Monday, February 14, 2011

AMS Act Three Reading Journal

 In act three, the ending comes.
Chris has been out all night and no-one knows where he is.
Jim tells Kate he'll come home because he's a good son.
It's all a bit depressing, really.
Joe dies.   Yeah...  It was suicide.  I think really that takes all hope of him ever being a tragic hero away.  TRAGIC HEROES DO NOT KILL THEMSELVES.  Hmph.
That is basically the general opinion that I have, and I'm struggling to get past it to make a comment of any value.
The ENTIRE ACT completely DESTROYS the feeling of TRAGEDY and DESPAIR.
Yes, he kills himself.
HOWEVER, that's not tragic, because he wasn't a very nice man.
All we get at the end of this is a feeling that maybe Chris and Ann can be happy now because he's dead and so they won't have to have the burden of him being a shit between them for the rest of their lives.
Kate doesn't exactly act all depressy either, like normal people would if their husband died.  So what the hell, really?

An Unleashing Of Thoughts Upon The Thought That The Play Is A Tragedy

Right, let's at least try to make this sound a little more smart and organised.
An aim already specifically undermined by my opening sentence.

To really discuss whether or not AMS is a tragedy, we need to establish the characteristics of a tragedy within the play.
For example, there is issue as to who the tragic hero truly is.
Previous to us reading the play, it is established that Joe Keller is the protagonist.  This does not, however, make him the tragic hero.
A tragic hero has a fatal flaw, in this case that of his need to provide for his family at all costs.
His life certainly does fall apart in the day of his life that we experience.
HOWEVER.
A tragic hero is cut off in his prime, something that Joe clearly isn't.  He has experienced problems in his business including his partner being jailed for sending faulty aircraft parts off to the army (something we later discover is actually his fault, but in the beginning we have a picture painted for us that Joe is not in the least to fault). 
Aristotle also requires that the tragic hero be "noble".  Joe does not strike me as a noble man.  He is not a member of the gentility, nor does he portray a quality like courage or generosity.  Certainly he is seemingly well liked by his neighbours, but he is a business man at heart and so does not offer generosity, and the fact that he spun the blame of the aircraft part incident onto his business partner Steve may indicate a distinct LACK of courage.

The play could be considered a tragedy in that Larry could be considered the ghost of the play, haunting everyone to the point of going a bit nutty. Timing also could be a part of the play, as if Ann had sat down with Kate and the family at the VERY MOMENT SHE GOT THERE then there wouldn't have been an issue anymore.  Ann could marry Chris and Kate could get over the whole thing where she's gone a bit mental with grief and admittedly Joe would probably have ended up dead but it's not such a bad thing.

Joe's urgency to assign blame to Steve after the incident is also prelavent.

In my opinion, AMS is a tragedy, but not so much of a tragedy as Hamlet.  In Hamlet there is a degree of sympathy toward the protagonist, as others around him are causing shit too.  However, in AMS, Joe is basically causing all the problems himself.  Sure, he has a wife who cannot get over the death of their son, and he's getting old and has a business and whatever, but those aren't really problems like your mum marrying your uncle and your girlfriend topping herself.  To have a tragedy, you need tragedy to both be the fault of the protagonist and others, so that you can blame other people as well as the main man.  In AMS, the tragic hero does appear to be Larry, or Chris, because they are not as much to fault.  Larry doesn't actually appear to have any faults, other than that of an overactive sense of honour, and Chris' flaw is that he wants to continue with his life and no longer focus on the disappearance of his brother.  Whilst these characteristics certainly cause issue for the brothers, it is the actions of others which causes the most issue.

SO.  What are we concluding with here? 
Is it a tragedy?
A little bit.  It's got the ghosties and the misery and the fatal flaws of a classic Greek tragedy, but the tragic hero isn't all that well defined.  Joe is NOT the tragic hero, because the term "hero" implies something HEROIC.   Joe is a coward and a liar, and yet the protagonist. 


(A discovery made by Hanna is that if more than one person is viewing a google document at the same time there is a message system.  Like if you go on "Hamlet as a tragedy".  You have fun with that knowledge.)