protagonist need not be a wealthy, royal man. For instance, Death of a Salesman by the same author was of a common man, or a man that had little money and was by no means godly. This will probably not appear in my essay as much as some of the other ideas will simply because it does not mesh well with the others, but I will not completely rule it out. Miller's Salesman is a good example of out of the box literature.
5. "Notes for the Tragedy of Modern Times," Henrik Ibsen
     This is an interesting essay, as it is more of a snippet of a possibly great essay about tragedy. Though it is written in a general way, certain aspects make it more of a specified tragedy. The bare bones of the essay, about the woman being judged by the man's perspective despite them having completely different moral laws and beliefs, are widely applicable and this will probably be mentioned in tandem with Antigone in my essay.
6. "The Burial at Thebes: Religion and the State," by Mary Stange
     Religion has been taken out of American law, and yet, through the eyes of the people, still exists to influence justice. The difference between moral law and mortal law is available, with many believing that moral law is the law of a higher power or powers and mortal law is the man-made kind. While this belief would be handy with Antigone, I'm not quite sure as of yet how I'd incorporate it into my essay with my other ideas.
7. "Before Law," by Franz Kafka
     To be honest, I'm not quite sure what this means. Perhaps I should revisit this when I'm not so exhausted, but for now I don't think I'll use anything from this. I don't know of anything that I could use.