Shakespeare as a tragedy writer

Assignment on
“Shakespeare as a Tragedy Writer”

Prepared for:
East West University

Date of submission:11-08-14

Shakespearean tragedy is a form of writing that was written by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is perhaps most famous for his tragedies. Most of his tragedies were written in a seven-year period between 1601 and 1608. His plays usually involve murders, deaths and a terrible ending for the central characters which turns the mode of the play as a tragic one. The hero of Shakespearean tragedy severely suffers during the course of the story and ultimately his fatal flaw leads to his downfall. And this whole period of melancholy comes after a period of happiness.
Shakespeare’s most outstanding tragedy plays are Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II etc. His tragedies have a number of features. Such as, its central focus is on the fall of tragic hero who belongs to a high estate. The hero undergoes a sudden reversal of fortune and then misfortune leads the hero to death. Shakespeare also introduces abnormal conditions of mind as well as supernatural elements in his plays.
Shakespeare’s plays give a large place to the supernatural. There is ghost in Hamlet, witches in Macbeth etc. These supernatural elements play a significant role in the rest of the play. These have a close relation with the abnormal conditions of minds of the hero.
Hamlet’s mobility of mind is connected with the appearance of ghost in the first act and in mother’s closet. Macbeth’s lust for power is aroused by the witches. Ultimately these supernatural elements contribute a lot to the development of the play by directing the hero towards the tragedy. Moreover his usual plan in tragedy is to begin either with a short scene which is full of life or in another impressive way. For example, Romeo and Juliet open with a brawl between two feuding families which arise excitement in the play. And then by the development of the play, the cause of the excitement and a great part of the situation become disclosed. Then he proceeds to conversations which include a little action but convey much information. For example, In Hamlet the first appearance of the Ghost occurs with such effect that Shakespeare can afford to introduce at once a conversation which explains part of the state of affairs at Elsinore. The second appearance of Ghost increases the tension by following a long scene which contains no action but introduces almost all the dramatic persona and adds the important information.
In his drama chance plays an important role in the tragedy of the hero. In Romeo and Juliet the hero does not get the message of Friar Lawrence about the plan which becomes the reason for Romeo’s death and also the tragic timing of Romeo’s suicide and Juliet’s awakening cannot be a mere coincidence. Rather it is the mechanism of fate that works in all events surrounding the lovers. Again in Hamlet it was Hamlet’s fate that his ship was attacked by the pirates and he was back in Denmark to face the tragic end. So it can be said that nothing but fate plays an important role in his plays.
In some of Shakespeare’s tragedy when he begins his exposition, he generally at first makes people talk about the hero but keeps the hero himself for some time out of sight. On the other hand, if the play opens with a quiet conversation then at once the hero enters and takes action of some decided kind. Shakespeare does not confine himself only in the theme of love. There are several other human passions that move the human mind and Shakespeare uses them in his plots as subject-matter. For example, Hamlet is the story in which a Danish prince whose uncle murders the prince’s father then marries his mother and claims the throne. The prince pretends to be feeble-minded to kill his uncle in revenge. Shakespeare changed the emphasis of this story entirely by making Hamlet a philosophically minded prince who delays taking action because his knowledge of his uncle’s crime is so uncertain.
Shakespeare went far beyond making in the play Hamlet. He introduced a number of important ambiguities into the play that even the audience cannot resolve with certainty. For instance, whether Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, shares in Claudius’s guilt; whether Hamlet continues to love Ophelia even as he spurns her; whether Ophelia’s death is suicide or accident; whether the ghost offers reliable knowledge or seeks to deceive and tempt Hamlet; and most importantly, whether Hamlet would be morally justified in taking revenge on his uncle. At the end of the play, it is not even clear whether justice has been achieved. So it can be said that the actions of these characters bring disaster upon an entire kingdom. All these ambiguities that underlie in the play are the mechanism of its being a tragic play.
Shakespeare’s tragedy depends on a variety of causes. The main factor of his tragedy seems to be simplicity or complexity of the situation from which the conflict arises. Where the situation is simple the exposition is short, as in Macbeth. Where it is complicated the exposition requires more space, as in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet etc. Its completion is generally marked in the mind of the reader by a feeling that the action it contains is for the moment complete but has left a problem. For example, the lovers have met, but their families are at deadly enmity; the hero seems at the height of success, but has admitted the thought of murdering his sovereign; the hero has acknowledged a sacred duty of revenge, but is weary of life etc.
So it can be concluded that a Shakespearean tragedy represents a conflict which terminates in a misfortune. In most of his tragedies we can see that throughout the play fate leads the hero towards the misfortune and the downfall of the hero becomes the major fact for which the play can be counted as a successful tragedy.

Reference
1. Shakespeare. William, Romeo and Juliet
2. Shakespeare. William. Hamlet
3. http://www.sitefile.org/Shakespeare.net.html
4. http://wsdata.com/2012-05-02/Shakespeare.net-domain-information.html
5. http://www.sitetrail.com/Shakespeare.net