Choose one of the following paper topics and write a six-to-eight paragraph paper in which you
compare or contrast Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced with Sophocles Oedipus the King. Your paper
should have an original thesis which you prove in the following paragraphs. Each body
paragraph should have a topic sentence and at least one piece of textual evidence. All evidence
must be introduced and contextualized, quoted correctly using MLA in-text citations, and
sufficiently explained or analyzed.
1. Staging Violence: In Disgraced, Ayad Akhtar stages Amir’s violence against Emily, thus
deciding to make Amir’s darkest moment public. In Oedipus the King, Sophocles does
not stage Oedipus’s bloody self-mutilation, thus deciding to keep Oedipus’s darkest
moment private. Why do these staging choices matter in each of these plavs?
2.
What’s in a Name?: Names play a major role in Ayad Akhtar’s tragedy, Disgraced, and
perhaps an even more significant role in Sophocles’s Oedipus. Why does Akhtar focus so
much of our attention of his characters’ names, like “Abe,” “Rivkah.” or “Kapoor”? And
why does Sophocles make sure that we don’t forget the meaning of “Oedipus”? What do
these two plays, seem to be saying about the importance of names in their own eras?
3. Identity Crisis: Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced and Sophocles’ Oedipus the King dramatize
the identity of their protagonists in different ways. What do these two plays have to say
about how ancient Greek and contemporary American society may think about where
identity comes from?
4.
It’s a Tragedy: Both Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced and Sophocles’ Oedipus are tragedies,
but they take a very different shape. Based on your own observation, what makes
Oedipus and Disgraced tragedies? Whose tragedies are they? And what might they say
about the cultures that produced them?