Tragedy has been around for centuries! But what exactly is tragedy? Well according to Aristotle, “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.”
What Aristotle is saying is that tragedy has a form as well as a function. The form of the tragedy involves certain criteria that is often common to any story such as having a beginning, middle, and end as well as having action that propels the plot. The function of the tragedy is then discovered through the acting, the language, and the emotional response from the audience.
Aristotle emphasizes these emotional responses as a unique aspect of tragedy. However, it isn’t just ANY emotional response. Instead, the complexity of the plot develops through the incidental rousing of pity and fear from the audience. Aristotle also emphasizes the need for the tragic hero’s reversal of fortune as a result of the character’s hamartia (which means the character’s mistake or flaw). However, according to Aristotle, this character should not just be any common fella. Instead, he should be a great man, or a man who is well-known thus emphasizing the drastic fall to which he will eventually succumb.
Let’s break this down into something more manageable. Here are the ideal elements of tragedy that Aristotle claims should be present in any tragic work:
A great man or a well know man
Reversal of fortune (from good to bad) caused be some action
Complex
Uses incidents to arouse pity and fear from the audience
Hamartia (the character’s mistake or flaw that causes his/her reversal of fortune)
Miller on the other hand wrote an essay entitled “Tragedy and the Common Man”. In this essay Miller refutes the classical notion of having to have a well-known character as the tragic hero. Miller instead claims “the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were.”. Miller goes on to say “if the exaltation of tragic action were truly a property of the high-bred character alone, it is inconceivable that the mass of mankind should cherish tragedy above all other forms, let alone be capable of understanding it.”.
So within the drama unit, we covered two plays both of which had a different focus on heroes. The first play we covered was Hamlet, by William Shakespeare and the second was A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. Both stories take place during different periods and the the form or structure presented by these two men.
Until Next Time!
Comments