How does Williams present tragedy
in contemporary ideas? Discuss.
This part deals with the contemporary
tragic theories and literature. He presents the discussion on tragedy in
relation to the contemporary ideas. The writer has discussed the four
things: order and accident, the destruction of the hero,
the irreparable action and its connections with death and the
emphasis of evil. The tragic experience of every age is unique. Williams says
that modern and its suffering are very complex and it would be a mistake to
interpret the tragic experience of the modern man in the light of the
traditional concepts. Tragic experience attracts the beliefs and tensions
of a period.
It is neither possible nor
desirable to have a single permanent theory of tragedy. Such an attempt would
be based on the assumption that human nature is permanent and unchanging.
Rejecting the universalistic character of tragedy, Williams says:
“Tragedy is not a single or permanent fact, but a series of conventions
and
institutions….The varieties of tragic experience are to be interpreted by
reference to the changing conventions
and institutions”
It is generally said that there
is no significant meaning in ‘everyday tragedies’ because the event itself is
not tragic; only becomes so with a through a shaped response. Williams does not
agree to this view. He cannot see how it is possible to distinguish between an
event and response to an event, in any absolute way. In the case of ordinary
death and suffering, when we see mourning and lament, when we see people
breaking under their actual loss, we have entered tragedy. Other responses are
also possible such as indifference, justification, and rejoicing. But
where we feel the suffering, we are within the dimensions of tragedy. But a
burnt family or a mining disaster which leaves people without feeling are
called Accidents. The events not seen as tragic are deep in the pattern of our
own culture: war, famine, work, traffic, and politics. To feel no tragic
meaning in them is a sort of our bankruptcy. Rank was the dividing line because
the death of some people mattered more than others. Our middle class culture
rejects this. The tragic of a citizen could be as real as the tragedy of a
prince. The emerging middle class rejected rank in tragedy.
The individual was not a state; but the entity in him.
Williams is averse to any kind of theorizing so he declares:
“It is necessary to break the theory if we are to value art”
Raymond Williams rejects the
argument that event itself is not tragic but becomes so through a shaped
response. It is not possible to distinguish between an event and response to an
event. We may not response but it doesn’t mean that the event is absent.
Suffering is suffering whether we are moved by it or not. In this way, an
accident is tragic even if we do not apply to it the concepts of ‘ethical
claim’ or ‘human agency’. He also doesn’t seem to approve the distinction
between accident and tragedy. Famine, war and traffic and political events are
all tragic. It is often believed that tragedy was possible in the age of faith
and it was impossible now, because we have no faith. Williams, on the contrary,
believes that the ages of comparatively stable belief do not produce tragedy of
any intensity. Important tragedy seems to occur, neither in periods of real
stability not in the periods of open and decisive conflicts. Its most common
historical setting is the period preceding the complete breakdown of an
important culture. Its condition is the tension between the old and the new
order. In such situations, the process of dramatizing and
resolving disorder and sufferings is intensified to the level which
can be most readily recognized as tragedy. Order in tragedy is the result of
the action. In tragedy, the creation of order is related to the fact
of disorder, through which the action moves. It may be the pride of man
set against the nature of things. In different cultures, disorder and
order both vary, for there are parts of varying general interpretations of
life. We should see this variation as an indication of the major cultural importance
of tragedy as form of art. We can see his argument as under:
“I do not see how it is finally possible to distinguish between an event and
response to an event” and further “behind the façade of the
emphasis on order, the substance of tragedy withered”
The most common misinterpretation
of the tragedy is that hero is destroyed at the end. Our attention is so
concentrated on the hero that we miss other aspects of
tragedy. Reading of Hamlet without the Prince Hamlet is nothing
but reading it without the State of Denmark would also be
meaningless. Destruction of the hero is normally not the end of the action. In
most tragedies, the story does not end with the death of the hero; it follows
on. It is not the job of the artist to provide answers; but simply
describe experience and raise questions. Modern tragedy is not what happens to
the hero; but what happens through him. When we concentrate on the hero, we are
unconsciously confining our attention to the individual. The tragic experience
lies in the fact that life does not come back, that its meanings are reaffirmed
and restored after so much suffering and after so important a death. Death
gives importance and meaning to life. The death of
an individual brings along the whole community in the form of rituals
and condolence as in ‘Adam Bede’; so tragedy is social and collective
and not individual or personal. Death is absolute and all our living
is simply relative. Death is necessary and all other human ends are socially
collective. Death is universal so a dead man quickly claims universality. When
we confine ourselves to the hero, we are, unconsciously, narrowing the scope of
tragedy. By attaching too much attention to the death, we minimize the real
tragic sense of life. Man dies alone is an interpretation; not a fact; when he
dies, he affects others. He alters the lives of other characters. To insist on
a single meaning is not reasonable. The tragic action is about death but it
need not end in death. Moreover, what about the other characters who are
destroyed? Williams says:
“We think of tragedy as what happens to the hero but ordinary tragic
action is
what happens through the hero”
There is a growing belief that in
the modern age, the true nature of man is evil and evil is more potent and
attractive. Tragedy shows us that evil is inescapable and irreparable; a
sole reminder against the illusions of humanism and optimism. The theory of
evil is significant in tragedy but not without limitations. There has always
been a great emphasis on evil as a source of tragedy. But there is a tendency
to generalize evil. He thinks that most of the great tragedies of the world end
not with absolute evil but with evil experienced and lived through.
Tragedy dramatizes evil in many particular forms: not
only Christian evil but also cultural, political and ideological.
Good and evil are not absolute. We are good or bad in particular ways and in
particular situations; defined by pressures we at one received and can alter
and can create again. Williams rejects that man is naturally evil or good. His
dictum will finalize my answer because he declares:
“Man is naturally not any thing and we are good or bad in particular ways in
particular situations”
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