Greek audience Essay Example for Free

Greek audience Essay The minds of modern theatre goers are somewhat lazy compared to their Greek counterparts, hundreds of years ago. Today we go to a play and at best mope and follow the story, we remain silent throughout and maybe the most analytical and critical of us will have some thoughts on the screenplay. The Greeks however had a rapport with the play, they watched every move, and got behind every line especially in tragedy. The reasons why this occurred are as follows: Modern plays fall into the category of illusion dramas. The Audience are invisible spectators of others lives. The characters are made to look and act convincing, so a king will be dressed ornately, a girl will actually be small girl, and a cowboy will sport a Stetson and colt 45. The audience have everything made up for them and so they find it easy to fall into the illusion and just watch. Greek Theatre is conventional drama, the characters are often not in costume and symbols merely indicate who was who in the play. For example a king may wear a simple crown on his head. In Greek drama all the actors wore masks. All these factors made it very demanding on a Greek audience to follow the play before them. In effect they are forced to watch very carefully and a rapport is developed between the audience and the play. This audience got very vocal during a performance, which is all part of the rapport. Today we go to a theatre and maybe watch a play, which we have never seen, Greek plays were all well known stories, and the themes and issues were well known to the audience. The lack of a surprise element means the audience watches the play with a critical eye seeing how well the play was done, and also whether dramatist has inserted a moral or political issue. This is illustrated in The Aeneid, Virgil makes Aeneas a ancestor to the Roman race. Iulus who was his descendant was directly linked to Julius Caesar the dictator of the time. By doing this he legitimises the history of the peoples past, and they look upon the story in a new light. The Aeneid would be politically interesting to the average Greek due to the Carthaginian wars. Even the mention of Carthage would have alerted the audience and they would be pleased to see that the city was raised to the ground The issue of morality, as I said is often explored, and personified in a character, Was Oedipus immoral? The Greek audience would have to think hard over this tragic question. On the one hand he wasnt because he didnt know what he was doing, but yet he was cursed and destroyed like an immoral person. This is where the tragic element lies, the audience would feel for him and pray that they themselves dont suffer a similar fate. On the other hand he was impious, which was highly immoral in Greek times, and this is an issue I will cover later in my essay. Greek theatre however is full of tense and surprising moments. During Oedipus the king, Jocasta was aware that Oedipus was going to find out his fate. The scenes here were very tense. The audience would get behind it and voice their excitement. The best dramatists when they put on the play will include dramatic irony in the play. The whole Oedipus the king is based around this. The audience aware of his fate watch him squirm to his doom, because they know and cannot stop it happening makes it even more tragic. When Tiresias the prophet enters, Virgil creates many references to blindness and confusion, all reflect Oedipus state, as he doesnt know the truth, but is highly ironic because the blind priest is the only one aware of the imminent danger. As I have illustrated the last thing a Greek audience is going to do is to sit silently through the play. They would murmur to each other, gasp, sometimes-even cheer at the action unfolding before them. The whole experience would be more than just a trip; it is more a moral lesson, and a place full of high emotion reminiscent of a modern church. The Greek audience would be very religious people; the whole theatre experience was infact an act of worship, and it was regarded the right and duty of every citizen to attend. In the theatre a statue of Dionysus was present adding to the religious undertone. Having establishes the religious importance of the theatre; it is understandable how the audience have issues of morality and respect to the Gods on their minds. When Oedipus is impious, this is considered highly immoral as he had full control over his actions unlike his other actions. Everyone was expected to attend the theatre, and even those who couldnt afford it were paid for by the state. One can only imagine but the atmosphere was full of people from all walks of life. It is said there were around 14000 people in the oval shaped arena sat all round, this is almost like a modern day football match. The huge social importance of the theatre can be seen and understood from this, people went there to share ideas with friends, see friends, and meet people. I can imagine that because of all these factors and variety of people, the theatre was a very interesting place. People would obviously have different motives for going but it is established that it was more than just entertainmen t.

Mexico Essay -- Mexican Economy, Politics

Mexico is a country that has long been thought of as being an impoverished nation, with many more people who are among the poor that those who can be reasonably be considered to be wealthy. In recent years the Mexican people have had a dramatic change in their demographic outlook, with the largest change being in the fertility rate having dropped from 6.5 in the early 70’s to its current rate of 2.2 – easily the fastest rate of decline in the world today. With the importance of family to the Mexican people it is hard to imagine that these new rates will be sustainable in the future and will have dramatic negative implications for the economies of both Mexico and the United States as the population ages without replacement workers (McGoldrick, Giordano & Garcia-Preto, 2005; Sedano, 2008). The Mexican people are a people who find their roots amongst the Mayan, Aztecan and other Native American people. They also often share an ancestry with the European Spanish who conquered and settled much of what is today Mexico and the American Southwest. Their common language is Spanish and the majority of Mexican people follow the Catholic religion, which interestingly has changed in many ways to include many of the traditions and symbols of the other more ancient religions that were practiced before the Spanish conquest and the forced conversion of the natives. There still runs a deep attachment to â€Å"folk† medicine to cure ailments that are most likely caused by stress or other psychological means such as fright, the â€Å"evil eye† and even indigestion (McGoldrick, et. al., 2005). The family in Mexico is predominantly patriarchal in nature there is also a great deal of respect that is due the mothers of the family. Family types range from nuclea... ...e more educated parents (McCabe, 2002). It was discovered that such factors as income, perceptions of stigma, expectations of therapist directness, therapist-client match and even acculturation had no significant effect of the dropout rates. The greatest predictors were instead, parental belief in strict discipline in reaction to behavioral and emotional problems along with the perception of barriers to getting treatment (McCabe, 2002). While it is seen that acculturation may increase the ability of the client to seek assistance and that the acculturation of the parents may help them better understand the role of therapy in helping with behavioral and emotional problems will help more adolescents with these problems seek help it does was shown that improving the parents expectations and attitudes towards therapy may have beeter retention outcomes (McCabe, 2002).

Are our streets safer now? Essay

Are our streets safer now? There are lots of people in Scotland that think the crime rates are decreasing and that our streets are safer, on the other hand many people also think crime rates are increasing and our streets are more dangerous than ever. I’m going to show both view points on my chosen topic – Are our streets safer now? The people that think our streets are safer now are government and police and those who support the government’s judgement and their political party and newspapers that support conservatives and liberal democrats. They believe the streets are safer because of official government statistics which are formed from reported and therefore recorded crime. In 2006 official government statistics showed that recorded crimes had decreased by 5% from the previous year. The problem with recorded crime and statistics is, not all crimes are reported, and as a consequence are not recorded. Overall crime figures may have decreased but if we were to look at all the different types of crime, it may show that the majority of crime has gone up and only a minority has gone down. The public who think are streets are more dangerous are government opposition and other opposing parties and those who support the newspapers that support these parties. The reason they believe this, is that more serious crimes have risen but minor crimes that have gone down cover up the real picture. In 2006 the Scottish crime survey showed that for theft and assault only 24% of incidents had actually been reported and recorded of the 109 killings in Scotland in 2005 and 2006, 31 of these people were killed in Glasgow alone. This was a dramatic increase from 4. 49 per 100,000 people to 5. 34 per 100,000 people. And Bill Aitken – MSP – described the murder rate figures in Scotland as â€Å"depressing and alarming! † Statistics whish measure the amount of crime that takes place in Scotland is mostly based on reported crimes. Reported crimes are offences that have been reported to the police. There is a problem with only using statistics that are based on reported crimes because many crimes take place that are not reported to the police. One reason is people do not report crimes that are trivial. For example, many minor thefts are not reported because the victim does not think that theft is important enough to contact the police. Another reason is many people are frightened to report certain crimes that have taken place. Some victims are intimidated by criminals. When criminal activity is examined it is important to remember that the official statistics produced by the government may only tell part of the story. There is an argument to say that crime is now worse now than it was in –for example – 18th century London, when jack the ripper was around or just after the Crimean war. There were lots of thieves, murderers and rapists about but you may only have known this if you lived in that certain town or village. Nowadays we are more aware of crime due to the media. When something happens we know about it straight away, therefore leaded the public into believing that the streets are more dangerous now than ever, but in my opinion I think they are no better or worse than they were in the 18th century. In conclusion our streets are not safer or more dangerous than before, because crime is exactly the same in Britain as it always has been and always will be. There will always be criminals and there’s nothing that anyone can really do to stop them from committing minor and major crimes, we can only try to prevent it.

John Rawls and Utilitarianism - 2033 Words

John Rawls and Utilitarianism Heath C. Hoculock The social contract theory of John Rawls challenges utilitarianism by pointing out the impracticality of the theory. Mainly, in a society of utilitarians, a citizens rights could be completely ignored if injustice to this one citizen would benefit the rest of society. Rawls believes that a social contract theory, similar those proposed by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, would be a more logical solution to the question of fairness in any government. Social contract theory in general and including the views of Rawls, is such that in a situation where a society is established of people who are self interested, rational, and equal, the rules of justice are established by what is mutually†¦show more content†¦The second states that under utilitarianism, a slaves misery would not matter since overall satisfaction is increased. It is just this reasoning that Rawls proves his theories superior. Rawls feels that utilitarianism does not take into account the individual and pays too much mind to the general happiness. Rawls argues that in this case everyone would be better off with his social contract theory rather than utilitarianism since under his theory general happiness would still be increased, but at the expense of no one or few. Rawls believes that the happiness of many may indeed out weigh the happiness of the few, but to govern by this would be unfair and unjust. I feel that Mill would disagree with Rawls interpretation utilitarianism. In chapter two of Mills 1863 book Utilitarianism, Mill states the following: actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the opposite of happiness. Mill explains that the principle of utility should only be used as a tool for generating secondary moral principles such as, one should not lie to others so as to preserve or increase general happiness. Mill goes on to say that we should only go solely by the principle of utility when faced with a moral dilemma betwee n two or more secondary principles. For example, according to Mill, I should protect my neighbor from harm and I should not deceive another. So if oneShow MoreRelatedUtilitarianism, By John Rawls And Robert Nozick1486 Words   |  6 PagesUtilitarianism is a moral theory according to which an action is right if and only if it conforms to the principle of utility. An action conforms to the principle of utility if and only if its performance will be more productive of pleasure or happiness, or more preventive of pain and happiness, than any alternative. The rightness of an action entirely depends on the value of its consequences, this is why the theory is described as consequentialist. The â€Å"separateness of persons† is an objection againstRead MoreTheory of Justice972 Words   |  4 Pagesinformation on John Rawls. 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