Tragedy

I enjoyed writing my tragedy essay. My ultimate conclusion was that tragedy depends on the society. The Greeks loved their kings, but we could care less about kings and we don't adore leaders just for being leaders. So we turn to the people. I agree with Arthur Miller: we weep at the tragedy of the common man. Tragedies should also end well, not in disaster. Still sad, of course, but very meaningful. What thinkest thou?

Yes, it's my essay

Tragedy and the People

A tragedy has to consist of a character in a high class of society who, following an error that anyone could make, loses his grip on power and falls to the bottom rungs of society. Or so said Aristotle in his praise of Oedipus (Lytle). But do all tragedies share this template? Can we call a story a tragedy if it diverts from this standard? What, today, gives us that tragic feeling? I believe a tragedy in the modern day revolves around the common man and his familiar struggle against an unfair world. Many writers throughout history have disagreed, however.

Some hold that tragedies have to involve a great and very public fall. In their 1998 article, "On Wall Street, Pride Signals a Fall,” Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner contend that today’s corrupt CEOs evoke in us the sense of tragedy that the tragic Greek heroes did. According to Niederhoffer and Kenner, these modern events parallel powerful Greek tragedies. The main character holds a high and respected position, acts overconfident and, through his or her hubris, loses the respected position. Public embarrassment is a necessity.

Contrarily, playwright Henrik Ibsen believes the action of the tragedy takes place in emotions rather than on a political or economic stage. While Aristotle believes that tragedies should center around a very public fall (Lytle), Ibsen contends that public embarrassment does not have to be involved. He writes that the situation of a woman, with her feminine morals and beliefs, losing to a world of men and their masculine morals, is a tragedy. Mental conflict is the key here. The woman loses her sense of sureness and ends up morally compromised and mentally lost.

Washington Post writer Lloyd Rose agrees that the main action of a tragedy should take place in the mind. Rose points out a vast difference between Greek tragedies and the more recent Shakespearean tragedies. The summary of a Greek tragedy, says Rose, is action-packed and interesting: “Man unknowingly kills father and marries mother, discovers the truth and blinds himself.” A Shakespearean tragedy sounds much less exciting: "A man makes a bad decision and is mistreated by his children." Clearly, Greek tragedies were based on the movement of characters through different situations and different societal positions. But in Shakespeare, the action is all in the mind.

A viewpoint completely contrary to Aristotle’s is that the common, everyday man is every bit as qualified to be a tragic hero as a Greek king. Arthur Miller, the famous author of Death of a Salesman, says, “the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing--his sense of personal dignity. From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his society.” Miller might agree that the emotional mind is the stage for a tragedy rather than a political stage. According to Miller, we feel tragedy when we see immense passion, care, and hard work result in nothing.

A complete view of modern tragedy should consider all of these points. The definition of tragedy depends on the society. The Greeks revered their kings; for them, as for many European societies, the common man was nothing. Kings had a special place in the hearts of the populace. The Greeks wept when a leader fell. In the modern age, however, we no longer weep when a leader falls. Rather than respect political and economic leaders for their status, we care about them because of what they can do for us. South Africans do bemoan the retirement of Nelson Mandela because he was a great man, but also because of what he did for the country. He fought to raise up the common man of South Africa, and for this the citizens love him. In the Western world there are few leaders whom we consider “great men.” In fact, in the modern world the position of the common man has risen far above what it was in ancient Greece. The kings are dead. We are in the age of the common man.

The characters we care about, therefore, are our fellow people. As Arthur Miller points out, their struggles are the uphill struggles against a society that aims to keep them down. It is the story of the salmon swimming upstream, whom we watch, pity, and empathize with as he pushes against all external forces to achieve his goal. The tragic feeling comes to us when he fails, through no fault of his own, but because society refuses to let him raise his position. Of course there are hardly any real-world examples of this to which we can look because real-life tragic heroes do not become noted or famous. Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner would argue that the bosses of Enron and other such defrauders qualify as tragic heroes according to Aristotle’s definition. However, they do not take any noble actions (as Aristotle and Joseph Krutch require) and do not fall from power on a simple mistake--their whole persona is a lie. The citizens did not mourn their fall, either. As opposed to the story of a noble king who loses his position because of a simple error, the entire journey of Enron was an error. There was no nobility. Tragedies, therefore, cannot be made up simply of hubris.

Since we get the tragic feeling from stories that follow Arthur Miller’s definition--Tragedy and the Common Man--a tragedy does not need hubris at all. I believe that in the modern world we are all a bit fed up with hubris. Greedy men who lust for power and ultimately fail have plagued the pages of history too long for us to sympathize with them anymore. We don’t care about the falls of greedy people any more than we care about the falls of average leaders. A character has to capture our hearts with his passion and unending devotion to his cause.

To recap, a tragedy must center around a common man who tries harder than anything to improve his situation. He goes to all lengths and devotes all his energy to his cause. But ultimately, society or outside circumstances do not allow him to rise above his situation. He fails not from lack of effort but from the influence of an unfair world.
However, the ending should not leave the audience hopeless. On the contrary, it should expand the audience’s thinking on life and leave the audience hopeful that the world is ultimately good. His Dark Materials, for example, a trilogy by Philip Pullman, ends with the two protagonists and lovers realizing that because of unfair outside events, they can never be together. They discuss options for staying together that would require otherwise unthinkable sacrifices, but ultimately conclude they have to separate and never see each other again in this life. They have both defeated impossible chances to do good, but they receive no reward. However, the story ends on a hopeful note. Although the lovers are separate, they each realize they can make the world a better place with the spiritual inspiration of the other. This is the best kind of tragedy.
What, then, do tragedies teach us? They teach us that regardless of situations, our attitude controls our happiness. We can always do something, even if the world tells us we can do nothing. The world can at times prevent us from achieving our highest goals, but it is important to try. Even if we don’t succeed in our lifetime, the effort and the passion that we devote to our cause will inspire the readers of our story to change the world.

Whew. Thanks for hacking through that.

Essay

Here is a section of my essay. Do you agree or disagree? Should tragedies teach us something? What should they teach us?

However, the ending should not leave the audience hopeless. On the contrary, it should expand the audience’s thinking on life and leave the audience hopeful that the world is ultimately good. His Dark Materials, for example, a trilogy by Philip Pullman, ends with the two protagonists and lovers realizing that because of unfair outside events, they can never be together. They discuss options for staying together that would require otherwise unthinkable sacrifices, but ultimately conclude they have to separate and never see each other again in this life. They have both defeated impossible chances to do good, but they receive no reward. However, the story ends on a hopeful note. Although the lovers are separate, they each realize they can make the world a better place with the spiritual inspiration of the other. This is the best kind of tragedy.