The way the arrow's pointing

[larryhammer]

It has been suggested that a tragic hero's strengths are also his flaws. Attempts to derive this from Aristotle's discussion of harmartia (often mistranslated as "tragic flaw") in Oedipus Tyrannus run aground on the fact that the old Greek was talking through a Thessalonian hat -- but it is nonetheless true that, as with Aristotle, the schema works remarkably well with that play: what made Oedipus a strong king (quick decisiveness, a passion for justice) also (as impetuosity and personal righteousness) got him in trouble. In the wrong context, any virtue can be a vice.

That's fairly straightforward -- it's how to write a character with more than two dimensions. Taking it another step, though, my thesis that a comic hero's flaws are his/her virtues -- making/marking the main difference between tragedy and comedy the direction of irony. In other words, in a satisfying comedy, the traits that get the protagonist in trouble are also (when finally applied correctly) what gets her/him out of it again.

Thoughts? Arguments? Assertions of personal hattery?

One caveat comes to mind -- I don't think this applies to satire, which despite surface similarities to comedy is a different form. Exactly how and why, I can't articulate. I'm not even sure I can distinguish between the two reliably -- what makes The Producers satire but not the Discworld novels? And most of Pratchett's works are perfect object lessons for the comic hero thesis, just as Oedipus Tyrannus is for the tragic hero. (Perhaps the difference is whether the catastrophe is resolved?)

---L.

Comments

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, harmartia is a word Paul often uses in his Biblical letters which is mistranslated as "sin" in English. I hadn't realized that was the term originally used by Aristotle as well.

[larryhammer]

It originally meant something like "missing the mark" or "falling short."

---L.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I've had it explained to me that it was often used in the context of a good try, but that you couldn't make the mark without help--and thus that Paul used it because we would always fall short on our own, and need God's help and grace. I don't know if that's true or not, but it was an interesting explanation nevertheless.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

It is very odd when I go to an old-style Southern Baptist church (not unusual for me, since my wife's family are Southern Baptists) and hear the preacher get a lot more fiery than Paul himself.

P.S.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Someone set The Guide to Greece to music? :)

Re: P.S.

[larryhammer]

In Dorian mode :P

On my journal, I renamed that field "Reading" -- which means I wonder how people on my f-list are thumbing through Richard Thompson, or Chopin.

---L.

Re: P.S.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

And it is a tune you can hum, too. Unlike that awful, tuneless hiphop Parallel Lives thang.

[dbborroughs.livejournal.com]

The "what gets you in to trouble is what gets you out" line of thought was often the set up for many screwball comedies where the hero, say Danny Kaye, is brash about something unintentionally and then later uses the ability to act that way to get him out of the situation in the end. More times than not the trouble is unintentionally gotten into. You see the same pattern in fairy tales and many heroic adventures where the hero, say brave little tailor type bluffs his way into trouble only to bluff his way out of it.

[larryhammer]

Classic Trickster tales. "Please, Br'er Fox, please don't throw me into that briar patch!"

---L.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Hunh. It might also be true for, say, Pratt and de Camp's Harold Shea stories. I'm thinking of the dungeon scene with Heimdall.

[larryhammer]

Indeed, yes. And most of the Belphoebe episodes.

---L.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

I like the idea, but would like to hear more about what you mean by "the direction of irony." Not the presence of irony, but its aim? Its purpose? [insert dissertation on Aristotelian concept of Final Cause]

Although the equation of the hero's flaws with his greatest traits (or their confluence, or superposition) is not perfect, I think it usually works in both comedy and tragedy of the classic sort. Hamlet's tendency to think things over, his intelligence and judiciousness. Lear's authority. Antigone's righteousness (pigheadedness). Rosalind's wit. Viola's doubleness.

The problem is, I think, that it is much harder to define a comic hero as such. They don't have the sharp profile and clear silhouette of tragic heroes. Is Leo Bloom a hero? Is Yossarian? Yes, probably. Sort of. Maybe.

[larryhammer]

For "direction of irony," I mean the direction the reality is from the statement. To take a simple example, in a sarcastic overstatement, the direction is towards the deflationary truth (which I think of as downward). What I like about the image is that its movement implies what lies underneath all irony, the impression created that the real truth is further still on the other side -- we follow through past the target. So, yes, its aim. I think.

You may be pointing at the same fuzziness I labeled as haloing satire.

---L.

[larryhammer]

I'd argue regardless of Aristotle, accurate or in-, that what makes Oedipus great also caused his downfall. That's the way I read it, anyway.

Though at the moment I'm more interested in how Jocasta's weaknesses are also her strengths, and Tiresias's moral cowardice.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Job has a happy ending? Coulda fooled me. But I keep thinking of what Jemimah and her sisters had to grow up through.

How useful is a theory, though, when it only describes well a handful of the plays?

(And, were the Moirai really the original Girl Gang? If Eros was the firstborn of Nyx, I'd expect the Horae.)

---L.

[larryhammer]

Happy on the surface, yeah. But there's a hella PTSD going on in that household. Gotta be.

---L.

[larryhammer]

The parentage of just about everyone in Greek isn't clearly established, except Zeus himself and possibly Achilles. But my question was something of a joke (Chaos:Moirae::Eros:Horae).

---L.