TREATMENT OF FATE IN SHAKESPEAREAN AND CLASSICAL GREEK TRAGEDIES: A COMPARISON

Fate is regarded as a central component in tragedy. The significant role of fate is recognized when, despite a character's heroic acts and good intentions, they face death simply because they are doomed to die. But studies confirm that fate does not play a similarly critical role in the tragic denouement of each play. This paper attempts a critical comparison on the role and nature of fate in the downfall of protagonists in the classical Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. By reviewing research-based articles and books, and by reading through selected texts in reader-response approach, this paper attempts to identify the entirely different natures of fate that came into play for the tragic heroes’ downfall as portrayed in these two different ages. The findings manifest that the force behind the collapse of the heroes in the classical Greek tragedies was predominantly fate where the hero had little to do but to become a pawn in the hands of external forces beyond his control, while the force behind the tragic events is not external in the Shakespearean tragedies. Rather, the heroes themselves were, on the whole, responsible for their tragic downfalls due to their internal triggers.


INTRODUCTION
Tragedy originated in ancient Greece. It can be seen in all styles of art. However, this paper focuses on theatrical tragedy. While many thinkers, authors and literary critics have sought to explain the meaning and function of tragedy, Hugh Grady (2014, p.796) provides one of the most appropriate definitions. In his words: "They are the plays that take on issues of death or suffering, of identity, of human nature, of human meaning and more. They never supply tendentious answers to any of the issues but instead explore, curse, rage, joy and wonder in ways that shift as we move from culture to culture and age to age." The growth of the Greek spirit (Anttila, 2019) enabled a small number of people from ancient Greece to create a literature of unprecedented grandeur and dignity in the fifth century, to rise to a splendid height of excellence in literature. In the unique ideas of Greek mythology, there had been several gods and goddesses who ruled every aspect of human life but they had been continually warring each other, and were concerned only with human affairs (Hamilton, 2017). Behind these gods and goddesses was the 'fate' that decided human being's destiny, and fighting against fate was futile. That is, at the core of every Greek tragedy, there is struggle of man against fate, though each writer's conception of the tragedy is different. The genre of tragedy includes some of the most important and beautiful plays in literature around the world. They provide fascinating insights into how the society has endeavored to grasp what is valuable in life. A contemporary British tragedian Edward Bond notes that tragedies speak about both 'the causes of human suffering and the sources of human strength' (Bond 2013, p.109). A tragic work of art fundamentally deals with both physical and psychological grief and suffering. While the ancient Greek tragedies dramatize the relationship between the immortal gods and mortals in their efforts to make sense of death, misery, injustice and cruelty (McEvoy, 2016), Shakespearean tragedies basically deal with the main protagonist's downfall fighting against some internal and external struggles on his way due to his flaw. This study aims to interpret the nature and influence of fate on the characters portrayed in the classical Greek tragedies and in the tragedies by William Shakespeare. Interpretation is the human activity of making clear (Sanskrit 'phath' which means 'to spread around') by acting as a moderator between an original semiotic activity and a receiver. Since the act of interpretation goes well beyond the boundaries of literature, a theory of literary interpretation, therefore, rests on a general theory of interpretation (Garcia Landa, 1993). Derived from the Latin word Fatum, which literally means "that which has been spoken", fate has been associated with that which has been predetermined for our lives and most often used as interchangeably with the word destiny. Fatalism traditionally interprets that fate dictates people's life outcomes (Au & Savani, 2019) on the notion that there is a natural order in the universe which cannot be changed, no matter how hard we try. As a part of investigating into the idea of fate, this paper also touched upon heredity, the biological process of transmission of genetic characters from parents to offspring, which is regarded as a modern counterpart of fate in some studies (Burrill, 1920). The ultimate goal of the study is to point out the differences in the treatment of tragic fate employed by the playwrights of the two influential literary ages, namely classical Greek age and Elizabethan age. To this end, review on relevant literature has been combined with literary analysis of the aforementioned tragedies. Among the six predominant approaches to literary analysis, this study involves readerresponse theory, the other approaches being new criticism, stylistic, critical literacy, languagebased, and structuralism. This approach recognizes reader as an active agent in making inferences in interpreting literature (Dias & Hayhoe, 1988, cited in Mart, 2019. Rosenblatt (1995) noted that reading literature is an experience in which readers make use of emotions and experiences with meaning-building intent. In line with this theory, the meanings and interpretations created by a reader on a literary text are constructed jointly by the reader and the text. Therefore, a reader's emotions and thoughts while reading a text evoke their response to the events and the characters.
In this study, the author purposefully selected Oedipus Rex, a notable tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles to represent the ancient Greek tragedies, while Macbeth and Hamlet, two celebrated tragedies by William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright who is considered one of the greatest writers to ever use the English language, to represent his works. In broad terms, the objective of this paper is to see the meaning of the word fate and how it was used in the related literary works. Therefore, the following two research questions are proposed for this study: a) What are the fundamental ideas about the ancient Greek and Shakespearean tragedies? b) How does fate impact in the downfall of the tragic heroes in the tragedies by the classical Greek playwrights and William Shakespeare?

METHOD
Both extensive and focused reading on the relevant sources provided analytical guidance for this article. A comprehensive review of relevant streams of thought in an area is often useful in providing the reader an up-to-date and well-structured summary of the literature, and the analysis adds value (Wee, & Banister, 2016). All the data used in this article are in the form of words and they do not deal with numbers, diagram and formulas. Library search, both online and offline, pulled together many valuable sources for the author to enable an extensive literature search on relevant literary texts and research-based books and articles to synthesize and analyze them in light of the research questions. The sources were divided into two parts, the original texts being the primary source while supporting reading materials, i.e., books and articles provided the secondary source. All the sources used for conducting the study, however, have been cited in the text and listed in the references by maintaining appropriate referencing style.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
As has been pointed out in the introduction, this study intends to investigate the role and nature of fate in the ancient Greek tragedies and in Shakespearean tragedies. The analysis has been systemically structured focusing on few important issues. These are, the core ideas about Greek tragedy, the fundamental rudiments of Shakespearean tragedy, relationship between fate and tragedy, relationship between fate and heredity, and the uniqueness in the role of fate in Greek and Shakespearean tragedies.

The Core Ideas about Greek Tragedy
Drama has been defined as a representation of carefully selected actions by living people on a stage in front of an audience (Watson, 2017), and the roots of drama lie in an instinctive human inclination towards imitation and mimicry. Obviously, the Greeks were the first to develop from this synthetic impulse into a variety of complex types of art that could articulate the values and ambitions of a culture and portray its successes in terms of a mixture of analytical thinking, wit and humor, verse, music and dance. The output of this period was from about 480 BC to the end of fifth century, i.e., from the time of Aeschylus' early plays to the latest plays by Sophocles and Euripides (Harrop, 2018). The three most famous Greek tragedians who produced immortal plays are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The key subjects of Greek tragedies were Greece's heroic legends and myths, framed in a way that was deliberately crafted to maintain their prestige and grandeur. The gods and heroic men of the valiant age generally were the dramatist personae.

The Fundamental Rudiments of Shakespearean Tragedy
The tragedies by Shakespeare center on the tragic protagonists who are the main characters of the plays (Bulman, 1985). We identify with the protagonist as the tragedy of real life which individual human beings often face. Shakespearean tragedy continues to be as important as it has always been because of its very human tales. It is now understandable to know whether Shakespeare truly wanted to keep the hero accountable for his fate or whether he intended to ensure poetic justice for good deeds and punish evils. We also wonder if the effects of those supernatural powers were in their hands, shaping life in their own ways. Bradley & Brown (1905) examined the possibilities beyond the characters and relied on the actions and ideas of the plays in Shakespeare to find answers to these queries. Shakespeare's protagonists or tragic heroes were shown to be victims of insanity, somnambulism, hallucination, or megalomania, which inevitably leads to the inference that the overriding force was neither supernatural influence, nor coincidence; character itself was fate, as was the protagonist's actions. While the hand of supernatural forces or fate could be seen active behind the heroes 'demise, it was never the sole motive force. Fate or destiny, on the other hand, had a spiritual meaning for the ancient Greeks. Nevertheless, supernatural forces were seen in Shakespearean tragedies as pure concepts that did not quite influence the depiction of life or shed light on the mystery of its tragedy. The characters may talk about gods, the evil spirits, heaven and hell, but those characters themselves were responsible for their own downfall and misery.

Relationship between Fate and Tragedy
Fate is seen as the ultimate force which controls people's circumstances and consequences. Merriam-Webster online dictionary (2018) defines fate as "the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do." Throughout the history, the humanity seems to be searching if people are genuinely responsible for their actions. Over the ages, people have been considering the effect of divine forces, genetics, environment etc. in making their choices. The ancient Greeks recognized the effect of fate as a reality in shaping and determining human life. The commonly accepted philosophy of life by the Greeks can be encapsulated in the quote, "From ills given by the gods there is no escape" (Seven against Thebes 719, cited in Agard, 1933). The idea of fate has been extensively dealt with in literature. A plethora of literary works from Greek tragedy to George Eliot's and Thomas Hardy's novels and beyond depict the conflict between fate and free will. It has always been an integral part in of a tragedy (Phillips 2016). Characters, most often the protagonist, usually meet their tragic fate foretold in most of the tragedies. For example, Oedipus kills his father in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and marries his mother or we find that Romeo and Juliet kill themselves in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Relationship between Fate and Heredity
Noting that there no ultimate agency like fate predetermines human actions, Burrill (1920) argues that heredity is only responsible for human characteristics and actions. According to him, destiny or fate cannot lead to human triumph or downfall, rather human reality acts upon an organism whose characteristic nature is predetermined by its heredity. He observes that, unmerited suffering is a characteristic of not only classical Greek tragedies but also dramas written in other ages, and attributes such sufferings to the theme or law of heredity. In line with his argument, from modern perspectives both the Greek and Shakespearean tales, especially those of the Greek are tacit recognitions of the power of parents to shape the destinies of their descendants. In his words, Unconscious though that influence may be, how can it be denied that all the way from Oedipus to Romeo, and from Hamlet to Oswald Alving, the child inherits his potentialities for health or weakness, triumph or decay, from his progenitors? (p. 509).
Not only in literature, researches in social sciences seem to find some gene, i.e., unit of heredity to be responsible behind human actions as well. For example, some studies find that the influence of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, is linked to aggression and named it "warrior gene" (McDermott et al, 2009). It is anticipated that, influence of this gene might lead to a nuclear war to undo the fruit of four billion years of progression of the planet in a careless moment. This message has been aesthetically presented in Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth (as mentioned in Susanto, 2020).
To explain the idea of heritage, Francis Galton, cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton and halfcousin of Charles Darwin, who formulated the law of heredity, says that, the word "Heritage" has a more limited meaning than "Nature" because heritage only means which is inherited, while nature includes those individual variations that are due to other causes (1898). However, some modern groundbreaking study of genetics, more precisely epigenetics, the biological branch of study of heredity or the part of chromosome which is transferred from a parent to offspring, strongly claim that human heredity cannot be human destiny and we are not victims of our genes. Lipton (2010), an American developmental biologist and one of the leading names in bridging science and spirit, claims that there is a strong connection between human beliefs and the physiology of the human body and our thoughts, depressions or diseases are not preprogrammed in our genes. In fact, the nervous system can send different signals to cells, reprogramming their genetic activity and behavior.

Uniqueness in the Role of Fate in Greek and Shakespearean Tragedies
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is about a man who is cursed to embrace the fate predicted before his birth by the Oracle at Delphi. Oedipus learns of his fate and, like his mother and father, instantly tries to avert it. Actually, the actions taken by Oedipus, Jocasta, and Laius fulfilled the prophecy predicted by Oracle. Despite all his attempts to escape his destiny, Oedipus made it more likely to fulfill the prophecy. Sophocles almost definitely tried to explain in his Oedipus Rex that man is not merely a passive slave to his fate but that he actually takes an active part in it. The gods plan things in such a way that every step Oedipus takes in the hope of escaping this destiny only brings him closer to it. It is, however, an unfortunate circumstance, but still, it is a means of imposing the influence of the gods over man (Adade-Yeboah, Ahenkora, & Amankwah, 2012). However, Shakespearean tragedies are more complex to explain and we have before us a type of the mystery of the whole world. Edward Dowden (1980) puts that, "Tragedy as conceived by Shakespeare is concerned with the ruin or the restoration of the soul and of the life of art. In other words, its subject is the struggle of good and evil in the world". We there experience incredible strength, wisdom, life and glory, perishing and destroying themselves. Although it

Treatment of Fate in Shakespearean and Classical Greek Tragedies: A Comparison
seems that some of the calamities are only related to a predetermined plan of god as in the case of Greek Tragedies, Dowden (1980) claims that, in final examination, human action tends to be the core reality of tragedy, and the catastrophe is the restoration of this action, and in it finds justice or certain orders of moral necessity. Unlike in the Greek tragedies, a reader discovers that the nature of fate is limited to being an inner force, not an outer force in William Shakespeare's popular tragedies including King Lear, Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth. The contrasting positions of free will and fate in Macbeth and Oedipus Rex are worthy of mention. The role of fate is clearly evident in Oedipus Rex. The reader is struck in the face with the core of the concept that is the inevitability of man's destiny. Since Oedipus had been fated to commit the offences, he could not do anything else. In Oedipus Rex the world is rather fateful (Rubio, 2018), but the characters in Macbeth are backed by their own judgments. Oedipus does all he can to escape his fate but fails, whereas Shakespearean heroes Macbeth and Hamlet carry their fate by ignoring the truth that nothing important depends on their own characters.
In Oedipus Rex, the outcome of the play was agreed upon by the conception of man's fate. Every aspect of life in the ancient Greece was built on fate, and Sophocles has taken a strong stance against the entire idea of free will. As with prophecies and oracles, mankind does not have the ability to rule their lives on its own, and fate alone determines the destiny of king Oedipus. The play is a perfect tragedy of fate. All the tragic actions that he performed were undertaken not only unknowingly and accidentally, but also as a direct consequence of his attempts to avoid the cruel fate that was conveyed to him by the oracle at Delphi. However, some readers might argue that, had he been a little more careful, things would have taken on a different form, e.g., if he hadn't been so arrogant or hot-tempered, he would have avoided the quarrel on the road, and he would have declined to marry a woman who was old enough to be his mother, and hadn't been blinded by the pride of his intellect in solving the Sphinx riddle. But even then, there are grounds to counter argue that all of the oracle's prophecies should have occurred in any other way, as destiny was seen as part of life in ancient Greece (Safran, 2017). In reality, Oedipus had no choice in this matter and had simply fulfilled his destiny.
In this regard, we can also offer the example of Homer's The Iliad, an ancient Greek epic depicting fate as the supreme and absolute power where man has little or no control. Throughout the epic, the destiny of men is completely governed by the gods. In Book I, the plague is a consequence of the Greek god Apollo being disturbed. The gods create problems over trivial issues, they have temper and they switch positions easily and without hesitation. They defend the Achaeans one day, and the Trojans the next day. They play games without any understanding of the moral issues involved in the war; and men often find themselves confronting a force beyond their control. The Iliad's opening statement includes the expression "Zeus' will," reflecting the conviction of the Greek that man is in the grip of powers beyond his control. In Book I, Thetis, who is the mother of the hero of the epic Achilles, says, "Doomed to a short life, you have so little time." Destiny gave Achilles a short life. In Book XIX, Hera, the Greek goddess, says: "Yes! We will save your life -this time toomaster, mighty Achilles! But the day of death already hovers near, and we are not to blame but a great god is and the strong force of fate".
When in Book XXI, Achilles refers to his own destiny, stating that death and the mighty force of fate await, it evidently seems his destiny is set, and since he can't change it, he accepts it. On the contrary, external events play a small part in the hero's downfall, but evil agents of his own characters often act upon the hero and cause the hero to make wrong decisions that lead to his downfall. In Macbeth, Duncan's murder by Macbeth marks the beginning of his fall into remorse, anxiety, psychological instability and tyranny. The two most significant motivations that drove Macbeth to all his tyranny is, internally, his urge of power; and externally, Lady Macbeth's encouragement. Thus, he is taken over by an unrelenting lust for power and proceeds to kill everyone he considers a threat. Macbeth finds himself going deeper and deeper into his tyranny and bloodbath in Duncan's murder. Macbeth starts to realize the futility of his evil deeds, knowing that in his gruesome pursuit of power he lost everything, including his soul. There is no role of fate to drive him here, rather everything is human. Shakespeare expertly uses the concept of fate versus free will in the play Macbeth, and poses the pre-eminent question which holds power over the characters. Fate cannot be held responsible in the cause of Macbeth's downfall in this tragedy, his own desires and decisions prove to be the determining factor. As seen later in the play, due to the immense guilt and anxiety he experiences Macbeth is deprived of sleep. In fact, he is deteriorating mentally; Banquo's hallucination is a direct indication of mental decline. Physically, death reflects a person's ultimate fall. Macbeth is essentially the story of a brave, noble soldier who has destroyed his life because of his own desire for strength, popularity and money. Macbeth ignores his own psyche's voice first, and allows Lady Macbeth to pursue him. His greed affects his judgment, and he takes his fate into his own hands in a desperate attempt to attain the king's position. This turns him into a cruel, suspicious, evil man. The plot ends with Macbeth's tragic killing. There is therefore no "outside" power acting against Macbeth, he is responsible for his own actions and eventual failure. The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be." Macbeth was consumed by the desire for power and control. Macbeth also ordered the murder of Macduff's wife and children whose deaths earned him nothing. He had good reason to fear Macduff but it was futile to slaughter the family of his enemy. His moral sense seemed to have vanished entirely -all feeling in him was gone. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" is now Takad Ahmed Chowdhury Treatment of Fate in Shakespearean and Classical Greek Tragedies: A Comparison everything to him. He becomes a psychopath (Al-Janaby, 2017). Macbeth is a prime example of the corruption of power, and how absolute power corrupts someone absolutely. A reader of Macbeth discovers that the story of the play includes an element of the hero trying to work against faith as they notice in the play that the witches told Macbeth that he would be king but his descendants would not be. Macbeth by William Shakespeare is an example of tragedy of character. Let us now come to discussing Hamlet, which is about an emotionally scarred young man who attempts to avenge his father's murder, the late king Hamlet. He suffers from a kind of mental unconsciousness being under the intense impact of his father's untimely and abrupt death, since the beginning of the play. Hamlet loses logical coherence of thought and fails to come to terms with reality. He feels lonely, alienated even in crowd. Basically, Hamlet nourished a guilty desire, at least at his unconscious level to kill his father, so to enjoy the whole affection of his mother. This desire, so far suppressed in him, aroused violently when his mother engaged her in the 'over hasty' marriage with Claudius after the death of his father. Hamlet came to a physical and mental confrontation with the present king and his associates. He was all by himself against the big struggle around him. He couldn't find his way out. He always suffered from dilemma, indecisiveness, and was unable to take any decision quickly which gave his enemies a chance to kill him. At last he avenged the murder of his father but at the expense of his own life. Here the fall was obviously triggered by his own internal dilemma and indecisiveness, and no fate or deity was responsible for it. In line with the views expressed by Johnson (1765), the readers of Shakespeare discover that his plays offer faithful pictures of real life. Unlike the Greek heroes, Shakespeare's characters are the authentic product of common humanity, they are common human beings who do not possess the grandeur or brilliance of the Greek tragic character, but win respect and confidence of their readers and spectators. They act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles which are experienced by all mankind.

Significance and Implications of the Study
This study is significant as it adds to the existing body of literature by comparing Shakespearean tragedies with classical Greek tragedies from the perspective of fate. It demonstrates that William Shakespeare wrote more guilty characters than the Greeks did. The trend, however, was maintained throughout the tragedies of the same and later ages, such as in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus or in the plays by Goethe, which shows that a character descending through their own mistakes, bad decisions, and flaws oil the wheels of their own disaster. Shakespearean tragic characters, even those of the renaissance and postrenaissance period, are less based on external fate. They have less to do with the Gods and more to do with decisions, moral actions and choices that they make in their lives. On the other hand, the classical Greek plays seem to teach that bad things happen even if the actions of a character are not responsible, and that life is not just a mechanism of crime and punishment. This study aspires to lead the way for future researches covering additional number of texts from more literary ages to see if the same findings are contradicted or consolidated in larger contexts. This study provides an overview of how the same theme can be identified in characters from completely different cultures, social class, mindsets, genders, and time periods. This approach is useful in literature pedagogy because such techniques improve our critical thinking skills and extend our understanding of the possibilities the world has to offer. In both language and literature classrooms, the pedagogical value of this study lies in the sense that interpretations and analysis like this arouse interest of the students and promote debate in the classroom by addressing any topic in new and different ways, and open the learners to new ideas and thoughts. This pedagogical practice relates to reflective teaching, as Dewey (1933( , as cited in Nurfaidah, 2018 mentions that reflective teachers promote open-mindedness, wholeheartedness, and responsibility.

CONCLUSION
On the whole, the tragedies by William Shakespeare, as investigated in Macbeth and Hamlet, the theme of unfolding essential human qualities get a unique dimension whereas in Greek tragedies, as represented by Oedipus Rex, it is mostly the pre-determined destiny that dominates over humanity. Tragic flaw which ultimately leads the hero to his downfall is much more the character in Shakespeare, where the external circumstances has very little to do in the hero's fall and the internal one is the sole power to determine it. Therefore, the fact is that the force behind the tragedy of Oedipus Rex was only the external fate itself and the tragic hero had nothing to do except becoming the puppets in the hands of fate. But in Macbeth and Hamlet, the force behind the tragedies is nothing external. The very human internal causes triggered sad endings for which the heroes themselves were completely responsible. The entire purpose of Shakespeare's dramatic presentation was to display all the essential human qualities. He believed that a man must attain these qualities through terrible suffering and develop himself as a very human being. This is clearly not the case in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex or the Greek plays in general, where fate and prophesizing had the most significant role to play (Bushnell, 2019).