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odd_buttons) wrote2004-10-07 06:16 am
odd_buttons) wrote2004-10-07 06:16 am
Catharsis
The following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Catharsis
If you are determined to have a work end with loss, failure, death, abandonment, or other assorted miseries, you have to figure out a way to make your readers feel that their pain is worthwhile and rewarding. That's a serious challenge.
Catharsis, the term made famous by Aristotle in his discussion of tragedy, refers to the sensation of exaltation that can result from experiencing sadness and fear. But what happens and why are not perfectly clear. Catharsis literally means purging. It can make you feel both exhausted and elated, as if you were emotionally scoured. Catharsis can make an audience understand the inevitable sufferings of all humanity. And catharsis can be an intellectual moment that gives you a private recognition. Tragic endings can create a meaningful, beneficial, even exhilarating experience for an audience.
The question is how to make unhappy endings work. A classic strategy, as in Romeo and Juliet is to make it clear from the beginning that your audience is viewing a tragedy. Readers are psychologically prepared from the start to focus on how plans go awry, the psychology of the characters, and the fickleness of fortune. (Even though we still hope, every time, that this time they will escape happily.) Another way is through close attention to foreshadowing, as in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, where a gradual darkening of the lives of the characters makes Emma's suicide not only inevitable and appropriate, but even a sort of release from pain.
At one time the "four-handkerchief" book or movie was very popular. Audiences looked forward to a good cry. Right now, people seem to be made uncomfortable by unhappy endings. They want things to come out right for the characters they like. The reasons for that are too complicated to talk about here. Perhaps in a secular society tragic endings are no longer seen as meaningful, perhaps contemporary audiences feel overburdened by the enormous tragedies of late-twentieth-century life. But as a writer you need to be aware that tragic endings are a problem. Your story has to transfigure the sadness you create to readers feel catharsis (whatever it may be), and not depression (they already know what that is too well).
Catharsis ultimately is an aesthetic term. It means you did it right. Your readers don't feel cheated or disappointed or manipulated by the tragic end. You created a world in which the pattern was fulfilled by the darkness that brought it to a close.
See Endings, Poetic Justice, Resolution, Sentimentality.
Catharsis
If you are determined to have a work end with loss, failure, death, abandonment, or other assorted miseries, you have to figure out a way to make your readers feel that their pain is worthwhile and rewarding. That's a serious challenge.
Catharsis, the term made famous by Aristotle in his discussion of tragedy, refers to the sensation of exaltation that can result from experiencing sadness and fear. But what happens and why are not perfectly clear. Catharsis literally means purging. It can make you feel both exhausted and elated, as if you were emotionally scoured. Catharsis can make an audience understand the inevitable sufferings of all humanity. And catharsis can be an intellectual moment that gives you a private recognition. Tragic endings can create a meaningful, beneficial, even exhilarating experience for an audience.
The question is how to make unhappy endings work. A classic strategy, as in Romeo and Juliet is to make it clear from the beginning that your audience is viewing a tragedy. Readers are psychologically prepared from the start to focus on how plans go awry, the psychology of the characters, and the fickleness of fortune. (Even though we still hope, every time, that this time they will escape happily.) Another way is through close attention to foreshadowing, as in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, where a gradual darkening of the lives of the characters makes Emma's suicide not only inevitable and appropriate, but even a sort of release from pain.
At one time the "four-handkerchief" book or movie was very popular. Audiences looked forward to a good cry. Right now, people seem to be made uncomfortable by unhappy endings. They want things to come out right for the characters they like. The reasons for that are too complicated to talk about here. Perhaps in a secular society tragic endings are no longer seen as meaningful, perhaps contemporary audiences feel overburdened by the enormous tragedies of late-twentieth-century life. But as a writer you need to be aware that tragic endings are a problem. Your story has to transfigure the sadness you create to readers feel catharsis (whatever it may be), and not depression (they already know what that is too well).
Catharsis ultimately is an aesthetic term. It means you did it right. Your readers don't feel cheated or disappointed or manipulated by the tragic end. You created a world in which the pattern was fulfilled by the darkness that brought it to a close.
See Endings, Poetic Justice, Resolution, Sentimentality.