1. GREEK TRAGEDY 101 A Guide to Antigone

2. TRAGEDY: 1) Recounts a causally related series of events in the life of a person of significance.

3. 2) It culminates in an unhappy catastrophe.

4. 3) The tone of the play is serious and dignified.

5. 4) Aristotle (Poetics) said the purpose of tragedy is to arouse pity and fear and thus produce in the audience a catharsis of these emotions through spectacle or structure of the play.

6. CATHARSIS: A purging; a discharge from the body of excess elements/sicknesses that restores the body to health; an unhealthy emotional state caused by imbalance of feelings is corrected.

7. TRAGIC HERO: This is a protagonist who is better than ordinary people
TRAGIC HERO: This is a protagonist who is better than ordinary people. He/she must be brought from happiness to misery while facing destiny with courage and nobility. This character emphasizes significance of a choice made by protagonist but dictated by his/her hamartia.

8. HAMARTIA: Error, frailty, mistake in judgment, or misstep through which the fortunes of a hero in a tragedy are reversed This is not necessarily a flaw in character.

9. HUBRIS: Overwhelming pride or insolence resulting in protagonist’s misfortune This is a flaw in character.

10. ANAGNORISIS: This is the discovery or recognition that leads to the reversal of fortunes. NEMESIS: An evil act brings about its own punishment.

11. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: Refusal to obey governmental commands, especially as a nonviolent means of protest Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes to a government that allowed slavery and used that money to finance war. He was arrested and thrown in jail. Thoreau called jail the only place for a “just man.”

12. Martin Luther King, Jr. organized marches and peaceful protests for civil rights in America. He was jailed on several occasions, and he never attempted to run or deny his involvement.