Homer, Etc Examples of Greek Term Paper

Gradually the Greek hero recognizes (peripeteia) that his visitors are the hated Greeks who once abandoned him, in disguise. Philoctetes denounces the foul plot and demands back his bow, realizing once again he is alone in the world. (anagnorisis)

In Euripides, "Hippolytus," pity and fear (pathos) is evoked by Phaedra's unbridled passion for her stepson Hippolytus. The recognition element of the drama (peripeteia) comes when both Phaedra and Hippolytus see that their mutually incompatible desires both for others (in the case of Phaedra) and also to be removed from others (as expressed in the character of the young, title son of Theseus) are inescapable. This recognition is shortly followed by the terrible peripeteia of Theseus that his wife has lied to him and he has cast off his son as nothing, for nothing. The final tragic anagnorisis comes with Athena's visit. Athena exposes Theseus' folly of his love for his now-dead wife, who commits suicide in grief at her inability to have the Artimis-loving Hippolytus, and is finally revealed as a liar.

Aeschylus, "Prometheus Bound" begins with the pathos of human suffering and limitation of human desires and the creator's desire to make humanity fully cognizant though fire. Prometheus experiences peripeteia that he is, despite his love for his creation, unable to fully fledge them with the power of the gods -- but Zeus experiences as well as he realizes that once humans gain knowledge, this knowledge cannot be complete undone.This is followed by the anagnorisis or recognition by both Prometheus and Zeus that humanity cannot live in perpetual ignorance, even if the gods may desire humans to do so -- the gods have control over the fates of humanity, but even the gods lack total and absolute control over their fates and the fates of humans on earth......