The Shape of Stories
Much of
what I know about literary criticism (and it isn’t very much) comes from having
read Anatomy of Criticism, by
Northrup Frye—well more than forty years ago.
Frye invented (or borrowed from others) an easily remembered scheme for
categorizing stories: the mythos of spring—comedy; the mythos of
summer—romance; the mythos of autumn—tragedy; and the mythos of winter—irony
and satire. Comedy/spring celebrates new
beginnings, new life, and new possibilities.
Romance/summer gives us an adventure, a contest between the hero and all
that opposes him, a contest that ends happily.
In tragedy/autumn, the forces that oppose the hero triumph, things end
badly. Irony and satire, the voices of
winter, protest the injustices of the world, the things that produces bad ends.
Within the
four mythoi, differences in detail
abound. Comedy can be farcical; new
hopes emerging from silly coincidences; this is comedy on the border of
satire. In other comedies, the
protagonist triumphs at least in part by virtue; comedy on the border of
romance. In romance proper, the hero is
more completely heroic, overcoming multiple or great antagonists in a great
contest. Sometimes the hero dies in
battle and his triumph is to be celebrated by his comrades. And so on: there is infinite room for authors
to innovate.
Popular storytelling in my lifetime has come
to be dominated by movies. Since movies
are expensive to produce, they cater to mass audiences, usually with happy
endings. Love stories, musicals, adventures—we
get lots of spring and summer stories, from Forrest
Gump to Sleepless in Seattle to Star Wars. Saving
Private Ryan and Schindler’s List show
how deadly serious a movie romance can be; their heroes’ triumphs are not fully
complete and bought at high price.
Hollywood occasionally gives us
popular winter tales of irony or satire; think of M.A.S.H. or Catch 22.
Tragedies? Well, we have horror films, with suitably bad
outcomes for the protagonists, but too often we feel cheated; the story is just
an excuse for mayhem. We don’t really
care about the—often very young and vulnerable—protagonists, since we know from
the start they will die. The television
series Breaking Bad probably counts
as a tragedy, so it’s not impossible for tragedy to gain a mass audience.
Nevertheless, I want to consider
the mythos of tragedy. What should we
think of stories that end badly for the hero?
For serious tragedy we sometimes turn to Shakespeare or to ancient Greek
writers like Aeschylus or Sophocles.
Here the main characters are in many ways admirable and
sympathetic. We want them to do well and
be well. Yet disaster befalls them.
Aristotle wrote that we are
attracted to tragedies—he was thinking of plays performed before an
audience—because we experience through them deep emotions we would otherwise
avoid. We admire the tragic hero, or at
least we see he has good qualities. He
has a flaw of some sort, a flaw which in some ways is admirable. Oedipus is determined to discover the truth—a
good thing, surely! But his
determination to find the truth at all costs destroys him. Creon wants to steer the ship of state
through perilous waters, and to that end decrees what seems to him a sensible
law. By ordering his law be obeyed, he
loses his son and his wife and finds his life ruined.
Modern interpreters, such as Martha
Nussbaum, give other readings of tragedy.
Rather than a flaw in the hero, maybe a tragedy shows us the chanciness
of the world. We want to live lives of
meaningful activity (Aristotle would agree with that) in which we enjoy good
relationships with others and experience good outcomes. In the typical word of modern philosophy, we
want to “flourish.” But many things may
undermine us, Nussbaum says. Perhaps,
through no fault of hers, a woman’s business partner betrays her; she ends in
poverty. Disease, war, or bad government
may destroy one’s hopes. At a deeper
level, the hero may be frustrated by contradictory impulses arising in her own
heart. It is impossible to this good and that good in the same life. In
Nussbaum’s phrase, tragic drama shows us the “fragility of goodness.” It is possible, with luck and skill, to reach
old age and look back with satisfaction on one’s life. But no amount of skill can erase the danger
of bad luck. Your life may turn out to
be a tragedy no matter what you do.
I suspect J.R.R. Tolkien would
reject Nussbaum’s philosophy. The
Christian gospels are, in Northrup Frye’s terms, romances. Tolkien invented the word eucatastrophe to express what he saw as
central to the Christian story. Jesus is
presented as a cosmic figure—the eternal logos,
the Son of Man, the lamb of God—in battle with the evil powers of the
world. The stakes of his quest are the
highest possible, the Kingdom of God and the redemption of humanity. At the climax of the story, demonic forces
working through religion and the state crucify him. In a stunning about-face, the resurrection of
Jesus transforms defeat into victory.
(Compare Frodo, in The Lord of the Ring. Lacking the necessary spiritual strength,
Frodo failed in his quest to save Middle Earth.
At the crucial moment, when all was lost, help came to Frodo in a way he
would never have expected: eucatastrophe.)
Tolkien would aver, I think, that
Jesus’ story is the fundamental
story. All our stories and our personal
histories are bits and pieces of the great story. Whether we see it or not, our stories weave
into a romance, the triumph of the Christ.
For Christians, hope is always appropriate.
