John Buice

LITR 5831 midterm

13 October 2014

The Tragic Irony of Irony in Tragedy

          The first thing to strike me about the Greek Tragedies was the use of dramatic irony.  I asked myself why would people see a play whose outcome and events were already known to them? Where is the drama in that? So I began with those questions and found that dramatic irony was more than a literary device but a metaphor for the human condition.  The Greeks practically deified Reason.  Rational thought and knowledge were the keys for humanity’s success in defeating the cruel dictates of existence.  Oedipus exemplified wisdom and intelligence and how reason can raise people out of suffering.  The implication of dramatic irony in Oedipus the King is that if the characters could know all the information, then suffering could be avoided.  But Sophocles juxtaposes Greek confidence in Reason with the idea that wisdom is also a curse.  Teiresias emphasizes that Oedipus’s reason will not save him and explains that though he has eyes he cannot see.

          Dramatic irony instructs through participation.  The audience participates because they have all the information about Oedipus in advance, yet they are as impotent as Oedipus to stop the tragedy unfolding before them.  People recognize Oedipus not as someone greater than man but one of their own.  The pervasive net imagery in The Oresteia and Oedipus references the human condition ensnaring everyone and that no amount of Reason, intelligence, wisdom, or greatness will help people escape.  The audience is like Cassandra, we all see what is about to happen but are powerless to stop it.

          The most important lesson of Greek Tragedy is perseverance through action.  Interestingly, the dismal and futile attempts of the Greeks to overcome the basic human condition of tragic existence did not lead them to a nihilistic interpretation of life.  They continued to improve their lot all the while knowing their efforts were practically useless.  The Greeks chose not to give in to the inherent pessimism of a tragic existence—unlike some of the French existentialists.  Instead, they decided to act.  Action, when held up against inaction, imparts virtue and moral behavior.  Acting while knowing the action is in vain is especially moral and virtuous.  The audience’s desire to help Oedipus avoid this tragic fate is contrasted with the Chorus and other characters not wanting to act or get involved.  Thus dramatic irony evokes a sense of justice to act even if that act is fundamentally futile.

          This is why, I think, Aristotle imparts a seriousness to actions or imitation (a form of action), especially in tragedy.  Actions determine the value of life, not inaction.  The great qualities of Oedipus, Agamemnon, and other Greek heroes were immaterial; their actions determined their status as tragic heroes.  Animals (like dogs?) exist in the world as it is, but humans recoil and act against it.  The tragic irony is that this act is done with the knowledge of its ultimate futility.  So the Greeks, like Cassandra, endeavor to go forth with dignity and regality, knowing full well what lies ahead.  Even the knowledge that all their attempts fail does not deter them; they persevere despite this knowledge.

          Knowledge of the human condition plays and integral role in Tragedy.  Aristotle calls this transition from ignorance to knowledge “recognition.”  This is important because life is given meaning through the ironies revealed from that recognition.  Knowing the tragic futility of life while continuing to act and extract ourselves from the net of existence is an exalting moral lesson or exercise.  There are no answers, no reason to persevere, yet we do.  This supreme act of will—of free will, as when the Chorus of Agamemnon exhorts that we should accept our fate with free will—alone elevates us above all other creatures.  The ability to try is enough to impart a moral and virtuous character to human acts.  Out of this sense to act, the Greeks derive their ideas of morality and justice, which is reflected in the ubiquity of sacrifice as a significant part of tragic narratives.  Sacrifice is an act, wholly distinct from prayer or wishful thinking.  The act of sacrifice is meant to encase action in ritual and religious significance.  For example, when Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigeneia, the act is given meaning in two ways.  First, it represents a person’s attempt to change their lot in life through an act (allowing his ships to get out of the harbor). Secondly, it reveals that all acts, good or bad, right or wrong, eventually lead to tragedy and disaster.  The sacrifice of Iphigenia gave impetus to a cycle of violence, but that happens to be an unfortunate consequence: to fulfill the Greek idea of honor and life, Agamemnon had no choice but to act and sacrifice his daughter in order to embark on Troy.  Sitting in the harbor, idle, would have been a great moral injustice to Agamemnon. 

After absorbing the importance of irony, especially dramatic irony, in the Greek Tragedies, I was shocked to find a strikingly similar framework of virtuous action and irony in the works of African literature.  So rather than encountering a clash between Greek Tragedy and Africa, I experienced a resonating influence and connection between the two eras and cultures.  “Master Harold” and Things Fall Apart operate as tragedies through the vehicle of irony.  In “Master Harold”, ironies abound.  Harold tries to educate Sam but considers education valueless for himself; Harold recoils at having to empty his Father’s chamber pot and other demeaning acts of servitude yet demands that Sam accept unquestioningly his role as servant; and Harold repeatedly admonishes Sam for acting like a child when he acts like a petulant child himself.  These ironies, and others, offer the audience a stark contrast between action and words, or inaction.  The dichotomy between action and inaction, as virtuous and non-virtuous behavior, reveals the tragic irony inherent in the lives of both whites and blacks.  The people, culture, situation, codes of morality and justice are remarkably different from those expressed in the Greek Tragedies, but Sam attempts to extract himself from his inferior position in a way similar to the Greeks.

          Though the tragedy of Harold is quite obvious, especially when exposed through the ironies of racism, what above the tragic condition of Sam and Willie?  Their tragic lot in life feels distinctly different from Oedipus and Okonkwo’s.  The tragedy of Oedipus involves the ironies of humanity’s terminal lack of knowledge while Okonkwo’s stems from the irony of an accident.  The actions of Oedipus and Okonkwo are related to their tragedies.  Their tragedies are understandable in terms of an individual living in an unjust and uncaring universe where the best of intentions come to naught.  I get the sense that no matter what they did, their lives would end tragically.  But Sam and Willie’s fate evokes a more sympathetic response because their individual choices did not lead them to their fate.  With Oedipus and Okonkwo, all one can do is rail against a cold, unresponsive universe; in Sam and Willie’s case, there is a different object of rancorous denunciation: other humans, especially Western culture.  We can blame people in the African Tragedies, not the universe, and this distinction produces and entirely different reaction to tragedy.

          What really struck me was how Sam dealt with this tragic fate in life: it was rather similar to Oedipus, Agamemnon, Okonkwo, and other tragic heroes in that he chose to act as the only moral response to his tragic condition.  “Master Harold” is replete with the advocacy of action by Sam and inaction by Harold.  Harold constantly “waits” for a social reformer to appear (which reflects Harold’s unconscious understanding that the world needs to change because of the West’s culpability in how the world is; if white superiority and intelligence is so great, then why is the world not “hunky-dory”?  When Harold laments that the world is messed up and needs a social reformer, he implicates himself and Western culture).  Sam, however, always makes the case for action.  Harold is even bitter by the “acts” of his predecessors by giving Africans limited freedoms.  Sam’s waltz later in the play, coupled with his descriptions of beauty and how the metaphor of the waltz (dancing is action, embodying an active response to the tragic circumstances in life) makes one feel as though they are in a world where accidents do not occur, emphasizes the virtuous character of doing something to mitigate the unpleasantries of life.       

          Oedipus, Agamemnon, and Okonkwo also argue for the virtue and justice of action.  But Sam makes the case that action is not confined to the great heroes—either the great historical people they discuss in the play or, emphatically, the great white race—but that “everybody’s got it” and can act to make life better to mitigate the suffering of the human condition.  Just as the dramatic irony in Oedipus places the audience in an empathetic and sympathetic position with Oedipus, so does the irony of Sam’s character: virtuous action, as opposed to any form of inaction and resigned indifference to human existence (which Harold characterizes), is the moral prerogative of all people.  Though separated by two millennia, Sam’s moral lessons are the same as Oedipus’s.  Sam understands that his life is beyond change, but it would be immoral and unjust not to at least to try to act to change it.

          On a final note, I think the reason family and community, especially in Things Fall Apart, are so prominent in the literature of Tragedy is because the tragedies of life met alone are unbearable.  The only comfort we can find after doing everything to overcome our human condition and failing is each other.  This is why tragedy is generally dramatic rather than literary or in novel form.  To experience and witness the tragedy of others resonates deep within every person’s psyche.  Family, tradition, custom, and literature all attempt to extend human consciousness and existence into the future and out of the cold grasp of an uncaring universe.  We share in the tragedy while simultaneously transcending it.  So I think the literary nature of Tragedy performs a cathartic function in that people learn through the ironies and dramatic ironies of Tragedy that all our attempts are futile yet we persevere.  Ironically, then, I have found that Tragic literature, so far, is a rather enlightening and optimistic genre rather than pessimistic and nihilistic. Studying Greek and African Tragedy provided me with the opportunity to find my own place within a shared experience of other people by connecting and empathizing to characters two millennia ago and in cultures utterly foreign to mine.  Their tragedies are mine, and mine theirs; there can be nothing more human than that.