When Tragedy Strikes
1- On King Lear: (the questions a. and b. are convergent. How much space you want to devote to each is up to you. Make sure, however, that your critical response amounts to a coherent essay).
1. a- In what way can we say (if indeed we can, which you may debate) that Lear
is better off after his tragic progress than before?
2. b- What is the arc of moral and spiritual development in Lear’s character?
3. c- Compare Lear’s death scene as played by Ian McKellen in the 2008 version (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPdYIFyY43g&index=2&list=RDY4r7T x6Jc2Y starting at 2:25:45) with the same scene in Peter Brook’s film adaptation of 1971 (you can find it in Gauchospace under Week March16-22).
Taking into consideration the more versatile medium of film (i.e., the fact that a film director can really transform how and from what angle and in what setting the actor’s actions are perceived), how would you characterize the differences in tone, emphasis, mood, etc., between the two performances? Explain how each performance alters or shifts our understanding of Lear, and what light it casts on his final moments and on his tragedy.
2- Bartleby is really about the education of the lawyer, and of the reader. What does the advent of Bartleby change in the lawyer’s philosophy of life? What does the lawyer discover? What does this discovery qualify as tragic? Make sure you reference the story, specific passages or sentences, to support your argument.
(This essay touches on the themes of: the limits of altruism; the inescapability of being oneself; the illusion of genuine community; the tragic solitude of human life: why, by the way, ‘tragic’?).
3- On Heart of Darkness. The questions below are all intricately connected. You will probably find it more profitable to use these questions as thematic clusters to guide your essay rather than questions that need to be individually answered point by point.
a-What is the ‘darkness’ in the Heart of Darkness? Does its meaning change over the course of the novel and, if so, how?
b- Is ‘the horror, the horror’ a cry of self-indictment, a cry of despair, a cry of universal loathing? If this is so, then you need to explain how the dreadful and exceptional Mr. Kurtz is, in spite of all, a tragic hero.
c- What aspects of the modern condition does Kurtz embody?
4- To write this essay, you will need to watch the movie ‘God on Trial’. The movie is available on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wowExjRb57E.
The film recounts an actual event that took place in a Nazi death camp where Jewish inmates, in a biblical tradition that goes back to the Book of Job, decided to put God on trial. Is God good? Has God abandoned the Jewish people, indeed the whole human race? Arguments are heard for and against the motion.
To ponder the following question, you will have to pay especially close attention to the concluding scenes. The verdict, it appears, is that God is guilty of a breach of contract. Yet, as they march to their death, these men still choose to pray. How do you interpret this action? May it help us understand Job’s ‘recantation’ in a new light (that would put it half way between Buber and Curtis)?
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