final exam assignment

LITR 4533 TRAGEDY  Final Exam Samples 2014 (final exam assignment) Essay 2: Special Topics (Topic 4: Spectacle & the Sublime)

Scott Agruso

The Evolution of Spectacle in Tragedy

            Spectacle is defined as “A specially prepared or arranged display of a more or less public nature (esp. one on a large scale), forming an impressive or interesting show or entertainment for those viewing it” (course website). Spectacle acts as the mechanism that fuels the enjoyment of the abundance of blockbusters and “popcorn flicks” at the movie theater during the summer. For many people, the embellishment of spectacle, with its explosions, futuristic sets, and computer-generated makeup is what they have come to expect when experiencing a modern drama, and if the movie does not deliver in this aspect, it is openly berated, mocked or tossed aside when discussed with others. Spectacle, most notably in the portrayal of death or injury, was not always embraced. Greek tragedies almost always repressed spectacle, forcing bloody and other potentially audience-alienating scenes out of the spotlight and away from view. As tragedy modernized, the repression of spectacle lessened.

            In Classical Greek tragedies, spectacle is often repressed, although the reasons why can easily be disputed. One theory is that the technological limitations of the time prevented showings of spectacle from being believable. Perhaps Greek tragedians, whose plays were performed at Dionysian festivals in front of families and common citizens, believed that gory displays of violence would be too much for audiences to handle. Another possibility could be that Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides chose to repress spectacle for artistic purposes, asking audiences to rely on their own imaginations to conceptualize the brutal violence that occurred.

            For whatever reason, the choice to repress spectacle was obviously an intentional one. In Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, the only indication the audience receives of Agamemnon’s death comes from an off-stage scream and his own announcement of the “deadly blow” (1589). Shortly afterward, the lifeless bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra are revealed to the audience through the opening of the palace doors. This trick of spectacle is repeated by Sophocles in Oedipus the King when Oedipus opens the palace doors to reveal his blindness to the audience, who had just heard the news of both Jocasta’s death and Oedipus’s striking of his own eyes from a messenger. Euripides, differing from the other two major Greek tragedians, used spectacle to his advantage. During the Bacchae in the lead-up to the play’s climax, thunder and earthquakes are used to enhance the moment and intensity of the play. Despite this displayed understanding of spectacle as a mechanism for his play, Euripides still chooses to repress the spectacle of Pentheus’s dismemberment by the maenads, choosing only to describe the brutal, violent death to the audience through the words of a messenger.

In Poetics, Aristotle states that “spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry” (6g). As evidenced by the popularity and profitability of Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise, which features the absence of any semblance of character growth and plot, spectacle can absolutely act as a substitute for poetry and art. However, as shown by the embracing of spectacle in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which was written nearly two thousand years after the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, spectacle can work simultaneously with poetry. Shakespeare intentionally plays with spectacle as a way of building anticipation and making the ending’s embracing of spectacle more impactful. The killing of King Hamlet, the bedroom, and final scenes of the play act as perfect examples of this. King Hamlet’s death, the catalyst of the play’s events, occurs before the play begins, and the manner in which it is “shown” is through the words of a ghost to young Hamlet. In the bedroom scene, the spectacle is relatively repressed when Hamlet stabs Polonius through a hanging tapestry. Although the audience knows a murder has just occurred, the actual act is concealed from view. The culmination of all the play’s events occurs in the final scene of the play, and Shakespeare eliminates all traces of the repression of spectacle through the killing of multiple characters. Even though the action of the scene occurs rapidly, the finality of the action is more impactful as a result of Shakespeare’s gradual freeing of the reins of spectacle throughout the play.  

Even though the repression of spectacle has lessened over time, there are instances and subjects that spectacle has yet to fully embrace. One striking example of this is the repression of displays of children being violently injured or killed. The scene in which Abbie smothers her and Eben’s son in Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms did not feature a dramatic display or struggle on stage, and was purposely done out of the audience’s view. Much like Shakespeare did in Hamlet to use spectacle as a means of anticipation, O’Neill uses Annie’s words to slowly and methodically reveal the misdeed she had committed. The protection of innocence in theatrical plays continues in movies today. In “Jaws” (1975), a shark attacks a young boy in a raft on the beach, and although blood is clearly shown, the actual act of the shark biting is veiled by the water. In “My Girl” (1991), when the main character is attacked by killer bees, the “death stings” occur only when the only thing the audience sees are his glasses crashing on the ground.

When the death of children actually is shown completely, it is almost always a result of a dehumanization of the child or the act being presented in a comedic manner. A commonly used trope in horror movies is a possessed child standing silently across the room. Characters in horror are often forced to brutally kill the child (who is often their own), and rarely is an effort made to repress the spectacle of their death. Movies like “Kick-Ass” (2010), gratuitously displays violence with and against children as a spectacle to produce a comedic reaction from the audience, although the children in the movie are presented as having maturity beyond their years (removing their innocence). Even as the need to repress spectacle decreases, innocence has remained protected against these forces.

According to the course website, the sublime is described as “beauty mixed or edged with danger, terror, threat—all on a grand or elevated scale.” Dionysus acts as a champion of sublimity; with his beauty also comes an uneasiness and recklessness that has the potential to destroy an individual. The goddess, Aphrodite, also acts as a sublime figure within the Euripidean play Hippolytos. Both Pentheus and Hippolytus respectively recognize the dangers that exist, whether consciously or not, by giving themselves up to the gods. Even characters who are not gods can act as sublime figures; Oedipus is an example of this. Whitney Evans states that “while the audience is disgusted with Oedipus’ actions, they are also considering the face that his plight was placed upon him” (model assignments). The play’s opposing forces of respect and disgust that are felt for Oedipus allow the audiences of tragedies to connect with its characters on a deeper level.

            Spectacle’s gradual evolution has allowed tragedy to grow and become more accessible to mass audiences. According to Nietzsche in Birth of Tragedy, Euripides realized that tragedy needed something else to prevent it from dying and recognized the value in embracing spectacle in his plays, as evidenced by his use of earthquakes and thunder to raise the intensity of scenes in the Bacchae. Playwrights like Shakespeare and O’Neill, over two thousand years later, continued the evolution of spectacle, which allowed a wider variety of audiences to appreciate their plays. Today, traditional Greek tragedies that repress spectacle find themselves with only niche audiences to perform to. The majority of audiences today prefer to see plays with extravagant sets, believable special effects, and other tricks of spectacle to keep their attention.