Analysis on Fate of a Cockroach

Considered one of the greatest dramas of all time, Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King follows the tragic life of Oedipus, king of Thebes. Considered a Satyr play, the Oedipus trilogy is perhaps the most famous of Sophocles’ plays. Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy that was first performed somewhere around 429 BC in Athens, Greece. Originally, the Greeks referred to the play as simply “Oedipus,” as that was what Aristotle referred to it as in the Poetics. Perhaps what makes this play so memorable, is Sophocles’ uses of the tragic hero as the main theme. Sophocles uses characterization and conflict to portray Oedipus as an Aristotelian tragic hero.

Greek theater encompassed many aspects that reflected the moral values and ideals of society. Their customs were tightly woven into the scripts of plays. Antigone and Oedipus the King, two renowned works of the Greek playwright Sophocles, explore these values through a plot thick with corruption, virtue, and determination. These plays reveal the burdens two Theban kings, Oedipus and Creon, as their lies and poor judgment corrode the integrity of their city, their families and themselves. Possessing a strong faith in their respective gods, the characters of these Greek plays are often led astray as they try to escape the twisted hand of fate, further warping their perception of reality. As their vain

Despite their controversial nature and subject matter, both achieved wide success and popularity. The two plays were also manipulated in pre-production to better suit their audiences and produce a more “box-office friendly” show.

Sophocles gives the readers many different views of the play Oedipus the King in which we can take and analysis accordingly to things we are most interested in. Throughout the play Oedipus personally changes. He starts off as a being a smart leader, calm, and determined, but at the end of the play it reveals how he is angry, irrational and is blind to certain aspects, which becomes his downfall.

In the story of “Araby” the narrator is a young boy at school going age who is too quick to please a girl same as his age. He is too descriptive of his surroundings. He is well aware of the societal norms and ideas, but he has an illusion about those ideas and we could see him transform in the story towards the realization that what a real adult life is.

Oedipus Rex is a story that can be interpreted on many different levels of thinking. The ancient tale has existed for centuries and has been subjected to countless forms of analysis. What is it that makes Oedipus the King such a fascinating story? Is it the suspense of a developing mystery that captivates the audience? Or perhaps the wonderful feeling the readers get after vicariously experiencing the horror Oedipus feels? And if not that, could it be that the reader is intrigued at Sophocles' description of one man's disbelief in the gods? Whichever way one looks at it, Oedipus Tyrannus was, and remains, one of the "most highly admired plays of all time" (Wood, et al, 163).

The story “Araby” as told by James Joyce is about a young boy that is fascinated with the girl across the street. But deeper down the story is about a very lonely boy lusting for her love and affection. Throughout the story, we see how the frustration of first love, isolation and high expectations breaks the main character emotionally and physically. James Joyce uses the first-person viewpoint to tell this story which helps influence the plot, characterization, themes, and understanding of the main character.

One clear depiction of an aspect of Egyptian social life in “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant” is a high regard for the arts and wisdom, as seen through the king’s appreciation of a peasant’s eloquence and a longing to hear more of his speeches (30). Additionally, the fact that

“Araby,” is a story of emotional passion carefully articulated by the author, James Joyce, to mark the end of childhood and the start of adolescence. It is told from the perspective of a young boy who is filled with lust for his friend, Mangan’s, sister. He lives in a cheerless town on a street hosting simply complacent families who own brown faced houses that stare vacantly into one another. The boy temporarily detaches himself from this gloomy atmosphere and dwells on the keeper of his affection. Only when he journeys to a festival titled Araby, does he realize that his attempt at winning the heart of Mangan’s sister has been done in an act of vanity. Joyce takes advantage of literary elements such as diction and imagery to convey an at times dreary and foolishly optimistic tone.

Few writers have managed to enter the world-wide public consciousness as well as Shakespeare; everyone knows his name and can terribly misquote his plays. Yet, for all his popularity, many of his critics have called him unlearned, saying his plays are entertaining but shallow. These same critics often point at the many inconsistencies of his writing, claiming that Shakespeare was not trying to convey anything but witticisms and beautiful sounds. Of course, even his harshest detractors acknowledge his plays and sonnets have influenced the world's literature on a scale that is intimidating; every writer of his era stood in his shadow, and modern literature stands on his

The author, Ibn al-Muqaffa, was one of the original Coptic (a hieroglyphic form of writing) writers. He has been referred to as “the earliest of the great Coptic writers in the Arabic language.”1 In society, Ibn al-Muqaffa began his writing career at an early age working for the Arab Administration as a scribe; and, he has been long revered as one of the greatest historians for his work entitled the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.2 The purpose for the Coptic church patriarchs was to compile transcripts of occurrences for the historical recounting of key events, figures; and, biographies from battles, wars and the

Abdelrahman Munif, a Jordanian born Saudi novelist, wrote a novel called ‘Cities of Salt’. It is a monumental novel that tells the story of the discovery of oil. Encountering the vicious arrival of the global, political and economic modernity to an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom is the main point of Munif in this novel. Munif described the migration of the villagers as their traditional lands are destroyed, and their way of living is thrown into disarray by the foreigners – Americans, through invasion of modern technology, cultural gaps, and a whole new bunch of the local economy. He has exercised an unconventional format in novel by declining a clear protagonist or even its mixture. Leading characters of the novel in its first dozen chapters are gone by the final third of the book, despite the formation of main characters. The valley that is destroyed in the beginning and later the town of Harran that goes from a backwater to booming oil valley or town. Where the novel’s all fiction

The novel often talks about the setting, time and theme in Egyptian culture through stories of various characters. The culture describes in the novel restricts the readers’ views on

Historic playwrights such as Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Seneca were described as prolific philosophers and geniuses of their times. These men actively participated in the politics surrounding them, and were respected and revered in their society. Each had their own individual style and portrayed their personalities through each of their noted works. Nevertheless, as with a majority of playwrights throughout history, most fodder for their plays have been adaptations of previous plays written by their predecessors or based off mythological events. Unfortunately, this had lead to many speculative accusations and criticisms, as is the case with Senecan tragedies versus their Greek counterparts. Senecan and Greek interpretations of

“If a group of people one day wills to live---fate (God) must answer its call---And the night must fade---And the chain must break” (Abou El-Kacem Al-Chabbi). Playwriting is one of the most famous way to break the chain and express the write’s feelings. Many famous writers used playwriting as a way of sending a message to people, and one of those writers is Sa’dallah Wannous. Wannous is an author who wrote many plays that discuss the issues and the conflicts of the middle east. He expressed his anger and his sadness by using many different dramatic techniques, themes and figurative language in his plays. The most prominent plays that he wrote are, The Glass Café