19th and 20th Century Tragedy

Tragedies in the 19th and 20th centuries have broadened, with the actual definition of a tragedy becoming less specific. Today, modern audiences do not empathize with the kings and lords that starred in the tragedies of the past so the subject matter of tragedy has shifted to investigating social ideas and personal journeys. Often the characters involved are ordinary people in situations than anyone could be involved in. The point now is often not just to provide entertainment, but also to give a message and teach us about ourselves. The changes probably begin with the works of the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, who is considered to have created modern tragedy. Prior to him what was expected were noble people fighting against the evils of the world. However, he challenged the idea that people who do good achieve happiness and those that do evil end in tragedy. He introduced realism to theatre, where the protagonists can be endlessly doing good deeds and fighting against evil but still meet tragedy in the end.

The 20th century has seen the work of many European dramatists becoming popular, with much of it being translated into English. These include especially the Russian Anton Chekhov and the Swedish August Strindberg. Chekhov's works include The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya. Perhaps his greatest contribution to theatre is what is known as Chekhov's Dictum, in which he suggested that if you put something on stage it must be for a reason. It is also true of prose writing and it is summed up in the phrase attributed to Chekhov in Gurlyand's Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." August Strindberg was a great pioneer of naturalism in theatre and this is shown in his most famous play, Miss Julie. Naturalism attempts to recreate onstage an exact replica of reality. Things should happen in realtime and there should be no changing of set. The actors are required to virtually become their characters and experience all of their emotions for themselves by linking the events of the play to real events in their lives. The movement was opposed by the dramatist Berthold Brecht, who argued that what was important was the recreation of the issues not the recreation of the event. The practice of linking a characters emotions with your own and "becoming" a character is also considered dangerous, especially within the genre of tragedy which deals with extreme emotions. For example imagine a professional actor playing Macbeth or another extreme character for 6 nights a week for several months. The emotional strain of feeling these emotions could have massive psychological effects on the actor.

The 20th Century has also seen the emergence of the great American playwrights. Several of these were primarily writing tragedy. The first of these was Eugene O'Neill, who brought the naturalism of Strindberg into American theatre. His plays were usually about characters that inhabited the edges of society where their hopes and aspirations ultimately end in despair. His works include Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude and Mourning Becomes Electra. The other two great writers are Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. Williams' writings were greatly influenced by his troubled family life and his plays include The Glass Menagerie, Suddenly Last Summer and his most famous work, A Streetcar Named Desire. As the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, Arthur Miller experienced much anti-semitism in his life and this influenced much of his later work. His best known plays are The Crucible and Death of a Salesman.

Examples

The Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen - this is a play that is very much aware of the unfair social conditions of the time in which it was written. The main character is a woman, Nora, who is a second-class citizen compared to her husband. She is the doll of which the title speaks. She forges her father's name on a note in order to save her husbands life, but this is discovered and she is blackmailed. Her husband is only concerned with the tarnishing of his reputation and states he will put her away. However the blackmailer accepts he is wrong and in any normal Victorian drama this would be the end, with everyone being happy. However, Nora has seen her husband for what he really is and she leaves her home and her children.

This was a huge scandal in Victorian times. The sacrament of marriage was a massive thing for them and many theatres refused to stage the play. The tragedy of it is slightly more difficult to grasp than many others. Nora has suffered her fall but it is difficult to pin down what her crime has been to lead to this. This is a prime example of it not being the actions of the individual that has lead to the fall, but it is in fact the social situation in which she lives. It is the fact that she is not on a level with her husband that leads her to lose everything.

Miss Julie by August Strindberg - this play is very simple, yet shows a massive attention to the naturalism for which Strindberg is famous. There are only 3 speaking characters in the play: Miss Julie, the daughter of a Count in whose house the play is set; Jean, the Count's footman; and Christine, the cook who is engaged to Jean. The count is away and the servants are celebrating Midsummer's Day. The bulk of the dialogue is between Miss Julie and Jean. They speak, recount their dreams to each and eventually agree to run away together. Jean has a large-scale plan to open a hotel in Eastern Europe, but he needs money to do this. Miss Julie, who knows the whereabouts of some of her father's money, is to provide this money. Jean seduces Miss Julie and they prepare to leave. But their plans go wrong as Christine returns to the scene along with the count. Jean's admissions of love to her earlier in the play are revealed to be lies. Miss Julie refuses to go with Jean and he cannot leave without her. Eventually Miss Julie suggests suicide, because she has lowered herself to sleeping with a servant and she will never be able to recover from the shame of this. Jean readily agrees, as he is likely to lose his job and possibly life if his actions are discovered. Jean continues with his job like normal as Miss Julie goes into the garden and slits her wrists with his razor.

The play is incredibly tragic and it is difficult at first to see who is the victim here. Miss Julie is stuck in the endless circle of her class. She is trapped by her status. Jean offers her a release, but in the end she would rather die than go through with it. At first glance Jean is a victim as well. He has lied to Miss Julie but he is still willing to take her with him and treat her as if he does love her. His seduction of her is portrayed as something that happened on the spur of the moment. However after watching the end of the play and going back to look at the beginning and the way he acts it begins to look more and more that he has planned from the beginning the seduction in order to help him to get the money from Miss Julie. At the end of the play it is Miss Julie who is dead as Jean continues as normal. Therefore Miss Julie is our tragic hero and her excess is in the first instance a need to fall. She wants to come down to Jean's level. However her other excess is an excess of naivety. She is far too trusting of Jean and believes his lies. However her willingness to accept his lies is perhaps part of her desire to fall and she is in fact walking willingly but unwittingly to her death.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams - this play revolves around a married couple, Stanley and Stella, who live in New Orleans. Stella's sister Blanche comes to visit with news that the plantation owned by their family has gone bankrupt and been split up between their creditors. Things start well for Blanche and she even begins a romantic relationship with Stanley's friend Mitch. However the relationship between Blanche and Stanley is strained. He gets in contact with friends in other cities and finds out about her past. It turns out that she was well known as someone who slept with a lot of men and was sacked from her job as a teacher for sleeping with a student. This information is used by Stanley to split up Blanche and Mitch and Blanche begins her downward spiral. As the play progresses she loses her grip on reality even more until eventually, as Stella is in labour, Stanley rapes Blanche. Because of her insanity no one believes Blanche and she is lead away by a doctor to be taken to a mental institution.

Blanche's fall is mainly as a result of what is missing in her life. It is an absence rather than an excess. She wants to be loved. She implies to Mitch part way through the story that she caught her first husband with another man. She has been deprived of love all her life. This is the reason she has slept around in her former home as she is trying to find love. Things go better for her when she meets Mitch and she thinks that she has found love, but Stanley puts a stop to this. It is his unwillingness to accept her that drives her to insanity and his raping of her that finally tips her over the edge.

The Fall of Anakin Skywalker

And so we return to the world of Star Wars. The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker fits in perfectly well with all the examples listed above. However his flaw is more complicated than the others and his excesses are more difficult to pin down. Partly it is his ambition: he wants to become the greatest Jedi ever. But this isn't ambition like Macbeth. Anakin wants to become the greatest Jedi in order to protect those he loves and that love is his next excess. His love of Amidala forces him to defy his master and go against the Jedi creed. Perhaps his biggest excess is his impatience. It is this impatience that leads him to take the quick and easy path of the Dark Side and that leads him to use his anger. He is impatient to become a great Jedi and so when the Council spurns him he goes instead to Palpatine, who shows him his true power. It is this impatience, combined with his ambition, which eventually leads to his downfall.