Tragic Narrative Research Articles

Tragedy without guilt?

The 2018 performance The Hospital uses a combination of a tragic narrative structure and grotesque slapstick and splatter to portray a nightmarish version of budget cuts and managerial reforms in the Danish public healthcare system. In this article, I focus on the affective dimensions of its bifurcal dramaturgy, and asks how it relates to the diagnosis of the efficiency dispositive in public management. I argue for an analytical approach that observes the entire performance as a ‘being of sensation’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1994) with its own affective logic, thereby switching analytical orientation from affective spectatorship to affective dramaturgy. I use genre analysis as a way to account for the performance’s way of becoming a body in terms of two interrelated affective dynamics: blocs of sensation and modes of relation. By employing Eric Bentley’s genre criticism as a semantic for describing the Hospital’s blocs and modes, I identify a double affective dramaturgy of tragic guilt and farcical aggression and schadenfreude, where open-ended aggression ultimately becomes the dominant bloc of sensation. Through a comparative gesture to the performance Living Dead, which unifies its narrative and affective elements in a horror aesthetic performing blocs of fear, I show how an affect-sensitive concept of genre can observe the relation between signifying and non-signifying elements as determined by a performance’s specific dramaturgy rather than by any a priori analytical distinctions.

Transitions Into, and Through, Higher Education: The Lived Experiences of Students Who Identify as LGBTQ+

This study explores the lived experiences of students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer (LGBTQ+) during their transitions into, and through, higher education. Existing literature presents tragic narratives of students with LGBTQ+ identities which position them as victims. This study conceptualizes transitions as complex, multiple, and multi-dimensional rather than linear. The objectives of the study were to explore: the lived experiences of students who identify as LGBTQ+ in higher education; the role that sexuality and/or gender identity play in their lives over the course of their studies and LGBTQ+ students' experiences of transitions into, and through, higher education. The study is longitudinal in design and draws on the experiences of five participants over the duration of a 3-years undergraduate course in a university in the UK. Methods used include semi-structured interviews, audio diaries and visual methods to explore participants' experiences of transitions. Data were coded and analyzed thematically. This study uniquely found that the participants experienced Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions during their time at university and that these transitions were largely positive in contrast to the mainly tragic narratives that are dominant within the previous literature. In addition, this is the first study to have explored the experiences of LGBTQ+ students using a longitudinal study design. As far as we are aware, no existing studies apply Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions Theory (MMT) to students in higher education who identify as LGBTQ+.

AESTHETICS OF TRAGIC ICONOCLASM IN THE NIGERIAN NOVEL: EXAMPLES OF OKONKWO AND EZEULU

Tragic characters are the ones who remain with us long after we have encountered them in literature. Comedy might have its uses, but tragedy, with its grave actions which culminate in a catastrophic end for the central character, proposes by its very nature manifold representations of suffering and pain that catenate with our perceptions of the fallibility of humanity, a tragic narrative that substantiates human mortality. Albeit over the centuries the aesthetics of the tragic mode has received several modifications, from its origin in Greek drama to its crystalization in other literary manifestations, its core elements seem little affected. The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of tragedy in the Nigerian novel. Starting the evaluation from the scrutiny of what undergirds the tragic discourse,the basic procedure of this paper examines the aesthetics of tragedy in Nigerian fiction, using the central characters in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. The paper particularly analyses how the author treats the tropes of tragic "herohood" in the African context.One of the principal conclusions of this study is the discovery that the actions and inactions of the central figures are motivated by narcissistic orientations, and the crises in their tragic narratives are engendered by their attempts to mould societal history in a direction the community does not wish to go. In the ensuing crisis between the individual and the society, the individual invariably loses because "no man is greater than his community." The study discovers that though some aspects of the misfortune and anguish experienced by these tragic protagonists parallel those of classic Western literature, they introduce different contextual dynamics and characterological complexities to the architectonics of tragedy. The study concludes with the realisation that these dynamics and complexities have helped to create a new paradigm for tragedy in African literature.

David Wojnarowicz and the Surge of Nuances

When looking at two paintings, ostensibly by Rembrandt, is there an aesthetic difference in how these paintings are perceived if we know that one of the two paintings is a forgery? Most certainly, declared Nelson Goodman (1976). Knowledge of the difference would modify the aesthetic experience. When looking at Michelangelo’s Christ on the Cross, the result is arguably similar. What we see depends on what we know about Christ’s story. The same might also be said more generally about tragic narratives and their accompanying indicia. Awareness impacts viewers acutely. This is especially evident in curated Holocaust memorials, where the ghastly artifacts, and the unfathomable story lines, are intrinsic to their aesthetic force. This insight however is by no means limited to curated monuments. Learning that an artist, David Wojnarowicz for example, was a victim of inconceivable torment is no less critical to how their artworks are perceived. Our argument, in its totality, is that being informed is preferable to unknowing, and that knowing, however manifested, has the capacity of modifying visual perception.

FRANKENSTEIN 200 ANOS DEPOIS: ENTRE CIÊNCIA, VIDA E CORPO

No ano de 2018 se comemorou o bicentenário da obra de Mary Shelley Frankenstein: o Prometeu moderno. Frankenstein é uma narrativa trágica que versa sobre a capacidade humana de dar vida “artificial” a um corpo pelo crivo da ciência e pelas astúcias da técnica. O presente ensaio tem como objetivo interpelar os usos do corpo pela ciência a partir da obra Frankenstein tensionando alguns litígios e pressupostos de caráter mítico/trágico que Mary Shelley suspende com sua obra. O escrito também disserta sobre as possibilidades de manipulação da natureza baseadas em conhecimentos de ordem molecular que direcionam para a construção de novas formas de Frankenstein e corpos, que abjeta costura de tecidos, próteses, acoplamentos e ciborguianismos, valorando a colonização interna da vida em si mesma.

The Macbeth of the American West: Tragedy, genre and landscape in Breaking Bad

This article explores the AMC television series, Breaking Bad (2008–2013), through the lens of tragedy as it pertains to the American West (both the physical place and the west as a narrative symbol). The show is perhaps unique insofar as it frames its protagonist, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), as a figure who is simultaneously a western archetype and a tragically flawed ‘hero’ whose complex ambitions bring about his downfall. The series thus presents a powerful counterargument to George Steiner’s 1961 classic The Death of Tragedy and suggests that the American West on TV can be seen as an appropriate dramatic stage for new forms of tragic narrative.

Tragedy as Contingency Acknowledgement: Towards a Practical Religious-Scientific Theory

Abstract According to philosopher of religion Kurt Wuchterl, contingency acknowledgement (German: Kontingenzanerkennung) means that rational thinking is inadequate for explaining contingency experiences. The authors argue that, in the tragic narrative of a contingency experience, subjects face limitations in three dimensions: in the individual, social and transcending dimensions. The individual dimension is expressed in powerful, visual metaphors for the confrontation with forces that do not take the human dimension into account in any way, even coercing the subjects to relinquish their existence. The social dimension concerns the tragic subject’s feeling of being avoided and excluded by some individuals in their environment. The transcending dimension emerges in the complaint “Why me?”, which religious persons address to a religious power, using moral arguments. Empirical research suggests that the acknowledgement of one’s own limitations resulting from a contingency experience can be seen as a sign of strength rather than weakness, for, by doing so, one shows the courage to let go of past interpretative frameworks and be vulnerable. This creates the possibility of an opening in the interpretation crisis, which can lead to an unexpected, new perspective.

The anatomy of memory politics: a formalist analysis of Tate Britain’s ‘Artist and Empire’ and the struggle over Britain’s imperial past

In this paper, I propose a new approach for understanding the meaning of memory politics, which draws upon the archetypal literary criticism of Northrop Frye. I suggest that the four archetypes elaborated by Frye—comedy, romance, tragedy, and satire—can be used as a heuristic device for interpreting the contested historical narratives that are associated with the politics of memory. I illustrate this approach through a case-study of Artists and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, an exhibition held at Tate Britain in 2016, amidst increasing contestation over the meaning of the British Empire. In sum, I find that the exhibit narrated Britain’s imperial past as a comedy, in which a key theme was the progressive cultural mixing of the British and the people they colonized. To conclude, I discuss the implications of such a narrative for constructing an inclusive, postcolonial British identity. As an alternative, I draw on Aristotle to suggest that a tragic narrative would have been more propitious.

비극서사의 전달매체로서의 에른스트 네이즈베스트니의 작품들 - 『죽은 병사』와 『비애의 마스크』를 중심으로 -

비극서사의 전달매체로서의 에른스트 네이즈베스트니의 작품들 - 『죽은 병사』와 『비애의 마스크』를 중심으로 -

Judith Shakespeare’s Brother

Abstract Virginia Woolf’s account of Shakespeare’s fictional sister, Judith, in A Room of One’s Own offers a productive vantage point for investigating questions of gender, authority, and inheritance in Shakespeare’s late romances. These plays are notable for their formal hybridity and their acute attention to the role of women, particularly daughters, within the patriarchal family and its attendant economic systems. They share Woolf’s interest in the economic, inheritable underpinnings of female authority, the social forms of a patrilineal culture that help demarcate the possibilities for women as subjects. Shakespeare adapts the lost-child device from Roman new comedy to make female loss central to his tragicomic plots—much as it is to Woolf’s tragic narrative of Judith. New-comic plotting offers a provisional, conservative solution to the historical problem of the heiress, but Shakespeare’s romances also at times imagine alternative configurations of genealogical knowledge.

A Good Abortion Is a Tragic Abortion: Fit Motherhood and Disability Stigma

In the context of abortion stigma, most abortion stories remain untold. The stories we do tell of abortion are often told to morally recuperate the status of the woman who has an abortion through a recourse to tragedy. Tragedy frames experiences where every choice produces some suffering, so decisions are geared toward maintaining individual integrity rather than adherence to absolute moral truths. This article argues that one dominant tragic abortion narrative, that of the disabled fetus, works to recuperate the moral status of “fit” mothers while actively constructing disabled lives as unlivable and undesirable. The option to stigmatize disability in recuperating the moral status of the woman who has an abortion relies on eugenic logics that also construct a variety of women (racialized, poor, disabled, and young) as illegitimate reproductive subjects. The article analyzes narratives of Sherri Finkbine's 1962 abortion in relation to contemporary narratives of late‐term abortions involving nonviable fetuses to expose how investment in medical judgments of good births enables particular women to make use of tragic narratives to maintain their status as moral mothers without disturbing broader abortion stigma or eugenic logics.

Tragic Narrative Strategies in Contemporary American Cinema. Eastwood-Penn-Grey (1995-2001)

Tragedies were performed for the first time in ancient Greece between the sixth and fifth century BC. A century later, Aristotle in the Poetics gave his famous definition of tragedy, transforming it into a narrative genre. Our aim is primarily to introduce and analyse some characteristics of the tragic scheme. Three main elements will be taken into consideration. We will see that at the very heart of the tragic narration there is “something” unrepresentable, unbearable and nameless that Lacan, in the VII seminar on ethics, names Das Ding or La Chose, The Thing. After that, we will consider the representation of an ethical power which disputes the traditional and institutionalised order. Thirdly, the presence of sacred forces will be evoked to contextualise the ancien and contemporary tragic narrations in a mythical, pre-logical, pre-textual framework. However, in order to identify any forms of tragic narratives in the contemporary era, a consideration of the medium itself cannot be avoided, as tragedies were shown and affected large crowds of people and had a substantial political role. Cinema is thus revealed to be the most privileged media device to present modern tragic narrations and their typical aesthetic solutions. In this article, we will discuss three examples of tragic narratives in mainstream American cinema from the last three decades. Works by Sean Penn (The Pledge, 2001), James Grey (Little Odessa, 1995) and Clint Eastwood (Midnight in the garden of good and evil, 1997) will be investigated.

Catharsis and vicarious fear

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to give a new interpretation of Aristotle's account of the emotions evoked in the course of engaging with tragic narratives that would give rise to a coherent account of catharsis. Very briefly, the proposal is that tragedy triggers vicarious (or other‐centered) emotions and catharsis is the purgation of such emotions. I argue that this interpretation of “fear and pity” as vicarious emotions is consistent with both Aristotle's account of emotions and his account of catharsis and also with his choice of examples for tragedies that trigger catharsis.

The Many Lives of James Bird: From “Mournful” Ballad to Nostalgic Legend

In late 1814, the US military executed for desertion a young marine from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who had served honorably with the fleet of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry during the War of 1812. Only a year prior, James Bird’s hometown newspaper, the Wilkes-Barre Gleaner, had praised his bravery during the Battle of Lake Erie, when Perry and his men routed the British navy. After news of the youth’s death spread in 1814 to 1815, Gleaner editor Charles Miner penned the lyrics of a ballad that would disseminate the story far beyond Bird’s home and time in history. The long life of the ballad of James Bird is as unusual among triumphant War of 1812 ballads as is its tragic narrative. Through the years, versions of it have been collected from New England to the West Coast. This paper explains the marked staying power of the ballad and Bird’s story by considering the historical and cultural context for their transmission in different eras. In the early nineteenth century, when the new nation was still forging its identity, Bird’s heroism and subsequent death served the competing interests of partisan politics and national mythmaking, while also reminding the postrevolutionary generation of the dangers of arbitrary power. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the wartime poetry of a young and politically charged republic became the subject of shared nostalgia amid the potentially troubling consequences of rapid industrialization and urbanization. One element of the ballad’s reception remained constant over time: the willingness of Bird’s admirers to overlook the youth’s potential flaws, lest they jeopardize his merits as a folk hero. Ultimately, the ballad’s appropriation by each successive generation also owed to a fruitful interaction between print and oral culture in which the reading public helped combine and propagate new elements of the story. Over time, the ballad nearly became secondary to the anecdotes surrounding it, and the “truth” of the young marine’s life became as malleable as its meaning.

Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975 by Shirletta J. Kinchen

Reviewed by: Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975 by Shirletta J. Kinchen Vincent Willis Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975. By Shirletta J. Kinchen. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2016. xi + 255 pp. Cloth $49.95 Black Power in the Bluff City is a timely book that portrays how the long struggle for freedom is complicated by the sociopolitical context and the actors involved. Those of us who study social movements, especially during the early to late twentieth century, know that places and people greatly influence how we understand the civil rights and Black Power movements. Unfortunately, there are instances in which the narrative about a place and the people who occupy that space can become shallow. A good example of this occurring is Memphis, Tennessee. Within the historical literature of the civil rights movement, the significance of Memphis is that beloved civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., visited in support of the sanitation workers' strike, and it was the place where King met his untimely demise. The assassination of Dr. King added to the intercommunity and intra-community friction that existed before King's death, and this tragedy exacerbated those frictions. Shirletta J. Kinchen's work is a recollection of why those frictions existed before and after the death of King. Furthermore, the author articulates how these frictions did not end the fight for justice and equality but reshaped, meshed, and morphed the local freedom movement to meet the needs of black Memphians. Kinchen's examination of Memphis complicates our understanding of a place and of people that were able to attract such a beloved figure. By the time King made his way to Memphis, there was an awareness within the black community of the injustices that plagued the city. According to Kinchen, that awareness lead to competing actions that existed from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. In essence, the summation of this project is about [End Page 447] genuine concerns for communities gravely affected by injustices with very different ways to address those injustices. The author states, "Youth and student activism helped shape the black freedom movement in Memphis. Black Power… served as an ideological counterpoint to the community's established black leadership" (188). Those competing ideologies were influenced by what was going on nationally, which the author contextualizes in the introduction. The freedom movement in Memphis is further discussed in chapter 1 through an exploration of the activism and the leadership in the early 1960s. The following chapters—2 and 3—illuminate how the remnant strategies associated with civil rights along with revolutionary ideas linked with black power culminated into a more confrontational and self-determined movement. Using the Black Organization Project (BOP) and the Invaders, the author argues that the fight for equality was largely shaped by young people, students and non-students, who did not adopt non-violent direct action protest. The most substantive chapters of this book are 3 through 5 because they provide insight into the movement in Memphis that goes beyond the sanitation strike and King's death. Even when Kinchen discusses the protest that many believed contributed to the assassination of King, she complicates this narrative by explaining why the BOP and the Invaders' refusal to adopt nonviolence should not be held liable for such a tragedy. Furthermore, the author portrays the ways in which the organization was able to move beyond the stigma of such a tragic narrative that made them essential to the student movement that took place on the campus of LeMoyne-Owen College and Memphis State University. The effectiveness of each protest stemmed from the students' ability to curtail their grievances to their respective institution and administration. The activism of black students who attended LeMoyne-Owen, a historically black college, was very different than the black students who attended the predominately white university—Memphis State (which is now the University of Memphis). According to Kinchen, the difference in protest was based on the fact that each institution presented unique sets of challenges. Black students at LeMoyne-Owen fought to have more input and...

Barbarous Antiquity: Reorienting the Past in the Poetry of Early Modern England. Miriam Jacobson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Pp viii+286.

<i>Barbarous Antiquity: Reorienting the Past in the Poetry of Early Modern England</i>. Miriam Jacobson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Pp viii+286.

Psychological autopsy of seventy high school suicides: Combined qualitative/quantitative approach

ObjectiveSuicide is the leading cause of death among Israeli youths but data on causes are scarce. This study used psychological autopsies of 70 Israeli school students who committed suicide during 2004–2011, attempting to determine the causes. MethodsFour narratives of the self were identified (qualitative analysis) and compared (quantitative analysis): (1) regressive: functioning and mood deteriorated continuously (45%); (2) tragic: doing well until rapid decline around suicidal crisis (20%); (3) unstable: peaks and crises throughout life (20%); and (4) stable: long lasting state of adverse living circumstances (15%). Functioning, mental disorders, stressful life events and substance abuse were examined. ResultsA representative profile of the suicide-completer emerged. Suicidality in the tragic narrative involved shorter crisis, fewer risk factors and less psychopathology than the other narratives, also better general functioning and better school performance. Though decrease in functioning was evident in all groups, in the tragic group it tended to be disregarded. ConclusionThis study presents an in-depth analysis of a unique suicide population of high school students. A combined methodology of qualitative and quantitative analyses reveals a distinct subpopulation of suicidal adolescents with little or no overt psychopathology that poses a challenge to suicide prevention strategies.

Reparative Pater: Retreat, Ecstasy, and Reparation in the Writings of Walter Pater

This article explores what I call Pater’s “retreat”: his withdrawal, after 1873, into a mode of bland, polite, and very private conventionalism and his many acts of self-effacement and self-concealment. I argue that while we can read this retreat as a response to social marginalization (Pater’s withdrawal was partly motivated by forms of homosexual scandal), in reading Pater we do not encounter an authentic subject panting for expression and freedom. Rather, we discover the culture of a complex, multi-layered subject formed in fundamental ways by its intimate and invested relationship with the very suppressions by which it is beset--a subject that sometimes relishes and relies upon the position of retreat, finding within it sources of comfort and sustenance. I suggest that Pater seems to move in a confusing and little-known territory that lies somewhere between abjection and subversion, and thus his life and writings demand that we, as critics, develop ways of speaking about the lived experience of marginalized subjects that neither turn that experience into a triumphant narrative of political resistance nor read it as a tragic narrative of political oppression. I argue that Pater’s complex and invested management of his position of retreat constitutes one event in a non-operatic strand of queer history, the history of those subjects that are neither heroic nor abject, but something in between, knee-deep in the tough and compelling work of survival, and drawing heavily on their resources of reparation and healing in order to continue to move through the world.

THE IMPACT OF EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES ON PLANNED ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: APPLYING SCHEMATIC CHANGE THEORY TO THE STUDY OF NARRATIVES IN COMMUNITY‐BASED ORGANIZATIONS

This case study examines change experiences of two community‐based organizations participating in a planned organizational change (POC) project. Research on POC in community psychology has emphasized teleological change processes (e.g., strategic planning). This paper aims to broaden the discourse through a qualitative study focused on the role of cognition and sensemaking in organizational change. A schematic change process model is proposed and used to explore how members' narratives related to everyday change shape the way they make sense of and engage in a formalized, change process. Analysis revealed two types of change narratives: romantic and tragic. The findings suggest that romantic narratives reinforce existing paradigms of practice, but can also serve as positive resources for members during POC. In contrast, tragic narratives may serve as an impetus for POC, however, when related to negative internal organizational dynamics can undermine and impede the POC process. Implications for change readiness are discussed.

Unfinished Revolution: A Paradox of Mourning Subjectivity in Su Manshu’s The Lone Swan

Su Manshu’s 苏曼殊 (1884–1918) The Lone Swan (Duanhong lingyan ji 断鸿零雁记, 1911, 1912) is best known for a sustained use of subjective voice and a thematic emphasis on tragic love. Critics have often credited the novella’s intensely tragic narrative for spearheading a new kind of literary subjectivity that became a cornerstone of modern Chinese literature as heralded by the May Fourth critics in the late 1910s and the 1920s. However, very few have examined this new subjectivity as an effect of Su’s critical engagement with a late Qing nationalist narrative. Su’s novella was an appropriation of the anti-Manchu revolutionary narrative of a nation, which hinged on a paradoxical mode of envisaging a new China through a temporal return to the past and by means of a tragic sacrifice of the individual. Following a brief analysis of Su’s early piece published in The People’s Journal (Minbao 民报), this article demonstrates how The Lone Swan elaborated on an excess of individual sacrifice, while developing the new, mourning subjectivity as a witness to the unfinished revolutionary enterprise of forging a powerful nation. Su’s narrative of cultural devastation resonates with Lu Xun’s (1881–1936) late Qing work, but, in the May Fourth period that immediately followed, this sense of despair would become an unequivocal object for overcoming.