Dramatic Structure
• Classical Dramatic Structure:
1. Rising action
2. Climax
3. falling Action
4. Catastrophe
- Structure Examples
Dramatic Structure
• Structure refers to the total organization of a
literary work. When we delineate the structure
we are, in effect, making a summary of the full
scheme of plan of the work.
• In essence, analysis of structure is twofold; we
begin by outlining the way in which the play is
put together, and then suggest reasons why the
playwright chose a particular way of assembling
the events of the play
Classical Tragic Structure
• One of the most dominating theories of structure
is that which classically pertained to tragedies.
Because a tragedy deals with conflict, ancient
critics thought of the plays as tying and untying
knots.
• In any case, the view of tragedy has frequently
and consistently taken a dividing approach
which separates the events of the play into 4
categories: rising action, climax, falling action,
catasthrope
Rising Action
• Rising action is the entire first part of the
play in which the forces creating conflict
are delineated, enlarged, and prepared for
some disaster.
• Preceding the rising action there is often
what we simply call “introduction” or
“exposition”, a short section directly in the
beginning in which we are made acquinted
with certain facts
Climax
• The first major pause in the play occurs
when the hero makes a decision or makes
some all-important discovery about either
himself or someone else in the play, the
act which interrupts everything else that is
happening, is always referred to as climax.
Falling Action
• The falling action follows the climax and
usually presents the way in which the hero
is slowly overpowered and becomes
increasingly helpless. We see him as
representative of man bound up in a fate
which he is powerless to master
Catastrophe
• The catastrophe is the main action of the
play and is often a death, usually the
death of the hero of the heroine.
Catastrophe is the one event in the play
toward which everything else has been
working, either directly or indirectly.
• It fulfills the audience’s expectation
Structure Examples
• Death of a Salesman: The rising action
would describe all of the opening false of
optimism of Willy Loman, his pride in his
two sons, his feelings of superiority over
his neighbor, his hopes for the future.
Structure examples
• Antigone: Like so many Greek tragedies,
Antigone deals with the way in which a
noble man brings death upon his family
because of his own tragic flaw of pride.