Niki Bippen

May 6, 2016

Tragedy: Defining the Human Condition One Text at a Time

     As I have said numerous times, when I first signed up for this course I was simply not sure how we could bridge what appeared to be a vast chasm between African and Greek texts. I suspected that even by focusing on a comment theme such as tragedy would serve to only show how different these two cultures are. I knew Dr. White would explore what I presumed to be subtle similarities to the best of his capabilities, but I was not holding my breath for much more than a desperate stab in the dark. However, this could not have been further from the truth. Africa and Greece almost seem intimately linked in their tragedies. All of the texts and materials mirror each other as they force us to face our own demons. Both African and Greek texts focus on irony, spectacle, marketplaces, women’s issues, tragic flaws, and man’s fight against destiny. What I have come to understand through this course is that tragedy, regardless of its origins and cultural heritage speaks to the human condition. Tragedy confronts our shortcomings and frustrations as human beings while telling us to never give up. This is what African and Greek tragedies share in common: the will to fight against all odds and to hold our heads high in the face of adversity.

Perhaps this idea is most deeply echoed in the play we watched near the start of the semester entitled The Trojan Women. While this is a Greek play in origin with thus primarily white characters, the cast took creative liberty and seized the opportunity to not only explore hardships of women, but also issues of race. By having people of color play the role of the Trojan citizens fighting against white men and women who filled the cast of the Greeks, we can really experience the conflict between genders and race sufficiently. We may also use this an opportunity to see the closeness of the struggle between not only black and white, but also men and women, and Greek versus Trojan. By allowing ourselves to experience the racial and patriarchal tension in the play, we begin to see similarities in various cultures that help connect us as human beings through our experiences. We come to realize that our struggles are not necessarily unique to our gender or race and that others have experienced the same tribulations as us.

In both my research project and midterm, I admitted to my own shortcomings in regards of a lack of knowledge regarding both Tragedy and Africa. I imagined that the amount of African materials that predated slavery would be limited and those that were published after would only focus on racial issues but none of this proved true. While issues of race are definitely present within the texts, they do not hold center stage. Instead, the African texts share the same values as the Greeks and call our attention to universal issues that are felt across the board; not just by one race or group of people but all. In an effort to keep our attention on the subject at hand, both genres use a stage or marketplace to contain the bulk of the action. Limited descriptions regarding the stage scenery are offered and this is an attempt to contain the spectacle and drive the plot forward. Dr. White acknowledges this and notes that many plays do not actually show the murders or gory bits on stage but rather allude to them. The point of doing this is to “involve the audience in something higher, nobler… [or] according to Aristotle, ‘fear and pity’ or catharsis” (Dr. White). In other words by suppressing the spectacle, the audience can focus on what is really important: the plot, the cast, and the meaning. This is something I learned not only in my midterm, but also in my research project as well as further readings that occurred in the latter half of the course.

Throughout both my midterm and my research project, I seemed to be focused primarily on African texts and the subject matter of race. I was also interested in the literature that predated the colonization of Africa. While certainly a great starting place for learning about African culture, I was really doing the materials and myself an injustice by not exploring this place after the colonization. The latter half of the course served to show how the white man really took everything from the black man; essentially, European settlers raped Africa. This appears to be what The Rape of Shavi is metaphorically and literally reaching for as a conclusion. I believe Desmund Tutu described this colonization and the pillage of Africa best when he said, “when the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” These texts also serve to show us Africa as the birthplace of humanity and Greece as the birthplace of Western literature, which is unfair since we tend to focus primarily on Greek tragedy. The value instilled upon Greek tragedy versus African and thus the latter’s lack of occupancy in the canon is an atrocity; through African literature we not only experience the culture and are provided with fantastic works, but we also begin to understand the struggles faced by not only a culture but an entire race.

In conclusion, the meeting of Tragedy and Africa not only allows us to find similarities between two cultures that seemingly have little to nothing in common, but also teaches as Westerners that our experiences are not as unique as originally contrived. By exploring the literature offered up by both we begin to see things that not only these texts have in common, but that we share as human beings. Tragedy is intimately linked with the human experience and by playing to the similarities of the texts, we feel intimately connected with cultures that we viewed as outsiders. We begin to realize that we really are not all that different at all and in today’s society that it is an important concept as we often feel divided. Much as the Africans must have felt with white invaders, or the women of Troy when Greeks marched upon their city, or the women of the past struggling for a voice in a patriarchal society, we realize that we have always been fighting someone or something and many times are unfairly divided by race, gender, political views, etc. Courses like this remind us that at the end of the day tragedy is not unique to one culture and thus neither are our hardships. Instead, we must use these hardships to come together. I truly believe that this is the ultimate goal of Tragedy and Africa: to unify.

This is to say that only by taking such a course and paying attention to the key factors that define tragedy are we able to come away with not only a better understanding of the materials at hand, but also a better understanding of our condition and ourselves. Tragedy teaches us that life is not about suffering, but rather transcending it. Throughout this course I learned more than I ever thought possible in regards to both Greek and African texts: I discovered things about myself that until now have lain dormant. My struggles and experiences are not unique to me but rather are shared by cultures around the world. I have felt the blindness of Oedipus, Antigone’s anger at a patriarchal society, the browbeaten attitude of The Trojan Women as they succumbed to fate, and even Creon’s firm grasp on power. I have felt oppressed by other cultures and races because of gender, heritage, and skin color and through this course I realize that I am not alone in these feelings. I discovered that this is what tragedy means and it is not unique to me, but rather an integral part of the human condition that not only defines us but also shapes us.

Irony and Women’s Issues take Center Stage in the Fight against Fate

While both Greek and African tragedies employ a wide variety of terms to accomplish their goal, irony, women’s issues, and man’s struggle against fate appeared to be the most prevalent and arguably the most important. Irony is deeply rooted within all of the texts that we read and is a simply inescapable aspect of tragedy. Throughout these texts we are consistently presented with examples of irony; whether we are looking at Oedipus’s fear of the prophecy, which ultimately causes him to fulfill it, Creon’s attachment to masculinity that ultimately leaves him powerless, or the fact that Cassandra in The Trojan Women can see the future, and is relieved by her impending death, but is never believed. Women’s issues also permeate many of the texts in an effort to not only give women a voice but to draw attention to their suffering. While African texts tend to treat women better, “men, finding women like Mumbi on the roof hammering in the nails, stopped to tease them… [And] what good ever came from a woman’s rule?” (137). Despite their slightly elevated position in society, they are still viewed as incapable of effectively ruling or doing men’s work. The fight against fate is another important aspect of tragedy that is quite prevalent as demonstrated in the following paragraphs.

 Oedipus the King is an excellent source of irony and man’s fight against fate. In the play, Oedipus is told that he will slay his father and marry his mother. Despite actively fighting against the destiny foretold to him, the prophecy fulfills itself; mostly because of Oedipus’s own actions. His tragic flaw, metaphorical blindness, is what causes the downfall of the king. He has no one to blame but himself. Had he not conspired to act against fate, he likely would have prevented it from happening.  Oedipus’s blindness can be summed up best near the end of the play when he is talking to his daughters and describes the man he once was by saying, “he was a man, who, seeing nothing, knowing nothing, fathered you with the woman who had given birth to him” (1754- 1756). Oedipus lived his life in metaphorical blindness and in a heavy dose of Greek irony, has gouged out his own eyes. Now he will live literally as he did figuratively: blind. While not necessarily inspiring, it does synchronize with our own frustrations regarding the fight against fate.

Oedipus also speaks to the issues of women and foreshadows his daughter Antigone’s fate when he says, “I think about your life in days to come, the bitter life which men will force on you” (1758-1759). While this is a heavy foreshadowing of things to come for Antigone, it can also be reflective of the role women play in both society and marriage. Women are expected to behave a certain way in public as dictated by men and were made to dutifully fulfill their husband’s desires without question or complaint. Throughout the African and Greek tragedies the audience watches as women struggle for a voice and position within society that transcends the low rung they have unfairly been placed upon. The ironic twist of this is that what women do not realize is that they actually control a lot of the action within the play in many of these texts. Antigone’s decision to go against Creon’s orders is what pushes the storyline along and controls the pace and action of the play. Mumbi’s infidelity causes a lot of issues for Gikonyo and the bulk of his decisions are made because of Mumbi’s affair with Karanja. While this is not always the case as in The Trojan Women who see the irony in falling from a high position in society to the lowly position of slave or concubine, this version of irony does occur throughout some of the texts.

While in African texts such as A Grain of Wheat they are acknowledged to an extent as powerful, seductive, and are credited with giving life, they still are expected to behave as women and follow the orders of men. We can even reflect upon the aforementioned quote in regards to The Trojan Women who were accosted by the male conquerors and sold as slaves or concubines. Seemingly in many of the texts, the men around women define the latter’s role. Oedipus acknowledges this injustice. Greek tragedies appear to focus on the consequences of a woman’s desire to transcend her position in society while African texts acknowledge women as powerful beings that are responsible for giving life while also exploring their more feminine, sexual side. Even though the bulk of African texts seem to focus on racial tension, particularly that “black rule would not mean, could never mean the end of white power”, they do allow us an intimate look at the hardships of women (38). Despite the slightly higher position in African as opposed to Greek culture that women occupy, they still are not given much free will and are often the victims of men’s undesirable intentions (IE Rape).

Antigone is another play worth exploring in regards to tragic elements. At the start of the play, Antigone wishes to bury her brother Polynices that has been expressly forbidden by the new king, Creon. When asking Ismene to conspire against Creon with her to bury the body of Polynices, Ismene says to Antigone, “we must remember that by birth we’re women and, as such, we shouldn’t fight with men” (77-78). Like Ismene, Antigone recognizes that it is not a woman’s place to go against the commands of a man, especially a king. However, Antigone cannot bear the thought of her brother being left to rot outside of a grave and buries him despite Creon’s wishes. This decision ultimately causes Antigone to not only be jailed but to take her own life. It can easily be said that all of Antigone’s struggles (including her death) as well as the tragedies that occur within the play including her death are the result of men, in particular Creon. Creon’s desire for power and his tragic flaw (masculinity) are the root cause of the suffering in the play. In short, Antigone and its conclusion give readers a taste of irony, women’s issues and the losing battle fought against fate. Antigone’s desire to bury her brother also mirrors Andromache’s to bury her son Astyanax.

     In conclusion, both African and Greek tragedies force us as an audience to acknowledge the futility of the fight against fate. In the end, destiny is almost always inescapable. However, tragedy is quick to remind us that even though it may seem impossible to transcend our current condition we should never stop fighting as this is what makes us distinctly human: the inability to give up. These plays allow us to take the irony of Oedipus’s struggle as well as Antigone’s hardships as a woman, the racial issues of The Trojan Women and find comfort in the fact that not only are we not alone in our similarities with the cast of these plays, but that our struggles are given a much needed voice. Irony and women’s issues are essential to both Greek and African tragedies just as much as the fight against destiny. Irony serves to not only keep us interested, but to really show the futility of the fighting against fate while women’s issues give females a much needed voice in patriarchal literature. Tragedy speaks to us on a deep, subconscious level and not only draws us into its conflicts, but instead holds a mirror to our own lives and we begin to realize that we are not so different from the characters after all.