Tragedy has been on a major comeback for the past few years; indeed it seems we can’t go a week without something being dubbed ‘tragic’ in some way or other. The most notorious example of this was, of course, the ‘9-11 tragedy’, but one mustn’t discount the Columbia tragedy, the Columbine tragedy, or indeed pretty much any number of other ‘tragedies’ which invariably take place on a weekly basis, especially in a gun-saturated, violence-worshipping culture such as the USA’s.
There’s a glitch on the news radar, however. With only a statistically-irrelevant number of exceptions, those aren’t tragedies at all.
The root of the problem appears to lie in a news industry which is constantly running short on superlatives they can use to peddle their wares unto a public which, to the outsider, must seem semi-literate at best. Just because someone dies doesn’t make the event tragic. Indeed even if thousands die we may well be in a situation which completely lacks in tragedy. In fact the most textbook case of tragedy in the history of the written word only distantly involves a death and does not even end with it.
I am of course speaking of Sophocles’ classic tragedy Oedipus Rex, the first part of the playwright’s Theban Trilogy. Those not familiar with the play would do well to pick up a copy. It would be rather cartoonish to try and sum up the plot here so I’ll not try (although that’s rarely stopped me before); however the elements of true tragedy can all be found there.
Tragedy is not inherently situational. It simply does not occur from one moment to the next by dint of exceptional happenstance. It begins first and foremost with a protagonist responding to a crisis which is more or less commonplace in the world surrounding him according to the best of his abilities. Oedipus, the protagonist, is in the early parts of the play King of Thebes, a position which he has reached not through succession but through his own work and effort; as such his (not altogether unearned) pride guides his actions.
The key to the play, is the ironic situation which surrounds Oedipus’s very existence; there is something he does not know which later proves to be pivotal to the denouement of the play. His not knowing this very important and crucial fact provides the setting for the course of action which he is to take. However in itself this state of affairs does not provide us with the spark which causes the protagonist’s undoing. Jocasta, Oedipus’s wife, realizes what the point of irony is, but even in her situation she realizes that terrible as it may be, the secret, should it remain hidden, can in fact be endured. She pleads with her noble husband to desist from his investigations and continue life in ignorance, but to no avail.
Now although, as everyone knows, Oedipus ends up blinding himself off-stage in what is the climax of the play, this unseen instant only occurs as a result of his proudly insisting that a certain oracle, unknown to almost all including himself, be made public; and this oracle (of course) unlocks the riddle of the ironic situation. After all, why should he not wish it so? Being, as he sees himself, a self-made man, and not one of particularly high birth, why should he be concerned about oracles, which traditionally had only been noteworthy when they foretold the death of some emperor or other; how could an old oracle fail to bring anything but honor and glory on himself, and even foretell his rise and reserve for him a place among the highest? Well, as those familiar with the play know, things simply do not turn out as he intended. The end of the play shows Oedipus, who had hitherto occupied the highest place a man could aspire to, as a pathetic broken figure, blind, ostracized, beginning a new life as a crippled wandering beggar forced to depend on the living reminder of his own shame in order to survive. How the mighty have fallen indeed! First blinded by his sense of self-importance, he ultimately carries the metaphor into the physical realm as a self-meted if rather gruesome penance.
At its core the story is not one of killing, incestuous intrigue or grotesque dismemberment. It is a tale of overwhelming self-pride in a classical Greek context where the rank and station of a man were decided, not from his life, but from his birth. It is a tale of humanly boasts in a world-view that would simply not admit to free will or lack of predestination. It is an exhortatory myth against the very belief that a man ruled, or even influenced, his own destiny — and any attempts to steer clear of one’s intended faith was by its very nature doomed to fail. It is the proverbial pride that goeth before a fall.
Thus Oedipus is the architect of his own downfall. He falls from very high to the very lowest rank of humanity in a catastrophic way because of the same trait which elevated him to his former glory. It is his own fault and he clearly recognizes that fact. Literally he brought the tragedy on himself.
What does that have to do with contemporary tales of woe? Well, unless one is willing to say that September 11th 2001 saw some three thousand souls extinguished by their own doing, as opposed to the more rational and reality-based view of things whereby 19 deluded coward whoresons committed the mass murder of innocent civilians on a scale seldom seen, then the terrorist attacks on the New York and Washington do NOT constitute a tragedy… just common crime on a very large scale. Likewise, Columbine was but a crime, although an especially shocking one. And one would be very cynical to call the disintegration of space shuttle Columbia a tragedy when, as investigations have yielded, the cause thereof is a great deal more down to earth than it is some godly punishment for violating the ‘sanctity’ of space — the reading of this incident which brings it closest to a tragedy.
Zero of three. And that’s just by picking the three most obvious and representative instances. Unfortunately the trend shows no sign of abating, so we can be quite sure to see lots more of those ersatz ‘tragedies’ pop up on a regular basis.