final exam assignment

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

Umaymah Shahid

07/07/2012

The Beauty of Tragedy

          Every genre has its own appeal, and while some might be inviting others might be quite repelling. For me, Tragedy was a genre I had to convince myself to take a class for.  Tragedy seemed to always deal with blood, death, and grief. I could not understand why someone would take interest in something that only caused sadness and where in the end all the characters would die. Despite all the negative ideas I came into class with, I have learned that Tragedy is much more than death and rivalry; it is about human reality, man’s love and lust, and the fragility of family.

          During the course of the semester I have learned that Tragedy is a slightly exaggerated form of human behavior and reality. Tragedy teaches the audience what is truly happening in families and how the ills within this structure affect our society. It not only depicts reality but invites the audience to look at human psychology which shows that humans are not black and white but that their personality is shaped through various events. In Tragedy, the characters are not only good and evil, but most characters are a mix of both and though one might have more evil than good there is always an explanation of that character’s attitude. For example, when looking at the Greek play, Agamemnon, the audience feels a strong sense of repulsion when Clytemnestra welcomes her husband by murdering him. Yet through the many discussions in class, the majority understood that her reason for killing her husband was to avenge her daughter’s sacrifice and there was a sense of understanding even if there was no sympathy. The real world is not like Romance where there is good and bad, yet it is a mix of the two where one’s personality is shaped through fate and free will.

          To allow the spectators to develop this sense of pity and fear of the characters, Tragedy has also developed on the spectacle. I had believed that spectacle was important in engaging the audience and letting them in on the action. Spectacle in Tragedy however, has a whole new meaning. Spectacle creates suspense and allows the spectator to use his or her imagination as to what occurred. The suppression of spectacle is seen in all the plays that were studied in the semester such as: Agamemnon, Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Hippolytus. In each play a messenger comes to the chorus or the main character and narrates a murder, ripping of the eyes, or suicide. For example, the audience does not see when Oedipus takes Jacosta’s buttons and gouges his own eyes out. This is instead told by the messenger who comes to tell Creon of Oedipus’s deeds. Aristotle states in his Poetics that “fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means… for the plot ought to be so constructed that even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place” (XIV a). Thus, the reason behind the suppression of spectacle is not to hold back the audience from the action but to not lose them in the action. It allows the reaction of catharsis, pity and fear, to overtake the audience through the language and action of the messenger, not the action itself.  Tragedy is a unique genre in that it forces the audience to look at the conflict and its consequences rather than the way the ending played out. 

In genres like Romance and Comedy spectacle is not suppressed because it is through the spectacle that the plot becomes a Romance or a Comedy. In a Romance, if the audience was only shown the couple falling in love and then them getting married, it would not appeal to the audience. With the audience involved in the plot’s development (i.e. the two couples being separated and the conflict) the plot takes up the Romantic genre. Tragedy is thus unique in its take on Spectacle.

What was interesting to me throughout the class was the difference between different genres despite the fact that they interweave at certain points. Comedy, Tragedy, and Romance, each differ in their plot, setting, and character attitude. In Romance the story goes along the lines of a problem occurring where two people are kept apart and the story moves along a certain conflict which keeps the couple apart until they get together again. There is a distinct difference between good and bad, and in the end, there is usually a “happily ever after”. In Tragedy on the other hand, there is an illness within a family which plagues the society and the tragedy ends with the resolve to the problem either through the silencing or banishment of the hero (White).

The audience feels fear and pity for the characters because of their humanized conflicts and their desire for revenge (Evans ¶3). There are no good or bad characters in Tragedy, instead each character is a mix of both and though in the end the hero dies or is banished, the audience feels a sense of grief as well as contentment that the hero was rid of his/her pain and was honored by others. Tragedy elicits a feeling beyond happiness and as Nietzsche states in The Birth of Tragedy that true tragedy gives a “metaphysical consolation that whatever superficial changes may occur, life is at bottom indestructibly powerful and joyful” (Nietzsche 39).Though Tragedy is very hard to swallow it is a reminder that despite all unfortunate events life will remain on its course and will continue to thrive. And though the hero might have died, there is peace in his/her death. In Hamlet, though Hamlet dies in the end, the audience feels a sense of peace that the King died, Hamlet died knowing that his father’s murder was avenged, and Fortinbras honored Hamlet for his heroism.

          Tragedy is especially striking because when studying it, one comes to see that it is not all blood and gore. Though there are some very disturbing scenes, such as Oedipus stabbing himself blind, tragedy is about the conflict, the solution, and the method of finding the solution (without much spectacle) which usually ends in the hero’s life ending. Throughout this class thus far we have discussed the different aspects of tragedy and how though it is a very sad and gruesome genre, there is a lot more to tragedy than what many people come to know it as.  

Works Cited

Evans, Allison. “Shades of Grey.” Final Samples. 2010. Web. 6 July, 2012. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/4533/models/2010/f2010/f10Bking.htm

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. England: Penguin Classics, 1993. Print.

White, Craig. “Aristotle’s Poetics.” Online posting. N.d. Course webpage Tragedy. University of Houston-Clear Lake. Web. 6 July 2012.

---. “Terms/ Themes: Tragedy.” Online posting. N.d. Course home page. University of Houston Clear Lake. Web. 6 July 2012.