Fluent Essays

Here is my confession:  I see no humor in this play.  It is labeled a tragi-comedy.  Classes go to town on the play finding nuance and craven behaviors, plays on words/double entendres, human depravity, odd man out, and plot twists.  They have pointed out phrases and circumstances and ironies.   While you may not see humor, there are clever phrases, circumstances and ironies.  List three and explicate why they are clever or humorous.  Provide the page on which each is found. The Visit Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Switzerland) Pronounce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQvIDb1KnpM The Visit Audio Book Act One <iframe width=1239 height=697 src=https://www.youtube.com/embed/t1J0X5OgY7Y frameborder=0 allow=accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture allowfullscreen></iframe> Act Two<iframe width=1239 height=697 src=https://www.youtube.com/embed/CANPsGfZCC8 frameborder=0 allow=accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture allowfullscreen></iframe> Act Three <iframe width=1239 height=697 src=https://www.youtube.com/embed/cHv4P_EeoAg frameborder=0 allow=accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture allowfullscreen></iframe> The Trailer of the Movie The Visit, 1964 Friedrich Dürrenmatts play The Visit is a dark story of revenge brought to the screen with Ingrid Bergman starring as an enormously wealthy woman who makes her way back to her enormously poor home town. She had been driven from there years earlier after having an affair (and a child). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPro73nbt0 The Visit, a tragicomedy - which means that there are elements of both ways of examining reality - attempts to examine the rise of European Fascism. Dürrenmatt uses Expressionist and Absurdist techniques to confront the horror. A typical tragedy would reflect the typical responses. By adding situations and appeals that border on the on the humorous because they are so irrationally out of normality, the reader or audience member must see the tragedy through a different lens. Reality no longer works. The mind becomes numbed by horror over time. There are no more fixed boundaries between experience and empathy. The grotesque and tragicomic serve this purpose in The Visit. Viktor Emil Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, and Holocaust survivor, was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. He founded logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy. Finding meaning in difficult times (Interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlC2OdnhIiQ Meaning https://russjamieson.com/lessons-from-mans-search-for-meaning-viktor-frankl/ Why Believe in Others https://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning Consider: 1. How does the play reflect the rise of European Fascism? 2. Identify changes in the townspeople. 3. Notice perspective. Zachanassian does not forget. Others do. 4. Anton Schill is the sacrificial victim. Does he come to terms with his situation from a moral perspective? 5. Which, if any, are moral characters? 6. Zachanassian has been directed toward revenge her whole adult life. Once she has her revenge, what next? Her life now has no meaning or does it? 7. Reflect upon Durrenmatt referring to himself as an “uprooted Protestant.” 8. How does Durrenmatt use an artificial counter reality in the play? 9. Discuss the concept of the “fall of man” in terms of the play. 10. Reflect upon the grotesque and absurd in the play. 11. How does the town’s name reflect the town? 12. Consider that each person may be considered an inmate in his/her own world in the play. He/She is given reprieve. Is he/she still imprisoned? And why? 13. Examine Expressionism. Relate its character to the play. 14. Examine Absurdist techniques and relate them to the play. 15. What are elements of Fascism in the play? 16. Apply Frankl’s approach to the play. 17. There is art in Zachanassian’s revenge. Track this. 18. The transitional names Clara and Claire are significant. Why? 19. The perception of justice is significant to the plot. Offer insight as to how this is developed. 20. Notice the lying and avoidance of truth. Share how those undergird the frailty of man. 21. Discuss the relevance of Zachanassian’s physical description. 22. Work with symbols and images in the play. 23. Discuss foreshadowing in the play. 24. Notice the gradations of bribery. Comment. 25. Comment upon Schill’s “fall from grace.” 26. Explicate the nuisance of the title. 27. Rationalization abounds in this play. Develop. 28. The play’s style is “over the top.” How does that work to communicate its message? 29. Notice the use of the railroad. How does this function? 30. Sound punctuates the play. Comment on its relevance. ARISTOTLE & THE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY https://nisd.net/sites/default/files/pdf/summer_reading/Warren\%204\%20AP\%20APD\%20Aristotle.pdf Definition of Tragedy (From the Poetics of Aristotle [384-322 BC]) Tragedy, then, is a process of imitating an action which has serious implications, is complete, and possesses magnitude; by means of language which has been made sensuously attractive, with each of its varieties found separately in the parts; enacted by the persons themselves and not presented through narrative; through a course of pity and fear completing the purification (catharsis[*], sometimes translated purgation) of such emotions. a) imitation (mimesis)[*]: Contrary to Plato, Aristotle asserts that the artist does not just copy the shifting appearances of the world, but rather imitates or represents Reality itself, and gives form and meaning to that Reality. In so doing, the artist gives shape to the universal, not the accidental. Poetry, Aristotle says, is a more philosophical and serious business than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars. b) an action with serious implications: serious in the sense that it best raises and purifies pity and fear; serious in a moral, psychological, and social sense. c) complete and possesses magnitude: not just a series of episodes, but a whole with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The idea of imitation is important here; the artist does not just slavishly copy everything related to an action, but selects (represents) only those aspects which give form to universal truths. d) language sensuously attractive...in the parts: language must be appropriate for each part of the play: choruses are in a different meter and rhythm and more melodious than spoken parts. e) tragedy (as opposed to epic) relies on an enactment (dramatic performance), not on narrative (the author telling a story). f) purification (catharsis): tragedy first raises (it does not create) the emotions of pity and fear, then purifies or purges them. Whether Aristotle means to say that this purification takes place only within the action of the play, or whether he thinks that the audience also undergoes a cathartic experience, is still hotly debated. One scholar, Gerald Else, says that tragedy purifies whatever is filthy or polluted in the pathos, the tragic act (98). Others say that the play arouses emotions of pity and fear in the spectator and then purifies them (reduces them to beneficent order and proportion) or purges them (expels them from his/her emotional system) The Tragic Hero The tragic hero is a [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake. a) a great man: one of those who stand in great repute and prosperity, like Oedipus and Thyestes: conspicuous men from families of that kind. The hero is neither a villain nor a model of perfection but is basically good and decent. b) mistake (hamartia): This Greek word, which Aristotle uses only once in the Poetics, has also been translated as flaw or as error. The great man falls through--though not entirely because of--some weakness of character, some moral blindness, or error. We should note that the gods also are in some sense responsible for the heros fall. III. Plot Aristotle distinguished six elements of tragedy: plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and song-composition. Of these, PLOT is the most important. The best tragic plot is single and complex, rather than double (with opposite endings for good and bad--a characteristic of comedy in which the good are rewarded and the wicked punished). All plots have some pathos (suffering), but a complex plot includes reversal and recognition. a) reversal (peripeteia): occurs when a situation seems to developing in one direction, then suddenly reverses to another. For example, when Oedipus first hears of the death of Polybus (his supposed father), the news at first seems good, but then is revealed to be disastrous. b) recognition (anagnorisis or knowing again or knowing back or knowing throughout ): a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate. For example, Oedipus kills his father in ignorance and then learns of his true relationship to the King of Thebes. Recognition scenes in tragedy are of some horrible event or secret, while those in comedy usually reunite long-lost relatives or friends. A plot with tragic reversals and recognitions best arouses pity and fear. c) suffering (pathos): Also translated as a calamity, the third element of plot is a destructive or painful act. The English words sympathy, empathy, and apathy (literally, absence of suffering) all stem from this Greek word. COMEDY The Visit Reflection   When I teach this in a physical setting, I often freeze because I generally look at 18, 19, 20, or 21-year-old faces and superimpose Clara’s fear, betrayal, desperation on them.  Being cavalier or dispassionate about her state just cannot work.  This was her first and perhaps only love -- a consuming and passionate love that resulted in her love child.  It is this application that restricts my ability to see humor in this tragi-comedy. My problem, not yours. But do you see that we bring our experiences and hearts to challenges? The love child dies. Clara’s attachment to her lover remains, but in a different form.  She parlays her body and people skills into a vast fortune. She is the judge and jury and metes out retributions against those who injured her.  She is Justice.    Clara (and then Claire) knows the right “turn of the screw.”  Both names mean clear.  Her motives and plans are definitive and clear. The name Clara is more connected to a peasant world and the second with a classic one.  Money buys her status and protection.  She can even stop a train when she wishes. That is just it.  With money she chooses what she wants to do.  Without it, she once could not and the residents cannot. Both she and the residents sell themselves. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -  Lord Acton Her body, that had experienced the ecstasy of love, becomes her punishment in liaison after liaison. Barren sex has no life force. Yes, wealth results and her fixation on retribution abounds.  Once the latter is attained, what is her life purpose?  Is walking on Schill’s grave sufficient? It is quite easy to “paint” oppositions in 180 degree landscapes.  People are not like that. Clara is not likeable. Schill has the superficial likeability of people who manipulate people. People gravitate to Claire only for personal gain. People toss aside Schill because he is a money conduit and convenient scapegoat. He must account for his grave sin, albeit assigned decades after the fact.  His atonement is sought and gained. The sinner dies to erase the sin debt of the town.  It is a malevolent view of the sinless Christ’s crucifixion. But remember that this play is in response to the unabated horrors of a grievously fallen world, WWII. Taking the long view, would Clara still have made a negative impact if the residents of the sewer had not discharged the pregnant teen from their midst? Likely so. See how their revisionist view of history allows the townspeople to reframe their surface character. Autocratic governments and corporations do this. See how quickly the town turns when just the right pressure is applied. BTW. Claire had Kobby and Lobby castrated.  Read the passage again.  It is their punishment as well as a set up metaphor for the townspeople. Blindness works for both, too. And, to end with a favorite quote not of this time and place, Do not insult the mother alligator until you have crossed the river. That’s Claire. Tragicomedy What is tragicomedy ? Tragicomedy is exactly what its name says. It is a mixture of both tragic and comic elements. Significant is the fact people from the same background might differ as to what is amusing or truly tragic. Long term tactic People informally and literature of various kinds recognize that often situations can have two sides. One might be immediately apparent, or the other view might occur later. It is a way to categorize living and to analyze experiences. The ancient Greek playwrights worked with the concept and authors have used the technique . Not everything has both humor and sadness. But because both ends of the spectrum are intense, when they are placed close together that friction magnifies. Eye of the Beholder If people share a commonality, then amusements are generally similar. Typically, severely negative life changes are recognized by most people as tragic because there is pain. Let’s Talk About Humanity If people have a consenus, they can communicate more easily than if there is discordant interaction. In “The Visit” it might be agreed that committing perjury and “turning out” a pregnant teenager are grevious actions. That is the tragedy. Rather than having physical humor, the play has irony, satire, and mismatched allegiances. That is the comedy or, at the least, the comedic elements. Word play is the angle. Situational juxtapositions are the means to show it. DEFINITIONS, THEN AND NOW DRYDEN’S VIEWS More Current approach There are ways of approaching challenges. Some people focus on the “holes” in the situation; others pull back and create/see humor. Both are ways of coping. Of course, there are gradations in between the two . https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Tragicomedy https://www.britannica.com/art/tragicomedy FAMOUS QUOTE Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. -various attributions