Many storytellers assume they know what makes a literary tragedy, but there’s more to the genre than just an unhappy ending. With roots in plays from ancient Greece, there’s always more to the story. Read on to see how tragedy differs from other genres—and perhaps your expectations.
Tragedy Just Means Sad, Right?
No. Sadly (no pun intended), tragedy isn’t quite that simple. While the genre includes sad elements, the genre itself is meant to serve a greater purpose.
Tragedies not only entertain the audience but also seek to provide a moral lesson. In some cases, a tragedy focuses on a single hero who is brought down by his or her own flaws such as greed, obsession, blind loyalty, or hubris. This is an important element of tragedy, as it is part of what separates the genre from general fiction with “sad” plotlines.
In addition to that moral lesson, tragedies provide the audiences with a sense of catharsis by providing a safe avenue to experience or release tough emotions. Life can get tough, and both writing and reading tragedy can help.
Types of Tragedies
The genre is traditionally separated into Greek or English tragedies, which are similar but carry important, subtle differences.
Greek tragedies, like Agamemnon, are focused on providing a moral lesson to the audience through the story of someone who had (or could have had) it all but lost it due to both personal flaws and circumstances outside of their control.
English tragedies, sometimes called Shakespearean tragedies, have characters that are more likely to come from any walk of life. In addition to that, English tragedies take a less strictly dramatic tone and often include elements of humor. Unlike their Greek counterparts, English tragedies also prioritize entertainment over the moral lesson, though morality remains central.
Tragedy in literature borrows from both of these approaches, and authors are free to mix and match classical elements—as long as they still satisfy a proper tragic structure.
The Structure of Tragedy
- Introduction. The introduction orients the reader to the setting, characters, their relationships, and the necessary backstory for the reader to understand the stakes.
- Inciting incident. This is the moment in the story that first challenges the status quo and moves the characters into action.
- Rise, or rising action. Rising action describes the period of rising tension as the stakes become clearer and escalate, though a (false) promise of hope appears on the horizon.
- Climax. Unlike other genres, the climax of a tragedy isn’t the final confrontation or the main event. Instead, the climax is the point where the plot begins to unravel and take an unstoppable decline. Sometimes this is a highly dramatic event, but it can also be an internal realization. In any case, this is the point of no return. A decision or realization is made that cannot be unmade, and it changes everything for the worse.
- Return, or fall. After passing the point of no return, the story amps up the sense of imminent disaster. The protagonist is shown grappling with the consequences of the climax, with no real hope to turn things around. The writing is on the wall, and there’s nothing anyone can do but watch.
- Catastrophe. The catastrophe is exactly what it sounds like: the final, forceful conclusion to all of the growing tension and challenges. Our tragic hero is brought to their lowest point, and everything they’ve feared comes to fruition.
- Denouement. Although this element is sometimes skipped, leaving audience is left without further resolution, some tragic stories will add a resolution stage that wraps up loose ends and answers lingering questions. A denouement may also give the reader a sense of what continues after the catastrophe.
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