Aristotle’s Rules For Tragedy

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Aristotle’s mold. Her play “Blood Relations” sits on the edge of what Aristotle would call tragedy.
Aristotle states that the form of tragedy is an “imitation of a noble and complete action, having the proper magnitude”(Aristotle 6). Here we have Lizzie Borden murdering her own parents in a fit of rage. The murders happen after years of abuse and negative attitudes from almost everyone she knows. The act of murdering one’s parents is far from noble. It could however, be seen as noble seeing as the reason Lizzie kills them is to stand up for her freedom of thought and direction in life.
According to the rules laid down in Poetics, pity and fear arise through misfortune and the recognition of the possibility of falling upon similar misfortune (13). In Blood Relations, pity arises out of the way that Lizzie is treated by her parents and by the way her life turns out after the murders. The reader recognizes that he or she could encounter the same circumstance. Lizzie was ...

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the plot are irrelevant. All characters and events have an “evident effect” on the outcome of the play; they are all “part of the whole” (8). In terms of length, this play is compact. There is no needless banter. It is easy, therefore to comprehend. The reading of such a play will not have the same effect as it will on the stage. It does display the same emotion but not the same intensity as the stage production. The observation of performance allows the audience to soak up displayed emotion rather than processing it mentally, which takes away from the intensity of the play. The emotions are the same, just not as big.
Means can be defined as the language that the writer uses to ...

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