|Time for the flip side.|
|Noh is equivalent but also different.|
|Peer pressure never looked so good.|
Let me pause for a moment on the term "call and response". To those familiar with a religion, one would typically find within a religious service there are moments when the audience is asked to read or chant something in response to the religious leader. This sense of religion is important because ultimately, no matter how we try to hide it, tragedy ultimately comes from religion and thus has a lot of religious overtones. Specifically it came from worshipping the great god Dionysus--who was a male fertility god, god of wine, and god of theatre. It was thought each year that the god Dionysus would be ritually killed and then dispensed to be "consumed" by the rest of his followers, giving them life from his harvested death. If that ritual sounds familiar it's because you can still see it in practice in the religion of Christianity today. It's the communion ceremony, only its "dying god" is Jesus Christ--not Dionysus.
This ritual surrounding the death of a god and how it renews the community is still at the heart of tragedy, for all tragic heroes act as stand in for the "dying god" and their deaths are an act which renew the community that surrounds them. However, like Dionysus, just because they die that doesn't mean they're dead. It's here where we have to explore why the tragic deed is done in the first place.
|It could turn on him at any moment...|
|Time, that ticking rascal!|
And all of this is great and wonderful, but how does all of this make us "sad" or "cry"? Well, for that answer, I turn back to Poetics:
"A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; ... in dramatic , not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions." --Aristotle
It's the senses of pity and fear that cause us to feel sad or to cry. And that feeling of sadness or the action of crying is a purgation (aka catharsis) of those feelings of fear and pity. Catharsis gives us a feeling of "release" or satisfaction and it all ties into how we connect with the tragic hero and his or her plight. Were they noble causes to fight for? Did they end up making mistakes along the way that they ended up paying for? Were the forces they were up against needed to be changed? And how does that reflect our own positions?
|Aeschylus, the father of tragedy|
Tragic heroes are our martyrs, and like Mark Antony's speech from Julius Caesar, can turn a crowd of hatred and indifference into a loving crowd baying for the blood of those who killed their martyr. Tragic heroes fall, but they fall to inspire us and through their fall live on in how they continue to inspired and renew us--the audience members. We pity their fall, we fear their fall, but through fear and pity we come to a catharsis which allows us to see how we have changed the world for the better, or how we can continue doing so in the future. It's a communion ceremony for society, except without the bread and wine.
The Diary of Anne Frank
I Am Legend
Here's your video clip: Mark Antony's speech from Julius Caesar that I spoke about. Watch as he through the power of story telling transforms Caesar into a tragic figure.
Until next time,
Next Theoretical Post: 5/20/13 - What Makes Us Laugh -- Part Two: Romantic Comedies, when Opposites Attract
Next Serial Post: 6/3/13 - What Makes Us Cry -- Part Two: Melodrama, when to bring a handkerchief