Aristotle And The Irony Of Guilt
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Aristotle : The Irony of Guilt
The foundation upon which Aristotle rests his fundamental element of anagnorisis, in the Greek Tragedy, seems to always come back to human guilt, and the chosen actions by the hero forms the consequences of that guilt, which thereby determines the resolution. This sets an empathetic hook between audience and hero. It is the emotion that sets forth every action that will determine the heros endgame. Aristotle, in his formula for Greek Tragedy, sets up the central hero as an almost mythic figure, where a fall from their steadfast and exemplary morality is that much longer of a descent. In the characteristics given to the central heros of your classic tragedy, Aristotle is bringing to the forefront how a fall from grace will be all the more of a price that this hero will have to pay. Usually this in direct proportion to the initial heights of greatness that the hero figure personifies. It is with these outstandingly mythic traits that it is inevitable that the moral hero will feel profound guilt, seeing what has been done, either directly or indirectly through his actions. The situation lays out like paths of fate, seemingly steered from the heavens by The Gods, guiding them towards an inescapable conclusion. We feel for our hero in this way. Even the less benevolent among us has want and need to rectify the wrongs we perceive to be around us. Even on the sliding scale of morality, everyone carries a sense of what is to do right, and what is to do wrong, although some of the actions taken to meet these ends can be interpreted in different ways by the observer. There is no end scale to mark what the right and wrong is in a given situation. Usually the end judgment is left to the observing majority. The audience. It is by this rule that most laws are created and constitutions based. The audience is well aware that a sometimes hard decision, though not always readily apparent to the hero, will have to be faced. A conclusion formed from the consuming guilt from there deeds, thereby still keeping the hero within his sensibilities and nobility. In The Ethics of Guilt, William Neblet explains that “With some sense of the diversity inherent within the subject of guilt in mind, let us begin with the central, though indeed obvious, point that customary morality esteems feeling and experienceing guilt to be a moral good.” (Neblet) The hero must have his hamartia, resulting in anagnorisis. The hero must make it right.
If guilt is the nail that drives into the hook holding audiences sympathies, then irony is surely the hammer. Often perceived by the characters as acts stricken upon them by malevolent gods. We can see this no more clearly, in what may have been Socrates most tragic figures, in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus, throughout the play, is portrayed as a just and noble human being. Making decisions based upon the situation at hand. No question is posed as to challenge the morality of his decisions, as they appear to all involved as motivations in line to Oedipuss character type. A leader. Noble. Ingenious. Trusted. You do not doubt the clarity of character that Oedipus is when we begin the play. We are treated to a display of bravado from Oedipus when he declares to The Chorus “You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers.”(1) In “The Guilt of Oedipus” P.H. Velacott states “In none of these do we find what we are looking for-what Sophocles must surely have looked for-some sin, some fault in Oedipuss character which would justify to me the seemingly cruel and immporal ways of Zeus or of Apollo or of Fate.” (Vellacott) Only as the play unfolds is the audience allowed to displace there perception to that of Oedipuss gods. Plans are in motion. Plans within plans. Plots within plots. We begin to see over, and past, the precipice of Oedipuss understanding. We the audience, like a shared collective of gods, begin to see the decisions made by Oedipus for what they are.
They are his fate.
Oedipus show his awareness of this, when uttering failingly.
“O god–all come true, all burst to light! O light–now let me look my last on you! I stand revealed at last–cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!”
Laced with the sympathies that drive us, Greek Tragedies demand that our empathy turn outward to reach and expand our perception, to receive the message of the hero. Often when anagnorisis is achieved, it is bitterly (and ironically) too late for the central chara Our hero is not always afforded the walk into the sunset. Often their end is bloody. Always it is severe. And most importantly, it will always have a message.
Guilt driven action is no more prevalent than in Arthur Millers “Death of a Salesman”. When Willy is discovered in the hotel room with his mistress, by the untimely arrival of Biff at his hotel room door, this sets up the disappoint and disillusionment that Biff falls victim to the rest of his life. Willy, in the end wanting only to right his wrongs, feels responsible for Biffs failures in life. Biff is now, and forever will be, questioning his fathers