A: In ancient Greek tragedies, the conflict between human will and destiny is a common theme. According to the ancient Greeks, fate is unknowable and irresistible, and it is a great force in the dark. And people's behavior and will are often in tragic conflict with fate. Three tragic writers show this conflict from different angles. In Aeschylus' plays, the characters in the trilogy Orestes are all controlled by the God of Revenge, and they throw themselves into bloody family murders one after another. The fate here seems to be the power of God, because the reason for revenge is that Agamemnon killed a woman and went out to war, which caused a series of family tragedies. In the Prometheus trilogy, for Prometheus, fate is Zeus. Because he stole the human fire and refused to tell Zeus the secret, he was severely punished by Zeus and eventually sacrificed himself. For Zeus, fate is a secret he doesn't know, and this secret is doomed to be overthrown. From these two plays, Aeschylus' view of fate has two factors, namely, God and some mysterious force, which dominate the life and behavior of man and God.
King Oedipus, the representative work of Sophocles, is regarded as a model of Greek tragedy. In the play, fate is an abstract concept that transcends human beings and gods, and it is an unknowable but absolutely evil force. It is this force that throws Oedipus, who is upright, kind and brave, into the abyss of killing his father and marrying his mother.
Euripides brought social factors and human factors into the concept of fate. In Medea, Jason's ingratitude and male culture's contempt for women lead to the tragic ending of Medea. This visible male social force forms Medea's tragedy as a woman.
Although the three tragic writers have different views on fate, their struggle against fate is the same: the tragic hero resolutely and wholeheartedly fought against the unfair fate that befell him in different ways, and showed the unyielding spirit of human beings in this fierce conflict, which produced a shocking tragic effect.
2。 On the view of fate in Greek tragedies from the understanding of fate by the three major tragic poets in ancient Greece.