Tragedy and the Common Man (Miller) Quotes: Flashcards
(17 cards)
“the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life […] to secure one thing”
“the thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts”
“man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly” (cause of tragedy)
“[he is] incapable of grappling with a much superior force”
“[trying to regain] his sense of personal dignity”
“the underlying struggles […] attempting to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his society”
“displaced from it (rightful position)” or “seeks to attain it for the first time”
“the tale always reveals what has been called his tragic flaw” / “an inherent unwillingness to remain passive”
“the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what or who we are in this world” / “the common man knows this fear best”
“tragedy implies more optimism in its author than does comedy”
“the possibility of victory must be there in tragedy”
“a battle he could not possibly have won” = NOT tragedy, tragedy lies in the fact that they could have won.
“tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible”
“the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity”
“the wrong is the condition which suppresses man”
“his destruction” is due to “a wrong or an evil in his environment”
“[the] total onslaught by an individual against the seemingly stable cosmos”
