We’ve all been right there, right? A fresh seat awaits us on the first day of English class. A syllabus is flung on the desk before us, and we see that, Oh Nellie, the majority of the pending semester will be devoted to the particular delight that is the study of tragedy. Over the coming weeks, we’re given the definitions and groundwork. The terms are defined because, after all, not all brands of human suffering fall under the category of “Tragedy.” We read the heavy hitters: Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Woody Allen. And we pick up the tools of the trade: hamartia, peripeteia, irony. But for all the highfalutin talk about character flaws versus character errors or the nature of moral irresponsibility versus plain ol’ ignorant mistakes, there is a commonsense backdrop to this drama that is left completely offstage—time.
Timing is the singing cowboy hero of all genres, all narrative. Like the cowboy crooner, a tale’s timing might seem to fade into the background or rear its ugly head, but in either case it’s the rhythm of the piece. Any writer knows, without proper timing, stories are nothing more than independent sets of abstract coordinates. Setting, motivation, character, all would exist in a conceptual though meaningless falling-tree-in-the-forest-with-no-one-there-to-hear-it kind of way, each component pointlessly autonomous. It is not until a feat of timing intersects with these elements that the pieces fit. We can see that, even in a post-Tarantino Hollywood where time is a malleable toy, timing remains the star, the agent of quickening. As writers, as readers, we all know this to be true, at least on some intuitive level. But in the case of tragedy, the issue of timing goes further than the sound construction of story.
Timing defines tragedy.
The tale of human suffering is typically dependent on loss. Similarly, the notion of loss is dependent on a precursor of possession. In other words, one must have something in order to lose it. Of course, the more precious and esteemed the possession, the greater the loss once it’s gone and the more tragic the tale. But the fall from greatness/the great loss that is tragedy has a further baseline contingency that mandates that its very nature changes in relation to ones age.
Death when one is old may be sad, but there is not enough life left to lose to make the scenario a tragedy. But when one is young, death represents incomprehensible loss. And, since youth comes before the social mergers and acquisitions that can compose a span of life, it is typically the only possession that a young character can lose.
So death is tragic when one is young. Mistakes are tragic when one is old enough to know better. In the latter case, one is robbed of the glory of their youthful past and at the same time denied the dignity of a positive remembrance upon death. Conversely, a youthful mistake may be passed off as whimsy or ignorance. But if an error made while young robs one of his or her potential, then the future once faced is gone. This is a type of death, of course, and thus a tragedy. But not much beats the heartache of tragedy to be found in the mistakes made in later life as they deny the future as well as the past.
Although the term has been horribly misapplied, similar to the mauling of the concept of irony in a certain misguided pop song from a few years back, tragedy is a different animal than sadness or even disaster. Tragedy interacts with time uniquely. Whereas romance is possible for the young as well as the old, and fools, heroes, and villains of any age can play their roles in comedy to mystery to adventure—tragedy is rigid.
The writer weaves the elements of story. The thread is time. Duh. But tragedy must remain age appropriate. And the writer who doesn’t respect this distinction is headed for tragedy. Oh, the irony. Well, not so much on either front.
Dana Speer 