Final Exam Paper, due by December 9th

The Final Exam paper is pasted below if you missed class on Tuesday (or simply lost it). Note the due date: no late papers will be accepted since grades are due very soon after this! Let me know if you have any questions. 

Humanities 2113

Final Exam Paper: Echoes of Tragedy

On our last day of class, I asked you to respond to the following question:

“Who do you think the Oedipuses, Medeas, Jocastas, and Jasons are today? What makes them similar, and what makes them tragic? Are these people the equivalent of heroes and kings and queens? Or can tragedies be about even ‘nobodies’ today? Can anyone’s suffering be tragic with the right approach or storyteller?  Where have you heard their stories, and why do people relate to them?”

And that’s the very subject I want you to write about in your Final Exam paper. Find a modern tragedy, or a modern tragic figure(s) who you think echoes some of the tragedies we’ve read about in Hamilton, Medea, and/or Oedipus Rex. How are we telling some of the same stories, about some of the same characters, in tragedies that sound (to some extent) remarkably the same? How do modern tragedies remind us that the story remains the same…only the names and locations change? Your modern example doesn’t have to be exactly like one of the plays or myths, but it should have some slight resemblance to a character, an idea, a struggle, or a theme of those works.

Your paper should do the following things:

• Clearly explain the modern tragedy or tragic figure, and explain why you read their story as tragic, rather than just as unfortunate or sad. What makes it a story for the ages, that could teach us lessons about our own humanity through pain and suffering?
• Make a SPECIFIC connection to one of the works in class, whether one of the tragic myths in Hamilton, or one of the plays. You can do more than one, but you must do at least one. QUOTE from the text and help us see how the modern tragedy is a slight (or a clear) echo of the older work.
• Assume that you’re writing to someone who doesn’t know either tragedy, so explain it in a way that teaches your readers about it. Don’t assume, and don’t skim over the important details. Imagine yourself in the role of a teacher: what would you have to explain to make the ideas stick?

DUE NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9^th BY 5pm