question for April 3rd

Posted on March 30, 2007

Since Professor Pereboom (from Philosophy) will be giving a presentation on Tuesday (about Girard's weird, and controversial, Violence and the Sacred--two e-reserve readings for Tuesday), there won't be a formal discussion question. This would be a good opportunity to reflect on what you've written in your journal so far (in anticipation of when you will have to turn it all in at the end of term, with a cover letter / preface).

Or you can just reflect on questions about tragedy / the tragic as they have popped into your head so far this term. Talking about Scotland, PA yesterday I was thinking, for example, about how much a story veering into comedy (even black comedy) prevents it from being viewed as tragedy / tragic. Tragedy, I guess, calls for a certain kind of realistic emotional investment that comedy typically forestalls or prevents. So think of the scene in which Norm Duncan becomes "one big french fry," for example, a scene completely without the tragic intensity of that same moment in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Morrissette's version of this film is different for a bunch of reasons: 1) he's just said he doesn't think he can kill Norm; but then he punches Norm, for no apparent reason; and 2) then the witches make a momentary appearance (not so in Shakespeare), and this causes Mac to lose his sense of where Norm is, so that Norm "accidentally" gets killed--which makes Mac seem much less culpable than Macbeth; add to that 3) the death in the deep fryer is so comically grotesque that it's hard NOT to laugh, so that any possibility of deep emotionally resonance is lost (though the comedy might be ample compensation). In any event, what I am wondering is if the comic aspects of Scotland PA, however faithful the story is in a general way to Macbeth, prevent it from the sense of "suffering" that is so central to tragedy. And note, for example, that Mac is given no scene, no dialogue that would suggest "remorse" (Catharsis), which is one key way, for Aristotle at least, in which audiences take on a sort of empathy with / sympathy for the tragic hero. Does the sound and fury speech give us that in Macbeth, for Macbeth, or not? Does the lack of that prevent Morrissette's film from operating as tragedy?

I'm not asking you to answer those questions (though you can if you want). I'm just suggesting that you reflect on some question about tragedy as you have encountered it this term.