final exam assignment

LITR 4533 TRAGEDY  Final Exam Samples 2012 Essays & Excerpts on Part A: Overall Learning Experience

Kat Henderson

July 5, 2012 

Tragedy: The Great and Despised 

Tragedy is rightly called the greatest of all literary genres. It shows humanity at its most genuine and realistic level—a level that comedy, romance, and satire can never wish to achieve. Through the heart-wrenching tales of family conflict, loss, and revenge, we as humans can experience an emotional connection with the world around us. Despite the great catharsis that can be obtained from tragedy, it is also the least enjoyed of genres, ironically often due to the same reasons which make it great. Tragedy requires us to look inside ourselves to the motives and dark desires we would rather ignore. It is much easier to choose something less mentally exhausting to spend our time reading or watching. However, this class, along with my previous experience with tragedy, is allowing my appreciation for this literary genre to grow. 

Before starting this class my knowledge of tragedy as a narrative form centered mostly on exposure to Shakespeare. Because of this, my understanding of tragedy led me to one conclusion: in tragedy everyone dies and it seems like a waste of the decent and not-so-decent alike. However, after reading Agamemnon, I understand that the significance of tragedy is not placed on the actual deaths of characters, but why they must die. Agamemnon’s murder by his wife, for example, is atonement for his earlier murder of their daughter Iphigenia. Understanding this makes it much easier to understand the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Their deaths show the end result of the follies of their feuding houses. 

One main concept of tragedy that I am beginning to understand is that characters in tragedies are not good or bad, but a realistic combination of both. While I wished to hate Clytemnestra for heartlessly killing her husband and marrying his cousin, it is impossible to overlook her sense of betrayal arising from the murder of their daughter. As Aristotle points out, tragic heroes suffer from a fatal flaw. While Aristotle is referring to pride, arrogance, or a trait along those lines, I feel that what each tragic hero suffers from is humanity. To be human is to be torn between what is right and what is wrong and to not always know which is which. I’ve always felt that Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet is the villain and the cause of the lovers’ deaths, but now I must admit that his actions were driven by his upbringing and his fanatical desire to uphold the honor of his family.

The ongoing class discussions of spectacle have also influenced my slow awakening to understanding of tragedy. As it says in the Poetics, “Nor, again, should the downfall of the utter villain be exhibited.” This reflects how the earliest Greek tragedians Aeschylus and Sophocles approached spectacle. The more gruesome of deeds happened offstage and the audience is merely told of their happening. This particular removing of spectacle allows the audience to focus more on the meaning of event, than on the events themselves. However, Euripides began to add more spectacle to the stage, a trend which has continued to modern times. Thus there seems to me to be a balance between the use of and avoidance of spectacle in tragedy. The author’s careful attention to the effect caused by the spectacle keeps it in balance. In Desire Under the Elms, for example, Abbie’s infanticide is not directly shown, but O’Neil does show what happens immediately after as well as Abbie’s indifference to the horror she’s committed. This glimpse of spectacle is just enough to cause a strong emotional reaction in the audience without that reaction being so strong that they become distracted by it for the remainder of the play.

Another major aspect of tragedy that I previously misunderstood is the catharsis involved in the resolution of the tragedies. Whenever I thought of tragedy, I assumed it would end with tears. Movies such as The Notebook, and Autumn in New York seemed to have no other purpose that to make women cry. Needless to say, I still vehemently avoid any movie resembling these. In The Eumenides, however, Orestes is ultimately pardoned for continuing the bloodshed of his family, allowing the generations of feuding to cease. This almost peaceful ending to the Oresteia’s previous endings shocked me. It filled me with a sense of relief that all of the previous deaths of the House of Atreus were not just wasted bloodshed. The ending of the Furies being given a new name of the “Kindly Ones” gives the tragedy a higher significance.

As this course in tragedy concludes, I feel that I finally understand its appeal as a narrative genre. The raw emotion and conflict between close family members is something that I can relate to in everyday life, but by seeing the extremes of this conflict, I can keep my own problems in better perspective. I have also come to understand, I think, the concept of catharsis. To me, it feels like a cleansing of all the negative and built up emotions inside that we as humans try to avoid. We might not feel happy afterwards, but the numbness that comes after the emotional purgation can be healing. This almost hopeful ending to tragedy is why I personally feel compelled to keep reading the genre. As Nietzsche says in The Birth of Tragedy, “Let us stand aside for a while, concerned by not inconsolable, like contemplative men who are allowed to be witnesses of those tremendous battles and transitions. Alas—such is the magic of those battles that all who witness them must also join the fray!”