Bryan Lestarjette

The Role of Tragedy 

            Humans have sometimes been defined as storytelling creatures. This definition goes beyond the other two standard approaches: that man is a rational animal, and Aristotle’s view that man is a social/political animal. The mankind-as-storytellers thesis highlights that, not only does man have reason, but also imagination; not only does man create social structures, but man yearns to know his place in the overall scheme of things.

            This yearning for place, to know one’s purpose and role, is a driving force in practically every human life. Religions spring up to show the order of the physical and spiritual world (whether technically true or not is not the issue here). Philosophies ask the same questions, “Why are we here? Is there anything beyond us? What is the good life?” and seek rational rather than intuitive answers. People who do not have the time, patience, or interest in these questions are nonetheless still interested in their place or role in the world. Whether climbing the social or corporate ladder, or rebelling or becoming a hardened cynic, status--or at the very least, status in one’s own eyes—is everything.

            Stories are a crucial part of this self-discovery. Through stories, we contemplate what is right or wrong (i.e. fables, etc.), what kind of person is ideal (hero stories), what our society should be like (utopias), and what the potential consequences of various decisions might be (tragedies, distopias, social science fiction, etc.). If we do not derive our answers directly from the stories we hear, the stories nonetheless reinforce the culture’s views. How many people can strongly relate to a book or movie, and how many people take their cues from a role model (whether fictional or from romanticized non-fiction)? Consciously or not, we are all trying to figure out our part in the overall story, as Frodo and Sam muse a passage from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

            The four arch-genres, comedy, tragedy, romance, and satire, fill different roles in our search. Comedy, of course, is mostly pure entertainment, but it is also a way of making us feel better about our own position in contrast to the poor buffoons we are laughing at (or, in not-so-low comedy, we can at least remember that a difficult situation is not necessarily the end of the world). Also, as Henri Bergson writes (in the comic theory handout),

[Society] is not satisfied with simply living, it insists on living well.  What it now has to dread is that each one of us, content with paying attention to what affects the essentials of life, will, so far as the rest is concerned, give way to the easy automatism of acquired habits. . . .  This rigidity is the comic, and laughter is its corrective. . . .

Romance, while usually still mostly a form of entertainment, has an inspirational aspect to it, and a way for us to identify ourselves with the good guys, and perhaps become a slightly better person if we take the opportunity to do so.

            Tragedy and satire are cautionary genres. They both deal with the danger that the story we think we’re in might be different from what is actually happening. Satire points out the incongruities of a point of view, or takes that point of view to its logical conclusion (see Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”). Tragedy shows consequences, outside of divine or heroic intervention (which, so far as tragedy is concerned, would be cheating, or at least skirting the issue).

            Ironically, and perhaps significantly, the great tragedies seem to be written in periods of cultural advancement (Sophocles at the height of Athenian power and culture, Shakespeare at the dawn of the British Empire, Eugene O’Neill during the rise of America as a superpower). Besides the obvious fact that those doing well can better receive tragedy without going into mad depression, this correlation also suggests important functions of tragedy. In times of rising or peaking power, decisions become more critical and consequential, and it is in these times that questions about consequences (enter tragedy) come to the forefront of the collective mind. Tragedy might possibly also increase or reflect a cultural sense of dignity and seriousness, as the genre does seem to possess a gravitas that comedy and romance lack. Serious minds interested in consequences, i.e. the people that find tragedy interesting, are the very people who would need to be in good quantity in a given civilization for that civilization to reach a golden age.

            Tragedy helps us deal with important cultural issues. For instance, in the midst of intense Athenian pride, Sophocles wrote Antigone, which deals with civil and moral authority and the relationship between the state and the family. Loraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun focuses on race-related issues in a time of segregation and the African-American conflict of identity. Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, besides being the author’s exploration of his own past and thus his identity, can also be read for insight on family relationships and addiction.

            Comedy and romance might touch on serious issues such as these, but only in tragedy can they really be brought to full fruition. In tragedy, you are not left with a happy ending courtesy of a hero’s cunning or bravery, but with the simple outcome of flawed decisions or character. In the absence of an overcoming hero, tragedy challenges us to become the overcomers ourselves.