Worksheet: Analyzing a Greek Drama, Alternate Version

A longer version of the worksheet, with added questions on the tragic hero and the minor characters.

By Rick Reed

ENGLISH 11AP – Literature and Composition:

Worksheet ‑ Analyzing a Greek Drama

Mr. Reed

I. Setting
- A. What is the geographical location of the story?
- B. During what era or during whose reign does the story unfold?
II. Characters
- A. What is the central conflict of the drama?
- A. Who is the protagonist?
- B. Who/What is the antagonist?
- C. Who are the other major characters?
  - 1. Are they flat or round characters?
  - 2. Are they static or dynamic characters?
- D. Who are the minor characters?
  - 1. Are they stock or flat characters?
  - 2. Do any of them act as a foil to the protagonist?
- E. Who constitutes the chorus?
- F. What are the motivations of each character?
III. Plot
- A. What information is conveyed in the exposition?
- B. What is the inciting force?
- C. What complications does the protagonist face?
- D. At what point does the climax take place?
- E. What decline in fortunes does the protagonist experience in the falling action (resolution)?
- F. How are matters left in the conclusion?
IV. Theme
- A. What aspect of human nature does the playwright seem to be examining?
- B. What statement (or observation) about the human condition does the playwright seem to be making?
- C. What universal or archetypal ideas recur throughout the plot? (These are sometimes called motifs, and may also appear in images.)
V. Aristotle’s Poetics
- A. The protagonist
  - 1. Is the tragic hero a man of noble stature?
  - 2. Is the tragic hero a good person (though not perfectly so) brought from prosperity to adversity by his committing an act of injustice, what Aristotle called hamartia – or through some tragic flaw? [Review item 1 on p. 1305.]
  - 3. Is the tragic hero’s downfall his own fault, that is, the result of his own free choice rather than the result of pure accident or someone else’s villainy or some overriding malignant fate? [Review item 2 on pp. 1305-1306.]
  - 4. Does the tragic hero’s punishment exceed the crime? [Review item 3 on p. 1306.]
  - 5. Does the tragic hero’s fall involve some increase in awareness, some gain in self-knowledge? [Review item 4 on p. 1306.]
- B. The Unities
  - 1. Is the action restricted to one twenty‑four-hour period?
  - 2. Is the action restricted to one geographical location?
  - 3. Does the play consist of one main action – to the carrying on of which everything else in the play is subservient? Does one mood predominate?
- C. Catharsis
  - 1. Does the action arouse either pity or fear?
  - 2. Does the action produce a mood of emotional release or intellectual serenity?