The Entertainment Value of a Tragedy

It is impossible to get inside each individual spectator's head to determine why he or she enjoys a tragic performance, but applying some fairly universal concepts and standards, it is possible to imply as to reasons why audiences enjoy such performances. For one, there is an obvious strong entertainment value. Good tragedies have a strong, tightly wound plot line that uncoils slowly but inexorably to its climactic end. Even when the audience can guess at how the things will turn out in the end, the actual path the characters take to arrive there is usually highly entertaining, and any suspense only adds to the thrill of anticipation.

Such is the case, for example, with Sophocles's classics, Oedipus the King and Antigone. In the former, a reasonable audience member can guess that Oedipus is the one responsible for the death of Laius shortly after the prophecy about a son killing his father and marrying his mother is revealed. Even the less observant are likely to get the point after seeing one member of Oedipus's circle after another - including his wife (and mother) Jocasta - realize the same and try to shield the king from the terrible truth. Still, it is fascinating and highly entertaining to watch Oedipus go to great lengths of exerting his power and influence to bring about his own destruction. The fact that by the time the truth is revealed, Oedipus is the only one still in the dark about it only adds to the entertainment value of the play.

In Antigone, the exact nature of the end result of Creon's obtuseness, anger, and spitefulness is less obvious as the play progresses, but there can be little doubt that the king indeed will regret his edict contradicting the established religious laws - in this case, the laws governing the burial of the dead - and his persecution of Antigone who dared to go against such an edict based on her own conscience. This knowledge does not diminish the entertainment value of the play, which, despite its overall tragic nature, has plenty of comedic moments (example: exchanges between Creon and the guard who brings the news about Polyneices's body receiving burial rites against the king's edict), novel moments (example: Antigone - a woman - providing her own legal defense), and instances of confrontations involving high, barely controlled (and often uncontrolled) emotions (example: heated exchanges between Creon and his son Haemon).

Another reason audiences might enjoy a tragedy is the educational value of such a performance. By presenting characters that allow their negative personality traits to guide their decisions and actions and, as a consequence, meet with disastrous ends, audiences get a chance to learn from others' mistakes without experiencing them on themselves; in fact, it can be considered a completely harmless lesson, as people who suffer from such mistakes are imaginary rather than real. In both of the Sophocles's plays mentioned, the audience receives multiple lessons, with the most obvious being those of emotional restraint, consideration, and humility. While multiple characters meet with a tragic end in both, the most visible figure in each play is that of a king - Oedipus and his uncle/brother-in-law Creon. Both are portrayed as proud, obstinate, quick to anger, suspicious to the point of paranoia, and dismissive of other people's thoughts, feelings, or points of view when those contradict their own. Oedipus, for example, scorns and ridicules the well-known and respected prophet Teiresias when the latter delivers the disturbing news that Oedipus himself is the man who murdered his royal predecessor, Laius. Oedipus not only accuses Teiresias of being a charlatan but also voices his suspicion that the prophet is in collusion with Creon to bring down Oedipus so Creon can ascend the throne. All of these accusations and insinuations are baseless, originating from Oedipus's foul mood at being told what he does not want to hear. Once his mind is made up, nothing seems to alter Oedipus's opinion. He openly accuses Creon of treason, even though he has absolutely no evidence to support this claim. To make matters worse, Oedipus refuses to heed advice from neutral, non-confrontational parties, of which Chorus is one. Oedipus refuses to see the truth because he cannot bear face it; in this sense, his act of blinding himself after the facts pile up and the horrible truth emerges seems to be following the logical progression and not just symbolic confirmation of his previous willing blindness.

On his part, Creon as king proves to be even worse than Oedipus, if only because he seemingly forgets that in Oedipus he himself bore the brunt of baseless suspicion and accusations. There is no other way to explain his behavior, particularly his empty accusations against one of the guards set to watch over Polyneices's body and later against his son Haemon, who Creon accuses of betrayal. His "trial" of Antigone is a mirror image of his own "trial" by Oedipus, with the difference being that in the latter Creon is the accused, and in the former he is the accuser. This switch, however, is enough to rob Creon of ability to think reasonably and logically - something that he manages fine when he faces Oedipus accusations of treason.

The lesson for the audience here seems to center on corruption brought upon by an almost unlimited power of a royal sovereign. Acting from a position of authority, both Oedipus and Creon confuse their authority with their infallibility. They forget that just because they possess the power of final decision on matters of state does not mean that their decisions are always right. A modern audience member, familiar with American history of the second half of the twentieth century, is likely to make an immediate connection to Richard Nixon who, as president of the United States, once told an interviewer that if the president does something generally considered illegal, it is no longer illegal.

While every individual is likely to have other, more personal and diverse reasons for enjoying a tragedy, the aforementioned ones appear to be most universal. Audiences attending a tragic performance usually leave entertained, having experienced a wide range of human emotions with which they can closely relate, and at the same time thoughtful, having witnessed how negative personality traits can detrimentally influence someone's life and possibly learning not to repeat such mistakes themselves.