Allen Jeffrey Gurfel

Tragedy: Midterm Essay

Oedipus and Phaedra are both tragic heroes, according to three
definitions: Walter Kaufmans definition of the tragic hero from his book Philosophy
and Tragedy, Aaron Streiters definition offered at the beginning of the course, and
Normand Berlins definition from his book The Secret Cause. First, this essay will set
forth the three views listed above. Second, it will apply them to Sophocles Oedipus
the King and Racines Phaedra.

For Kaufman, the tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragedy. His definition of
tragedy is as follows:

Tragedy is (1) a form of literature that (2) presents symbolic actions as
performed by actors and (3) moves into the center immense human
suffering, (4) in such a way that it brings to our minds our own forgotten and
repressed sorrows as well as those of our kin and humanity, (5) releasing us
with some sense (a) that suffering is universalnot a mere accident in our
experience, (b) that courage and endurance in suffering or nobility in despair
are admirablenot ridiculousand usually also (c) that fates worse than
our own can be experienced as exhilarating. (6) In length, performances
range from a little under two hours to about four, and the experience is
highly concentrated.

Interestingly, for Kaufman, not all tragedies feature a tragic hero (or, for that
matter, a catastrophic end). A tragic hero is distinguished by some sort of greatness,
usually couragebut tragedy may befall an ordinary man. Shakespeares Othello
provides a paradigm example of tragedy and the tragic hero.

For Streiter, the presence of the tragic hero indicates that the work of
literature is a tragedy. The tragic hero is an individual of greatness who is brought
low, loses his status of greatness, and/or meets his end. Rama, the protagonist of
Valmikis Raamayana, provides a paradigm example of a tragic hero. From the
beginning, Rama is the paragon of virtue.
i
However, he falls apart at the abduction of
his beloved wife, Sita. His fall from virtue is devastatingly dramatized when he
becomes Sugrivas accomplice in the assassination of Vali and subsequently loses his
martial prowess, rendering him incapable of accomplishing the task for which he
was destined.
ii


Berlin does not define tragedy, strictly speaking. Rather, he seeks to distill
something essential from the paradigm cases of a flexible tradition. The essence of
tragedy turns out to be an encounter with the secret cause. The phrase comes from
Joyces Finnegans Wake: Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the
presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human suffering and unites it with
the secret cause.
iii
The tragic hero, for Berlin, is he who encounters the radical
uncertainty at the center of our lives:

man has always been bewildered by the buffets of the world outside him,
man has always been crying out against his precarious state in a world he did
not make, man has always questioned the gods and injustice and the causes
of his suffering. That he has dared to question, whether in a shout or a painful
cry, is tragic man's dignity.... He questions and he receives no answer; there is
no direct answer for mankind. The questions remain; the ambiguities
remain; life's contradictions and injustices remain.

These views must now be applied to Oedipus the King and Phaedra.

At the opening of Oedipus the King, Oedipus is the first of men. He is
possessed of many virtues.

He is pious. It is because of his piety that he fled Corinth upon receiving
Apollos oracular message that he would lie with his mother and murder his father.
When the play begins, we find that Oedipus has already sent Creon to the oracle to
learn how to end the plague that is decimating Thebes. When Creon returns and
announces the remedythe murderers of Laius must be foundOedipus
immediately undertakes to ferret out the perpetrators and those who might hide
them. He takes the council of Creon and the people, and sends for the seer Tiresias.

He is a good ruler. At the very beginning we find the priest talking Oedipus
up, showering him with praise for his intelligence, virtue, and bravery in saving the
city once before. The priest, speaking for the people, implores Oedipus to help. Of
course, Oedipus is already on it. He has already sent Creon to the oracle. He
expresses that his suffering is great, for his heart hurts for all the people of Thebes.

He is courageous. He did not back down when he was challenged and
attacked by multiple men at the place where three roads meet. He risked his life
when he chose to attempt an answer to the Sphinxs riddle. His success in solving
the riddle is evidence of intelligence. In his pursuit of truth, he will have to march
toward a revelation that will undo him, in defiance of those close to him who beg
him to stop his inquiry and evade his questions. This quest indicates not only
courage but honesty and concern for the truth. This concern is also evidenced by his
attempt to learn the truth about his position when he hears a rumor that Merope
and Polybus are not his birth parents. He questions his parents and, when they
attempt only to comfort him, seeks the truth from Apollos oracle.

He is also concerned with justice and righteousness. He condemns Tiresias
when he, at first, refuses to reveal the truth. He is indignant that no investigation
was made into the death of King Laius after Laius death. In the end, after the
reversal and recognition, when the truth is known, Oedipus follows through with his
promise. He punishes himself with blindness and banishment.

It is obvious that Oedipus meets Streiters criteria for the tragic hero.
Oedipus is courageous, pious, noble, intelligent, honest, and just. By the plays end,
however, the King is blind and bound for exile. He has lost his composure. He has
been angered, terrified, and has raged. His wife is dead and his childrens happiness
ruined. He is exposed as the pollution of Thebes. The hero has fallen. His fate is
terrifying and his situation, by the plays end, bleak and pitiful.

If Oedipus the King meets Kaufmans definition of tragedy, then Oedipus
meets Kaufmans criteria for a tragic hero. He is courageous and suffers a
devastating fall into catastrophe. The play meets the definition. It is a highly
concentrated dramatic work focused on human suffering. The suffering depicted is
universal. The play dramatizes mans insecurity, finitude, and blindness. If Freud is
right, it stirs deep unconscious and repressed desires. It raises questions about
morality, fate, and justice.

The play raises questions for Oedipus too: What has God done to me? Ah, if
I was created so, born to this fate, who could deny the savagery of God? And he
wonders, Why? Why was he so set up by the Gods? At the heart of the tragedy is this
unanswered question, and so an encounter between Oedipus and the secret cause.
Berlin writes:

Oedipus vigorously and admirably narrows the gap between appearance and
reality . Oedipus strips away veil after veil of illusion, only to find his real
self, naked, exposed, polluted. What has God done to me? is Oedipus
momentous and agonizing question when he returns to the stage as a blind
man leaning upon a stick. It is a question that cannot be lightly dismissed,
because it is asked by the answerer of questions and because it indicates that
the intelligent Oedipus has not lifted and cannot lift the last veil. . Who
leads man on a horrible path to parricide and incest, and who does not
permit a basically good man, both pious and intelligent, to escape his horrible
destiny? The answer the gods. And this riddle forces the largest question of
all. Why? The answer is silence. The cause remains secret.

The case of Oedipus is now clear. It remains to show that Phaedra too is a
tragic hero.

Unlike Oedipus, Phaedras guilt and desire are recognized by her from the
very beginning. To see ones own movement toward destruction, and be unable to
stop it, is excruciating agony.
iv
This is precisely the situation Phaedra is in. The
daughter of Minos and Pasiphae is fully aware that unnatural desire is native to her
and that she will be unable to escape what Venus so ordains. She, the last and
most wretched of [her] tragic race, cannot resist the destiny ordained by the gods.
Despite her attempts to appease the goddess, Phaedra concludes that she too must
perish. Herein lies Phaedras heroism. She is the first not only to acknowledge her
unclean desires, but to fight against them. First, she assumes the proverbial cruelty
of a stepmother, convincing Theseus to send Hippolytus, the stepson she so desires,
far away. When the play begins, Phaedra is committing suicide, starving herself to
death before she dares act on her desire, seeking to die with her reputation intact,
fearing she can no longer bear the desire she finds so repulsive within her. This
poisonous arrow of love is only the first catastrophe to fall on Phaedra, yet it sets
her up as a tragic heroine. She would rather face death than act immorally.

Theseus is believed dead, and on Oenones council Phaedra chooses to
approach Hippolytus. With the King dead, Phaedras son, potential successor to the
throne, is in need of protection. A revived Phaedra goes to Hippolytus, confessing
her feelings.

What do I say?
He is not dead since he still lives in you.
Ever before my eyes I see my husband.
I see him, speak to him, and my heart
still.. .
Im wandering my lord. My foolish feelings,
In spite of me, declare themselves,

Phaedra, as she had implicitly predicted by her urgent attempt to end her own life,
has lost her self-control. Hippolytus is predictably disgusted by her.

O Gods! What do I hear?
Do you forget that Theseus is my father,
And you his wife?

Her attempt to back-peddle fails, and she instead admits that her love is not
innocent. She seeks death at Hippolytus hand, wishing to be pierced by his sword as
the Minotaur, a symbol of monstrous instinct, was by Theseus. Oenone intervenes,
yet this admission and rejection will inevitably bring about Phaedras downfall.

Theseus is returned and Phaedra, fearing that Hippolytus will reveal her
perverse desire, again takes the advice of Oenone: accuse Hippolytus first, of rape.
Theseus curses his son, who had no intention of revealing the truth thus multiplying
the tragedy. Phaedra, unable to bear what she has done, seeks to save Hippolytus,
but is overcome by jealousy when she learns that Hippolytus loves another, Aricia.
The hope she held after their encounter, that perhaps she could sway Hippolytus
with the charms of ruling, seems even more pathetic now than when she
entertained it directly after his utter rejection of her. Now, it isnt that Hippolytus is
chaste and averse to love, generally. Rather, he loves and desires. Phaedra simply
isnt the object of that desire. Her hands burn to plunge in innocent blood. Phaedra
is terrified by her impulses and she is trapped. She fears what she has done and
yearns for death, yet she is equally fearful of her fate in the underworld. [S]he
cannot hide in the night of death, for her father Minos is there to judge her. She can
never escape her ancestry; her torment seems everlasting and the sphere of her
terror has no spatial bounds. The fatality of her past and the turbulence of her
mindthe dark, demonic forces of destiny and psycheinspire horror in Phaedra
and in us.

Theseus misguided curse is visited upon Hippolytus. A half-dragon, half-bull
comes from the sea and brave Hippolytus puts up a fight, yet his horses are
frightened and drag the brave youth to his death. Oenone throws herself into the
sea. Phaedra, poison running through her veins, finally confesses Hippolytus
innocence and the fatal spark put in her breast by the heavens.

Phaedras suffering is universal and touches the secret cause, the inexorable
gods and the mysterious course of destiny. Racines Phaedra is an exemplary
tragedy and Phaedra an exemplary tragic heroine, according to all three definitions.




i
For Streiter, the yardstick for virtue in a given work is provided by that work. Raamayana
is a clear example: in the first episode of the epic story, the moral universe is completely
established by the account of Vishwamitra and Vashistha. Virtue (and martial power) is a
function of control over the emotions and the impulses stirred by them.
ii
Raamayana would not be considered a tragedy under Kaufmans definition. He would
argue that the experience of reading a novel or novel-length work, such as the epic of Rama,
produces a different experience in the reader. The work is closer to historiography than to
tragedy, complete, as it is, with numerous episodes, ample description, a completely
fleshed-out world and social reality, and historical detail. The density of the tragedy matters
to Kaufman.
iii
Two paragraphs from a 1983 Modern Drama review (by June Schlueter) of Berlins book
offer pointers toward the secret cause:
Berlin's opening theoretical chapter, "The Invisible Piper," insightfully argues the
connection between tragedy and Einstein's deterministic vision of life: "we all dance
to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." Whereas
"religion offers answers to the mystery" and "science strives to comprehend
portions of the mystery, tragedy enhances the mystery by dramatizing the
question."
One of Berlin's more provocative pairings is King Lear and Waiting for Godot.
Without denying Jan Kott's assessment of the Shakespeare play as absurd - in much
the same way that Beckett's Endgame is absurd - Berlin redeems King Lear as
tragedy, not through adding the religious dimension that Christian critics see in the
play, but through acknowledging the mystery that accompanies Lear's fate . In a
world of gratuitous good and evil, in which the aging king's questions find
expression in the primal howl and his awareness moves from the imperative to the
interrogative, Shakespeare "lays bare our deep ignorance and our pitiful
vulnerability." The companion play, Waiting for Godot, also presents what Berlin
calls a "boundary situation," with Lear's heath becoming the setting for the whole
of Beckett's drama. Though Beckett calls his play a tragicomedy, Berlin identifies the
world of the play's uncertainty and capriciousness, and its characters' vulnerability,
anguish, and paralysis, as access points to tragedy, with the long-awaited Godot
remaining the ultimate mystery.

iv
Berlin, The Secret Cause.