Tragedy: trag-e-dy (noun)
- an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.
- a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character.
Source: dictionary.com
Back in Shakespeare’s, plays that had a happy ending were called comedies. These are the As You Like Its, Merry Wives of Windsors, and Much Ado About Nothings. Plays that had an unhappy ending (i.e. where everybody died) were called tragedies. These are the Anthony and Cleopatras, Hamlets, and Romeo and Juliettes. The tragedies were also what my education primarily focused on (though I preferred the comedies).
I have a distinct memory of my 9th grade class reading Romeo and Juliette and realizing how dumb said characters are after being promised this amazingly beautiful tragic romance. I have been disappointed in the play ever since.
My question is why? Why are the tragedies so famous and beloved (or at least built up in popular culture)? Why is Romeo’s and Juliette’s relation held up as the greatest romance when the snarky relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is right freaking there!
At least Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy and Liza Bennet are much more fondly remembered as good couple goals (mostly by woman) compared to Charlotte Brontë’s Rochester and Jane.
Regardless of the quality of the relationships, tragedies and tragic stories hold a place in our story telling back pockets.
I recently saw the ballet Swan Lake, one of the most famous ballets (I’m told it’s more famous than The Nutcracker, but that’s another argument I’m not getting into) in the world. I was somewhat familiar with the story, having seen The Swan Princess (the Disney knock-off movie) as a small child. That movie gets the whole Disney treatment with a “and they lived happily ever after” and a million direct to video/dvd/streaming sequels.
The ballet ends differently.
Spoilers: the main love characters die.
Though I probably wouldn’t have realized they had died if I hadn’t read the program. It wasn’t the clearest ending other than the bad guy getting his arm ripped off during the final battle. It’s all very symbolic. However there is a final kiss, so if you didn’t read the program you could have easily assumed they “lived happily ever after”.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the ballet. The dancing was wonderful.
“Swan Lake” isn’t the only tragic ballet. In fact, it seems to be a popular genre in ballet. Giselle, Madame Butterfly, and even - sigh - Romeo and Juliette are all extremely popular and well known ballets.
Seriously, what is the appeal of a sad, ten tissue story? I just don’t understand why society, myself included enjoys these stories. Normally, I want something happy to entertain me.
Or maybe I do understand…
In 2019, I was going through a rough time having been laid off and ghosted by some really good potential job leads. A very good friend of mine took me to see Hadestown - an updated story on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
For those of you unfamiliar with the myth, spoilers: it’s a tragedy. Orpheus fails in his mission to bring Eurydice back from the dead.
I went into the musical with only the knowledge that it was an update to the myth. The opening song “The Road to Hell” introduces the characters, their roles in the story, and that the story is a tragedy, but they “were going to sing anyway”. As the play went one, I hoped that the ending wouldn’t be myth accurate. I wanted the things to end happily.
Then the song “Doubt Comes In” is sung. It’s the third to last song and about how Orpheus has learned so much and he isn’t the happy-go-lucky naive, but determined boy anymore. He’s world weary and uncertain. He knows he could fail.
And he does.
The penultimate song is a retread of “The Road to Hell”. It reminds us that this story is a tragedy and that they’re going to sing it again and again, hoping that the ending will be different, knowing it won’t. “It’s a sad song, but we sing it anyway,” says Hermes - the lead to the Greek Chorus.
I loved it.
It was cathartic.
I wasn’t in the best place in my life and Hadestown allowed me to experience and express my sadness and frustration in a controlled environment. I was able to work through my emotions using characters going through their own trials and tribulations. The characters had failed and I felt like I was failing at life in that moment (I wasn’t but that was the feeling).
I also loved the jazz music.
I’m currently reading the book Babel: or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang. By the title alone, I wouldn’t be able to guess if the book is going to have a happy or unhappy ending. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be unhappy and tragic, but cathartic. It’s about magic, the power of words and knowledge, early Victorian England, and colonialism. The main character was saved by a man who might be his father, while the rest of his family died of Cholera. He’s taken from his home in China to England and at first it seems like a wonderful opportunity for the orphaned boy. He’s trained in Latin and Greek and is accepted to Oxford’s translation program. However, the boy has questions. Why won’t the man explain his real relation to the boy? Who was the “previous one” he’s heard about? And why didn’t the man also chose to save his mother like he had been saved?
So far, I’ve only been able to answer one of the questions. Another is speculated at in the book. However, that last question, which the boy has asked over and over, has yet to be explicitly answered. It’s the lack of answer that gives us the biggest hint and allows the reader to infer that the man just didn’t see the boy’s mother as all that important. The boy is what the man wanted, the woman (who was also Chinese) was inconsequential to him.
It is hinted that the only answers the boy is going to ever receive are going to be awful and horrible. There isn’t a happy ending for the boy’s curiosity. So, what choices will he make. My guess, for a cathartic ending, is tragedy.
In comparison, I recently finished a book called Whalefall by Daniel Kraus (the book comes out in August, I won an advanced Readers Copy). This book has a “happy ending”. It’s a horror/thriller novel, so by happy I mean that the main character lives at the end. However, I’d classify this book as a tragedy because the main character, Jay, fails in his mission to find his father’s bones while diving off the California coast. The book covers the break down between Jay and his father’s relationship all while Jay is trying to escape being swallowed by a whale. Jay’s oxygen is getting low. He’s slowly being crushed by the whale’s muscles, depth pressure, and guilt.
It’s a painful book to read, but cathartic. I’d recommend it to people who have strained relationships with loved ones. There were times I needed to put the book down and just sit with my feelings.
And that’s why I like some tragedies.
I originally asked: why do we like tragic stories?
My conclusion is that that provide an emotional catharsis. They let people work through their own negative emotions in a controlled environment. It’s okay to cry when the main characters die. It’s okay to feel disappointed when they fail. Life isn’t all sunshine and roses when we forget that the sun can burn and roses have painful thorns.
After all, everyone’s life story ends in death - which is a type of tragedy.
What are some of your favorite tragedies. Please let me know in comments.
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Until next week.
