Tragic Differences
Tragedy has always been a popular theme in stories and plays. For centuries, people have been captivated by morbidly emotional finales, rather than by happy endings. Stories with a sad outcome fascinate us much more than those, ending on a happy note. Many of the best works of literature are considered to be tragedies. Shakespeare would be a perfect example of a man who had written many delightful comedies; yet, he was more famous for his grave tragedies. People seem to be more attached to something that disturbs them and leaves them uneasy, rather than to something frivolous and amusing. Maybe, it is because tragedies can be very didactic. Maybe, by studying typical causes of tragedy, a person can prevent it from happening in his or her personal life. It is much easier to learn something from someone else's mistakes than from your own. So it is possible that people who really enjoy tragedy do not really enjoy it, but use it to prevent their future misfortunes, if there are any. Otherwise, how can someone enjoy the pain and the suffering of others? But like everything else tragedy has laws. One of the laws is Hubris.A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner, can easily be classified as a tragedy. It is a repulsive story
Yet, another type of tragedy is Catharsis. In D. H. Lawrence's The Horse Dealer's Daughter, we meet the family on the verge of its downfall. Three brothers and a sister are sitting at the table and possibly having their last breakfast together. The family has fallen apart because when their father died, the horse business went down and they had to live in penury. Mabel, the only woman in the house, seems to be calm and well poised on the outside, but only later in the story, we find out that tremendous agony is devouring her from the inside. She was miserable for years and she no longer desires to endure the pain. That is when she tries to drown herself in the lake but fortunately or unfortunately the doctor saves her. As he brings her home and wraps her naked body in towels, she regains her consciousness and asks the doctor why he saved her. The young man is terrified, not realizing that he is madly in love with the woman he just saved. His professionalism makes him deny his strong feelings, but she keeps insisting that he loves her. "You love me," she repeated, in a murmur of deep, rhapsodic assurance. "You love me." (Lawrence 540) At the end of the story, the doctor does not wish to fight his feelings and emotions anymore and he accepts the truth that only a few minutes ago was a nightmare. He is ready to marry Mabel and reassures her that he wants her. The story is a clear example of Catharsis because in the beginning things are very ambiguous and shaky for Mabel and her future. Her spirit is broken and she wants to escape the horrors of her reality. But as the doctor saves her, she realizes that she is still young and life is worth living and that is how the order of her life is restored. She also realizes that she is in love and she no longer acts as a shrew. She now has someone who will take care of her, a person with whom she is deeply in love, and from a girl living in the past and rejecting the present, she ma
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Approximate Word count = 1314
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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