True meaning to our characters’ lives (as well as our own)
I had a new story idea a few weeks back. I am calling it a mirror story. Basically, two story lines with loosely joined characters, one a comedy and one a tragedy. Now I am about halfway through the first draft and am balking at the idea of killing off a character at the end of the story. As a writer I have never had a character die, not a main character or even someone with a name. I am not talking about just violence or sickness, nobody involved has ever died.
If anyone wants the simple junior high definition: Tragedy is where the hero dies, a Comedy is when they live. The terms have been debated ever since Aristotle and Plato and maybe earlier, but no one wrote it down on something that lasted. A tragedy can be a struggle with a bad ending, a dramatic litany of sorrows, but I like Aristotle’s definition.
Aristotle : Poetics
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.
Another translation used the word catharsis. It means a cleansing through the feelings of pain. To experience the misfortune of the character, often so much worse than our own, in order to work through our own emotions. I believe this might be the purpose of writing in general. To experience both the joy and despair, and help bring our own emotions into balance again.
Tragedy could also be a fall from grace. Though I like the idea, the phrasing, I struggle with it. We, as humanity, fell from grace due to the actions of the first people. We will be raised up again due to the actions of one Man a little later on. Only through dying both a mortal and spiritual death can we truly be raised into glory again. Are our lives tragedies? Are we living out a litany of sorrows? Are we, the hero, struggling against a foe we can not win against? I believe this is true. the Foe is greater than us. Greek tragedy is defined as a bad ending caused by the protagonist’s flawed reasoning or their ‘tragic flaw’. We are a flawed humanity making flawed decisions.
According to these definitions, I don’t actually have to have the hero die in their story line, but if it is supposed to be a bad ending, death would be the worst, right? What if the hero of the story makes bad decisions but knows Christ? Their earthly body dies but they are raised to glory and live in joy forever more. Is their story a tragedy or a comedy?
When joy strikes us, even the tiny joys like a funny word choice, we laugh. Big joys cause us to bask, drink in the moment, maybe let it soak in, pour over us. I like the image of being drenched in joy. I think that Aristotle might even agree that experiencing an immense magnitude of joy might be just as cathartic. When I arrive in heaven will I dance or fall at His feet? Will I shout and sing or be struck into silence? A song by Mercy Me asks this really well. Experiencing that much joy might actually make me laugh. Not at my good fortune or super smart decisions (sarcasm), but because it is so perfectly healing to laugh out loud. And because all those silly questions will be answered and I will be sure that our almighty God has a great sense of humour.
Laughing is what we associate with Comedy. We choose movies to make us laugh and call them comedy. Stand up comedians point out our flaws and we laugh. The Joker in Batman once said, “A joke a day keeps the gloom away.” He was right, but it might be even more than that. Just like my mother in-law does su-do-kos to combat alzheimers, some people sing every morning to stimulate their vagus nerve-it makes them feel better, their body works better. Maybe a laugh a day, not only keeps despair away but might even stimulate that nerve as well. Joy makes our lives better.