This document provides an overview of Shakespeare's tragedies including King Lear, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet. It defines what a tragedy is, such as the downfall of a central character. Tragedies tend to involve a tragic hero with flaws who tries to achieve a goal but is limited. The document discusses key characters and themes in each of Shakespeare's tragedies. It also analyzes scenes and quotes to illustrate themes of madness, death, and the father-daughter relationship in Hamlet.

1. Shakespeare’s Tragedies
King Lear
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet
Eileen McGrath
Content Area: English
Subject: Shakespeare’s
Tragedies
Grade: 9th-10th

2. What is a Tragedy?
• An event causing great suffering,
destruction, and distress, such as a
serious accident, crime, or natural
catastrophe.
• A play representing the disastrous
downfall of a central character, the
protagonist, and also has a tragic ending.
• Tend to begin with the singing of a choral
lyric.

3. • Tragic Hero:
–Tragic heroes have flaws, try to
achieve a goal but are limited, does
not have to die at the end but he /
she must undergo a change in
fortune.
• Examples: Othello, King Lear,
Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, death in a
family, car accident, break-up , cell
phone dies.

4. Characters in King Lear

5. King Lear → The Beast

6. Goneril & Regan → The
Evil Step Sisters

7. Cordelia →
Princesses/Heroines

8. Gloucester → The Sultan

9. Edmund → Villains

10. Edgar → Mufasa

11. Fool → Rafiki

12. Hamlet

13. Father/Daughter Relationship
• Act II.1.110-120
• “That hath made him mad. I am sorry that with
better heed and judgment I had not quoted him. I
feared he did but trifle And meant to wreck thee.
But beshrew my jealousy! By heaven, it is as
proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in
our opinions As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king. This
must be known, which, being kept close, might
move More grief to hid than hate to utter love.
Come.”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9rNLZX2G8
&feature=related

14. • Act II.II.110-11
•“To the celestial and
my soul’s idol, the
most beautified
Ophelia”……

15. Madness/Death
• Ophelia represented the floral motif; beautiful but yet
fragile
• Ophelia death was a suicide not an accident.
• "Queen: Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread
wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, which
time she chanted snatches of old tune, as one incapable
of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued
unto that element." (IV, VII: 190-195)
• Ophelia, driven insane by Hamlet's cruelty and the
murder of her beloved father, plunges from a tree
branch and then into a river.
• "Gravedigger: Is she getting a Christian burial, even
though she willfully took her own life?" (V, I: 1-2)

16. • "Gravedigger: For here lies the point; if I
drown myself wittingly, it argues an act,
and an act hath three branches – it is to
act, to do, to perform; argal, she drowned
herself wittingly." (V, I: 9-11)
• "If she hadn't been a gentlewoman, she
wouldn't get a Christian Burial,"
commented the gravedigger.

17. • Tomorrow is Saint valentine’s day,
– All in the morning bedtime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door.
Let in the maid that out a maid
Never departed more.
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie, for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’ t.
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.”
He answeres,
“So would I ha’ done, by younder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.”
- Ophelia. IV.V.47-65

18. Romeo and Juliet

19. Media/Entertainment
• The story is so well known that there are
elements all around us.
– West Side Story
– Titanic
– The Notebook
– Gnomeo and Juliet

20. Works Cited
• Fallon, R. (2005). How to enjoy Shakespeare.
• Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
• McAlindon, T. (1991). Shakespeare’s tragic cosmos.
• New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Mehl, D. (1986). Shakespeare’s tragedies an introduction.
• New York: Cambridge University Press.