Tragedy has changed considerably since it was created by the ancient Greek dramatists. In The Poetics Aristotle essentially lay down a groundwork of rules for writing what he had come to view as the ideal tragedy; at the same time he give indications of how a less than ideal tragedy might be conceived. Several factors are vital to the creation of a play that can rightfully be termed a tragedy; most plays of the last century do not meet the specifications and therefore are best termed as dramas. For Aristotle, Oedipus is the ideal tragic figure because he meets all the qualifications to become so, but Walter Lee Younger also meets the necessary Aristotelian requirements of a tragic hero, even he doesn’t quite rise to the level of the perfect tragic hero.
Before defining what a tragic hero is, it is first necessary to define what separates tragedy from drama and how both of these plays meet the qualifications. According to Aristotle, in order for a dramatic work to attain the level of tragedy, it must be an imitation of persons who are above the common level. In the current vernacular, one might assess this as an old school view of tragedy, and just as Aristotle should not be dismissed today for this admittedly short-sighted view, so should one not strictly adhere to this rule in any contemporary definition of a tragedy. After all, who is to say what defines a person as being above the common level? In fact, a thematic cohesion exists between treating A Raisin in the Sun as a tragedy on the one hand, and the idea contained within the play itself that race alone can serve to separate those above and below the common level.Just as society has moved from monarchy to democracy, so too has the subject of tragedy.
Much confusion surrounds the Aristotelian concept of hamartia, despite the fact he clearly defines it as an error in judgment that essentially sets the course of the tragic hero’s fate. The problem is that hamartia is all too often mischaracterized as the so-called tragic flaw. That this concept of hamartia is so very often confused is surprising since Aristotle states plainly that the downfall of the tragic hero should be facilitated not through the means of device or depravity, but by some error or frailty. The tragic flaw typically assigned to Oedipus is hubris, which is seen as a sense of overconfident pride that results in his ignoring warnings of a divine nature. Viewing hamartia as a flaw in character leads to the presupposition that this error in judgment is a self-fulfilling prophecy, when it should be viewed solely in terms relative to the moment in which it occurs. Hamartia viewed in this way is revealed in A Raisin in the Sun when Walter makes the decision to use the money to buy the liquor store despite all objections. In a sense, both Walter and Oedipus consciously choose to not only ignore warnings, but they do something much worse. They choose to break a moral law and it is that breaking of the law that is the error in judgment which leads to tragic circumstances.
These decisions by Oedipus and Walter to consciously break a moral law in the face of stern warnings of advice not to can only lead to tragedy as proscribed by Aristotle, however, if the audience feels a sense of deep pity for them, and if Aristotle considers that Oedipus’ actions must surely result in pity, then most contemporary audiences clearly also feel a sense of pity for Walter. This sense of pity, however, does not arise simply out of the ashes of their tragically wrong decisions; both plays are construction upon foundations that serve to point up seemingly inescapable fates for both Oedipus and Walter. Oedipus at a young age is given a glimpse into a future that he probably would not even wish upon his worst enemy. His understandable reaction is to attempt escape from this horrifying prediction. Part of the pity that is engendered by his story, therefore, is that he repeatedly attempts to run away from his fate. The pity engendered by Walter’s story is arrived at from a slightly different perspective, but nonetheless shares some common factors. One of the themes of the play, of course, is the pervasive oppression created by racial divide in America, especially during the period in which this play was written. Despite the institutionalized inferior treatment that Walter, his family and his entire race receive on a daily basis, Walter still doggedly pursues the American dream. The pity that one feels from Walter’s story is the pity of knowing that he too cannot escape his fate. But whereas the forces governing the fate of Oedipus are the gods who live at a distance Oedipus can never hope to traverse, the forces governing Walter’s fate are flesh and blood human beings; from those who make the rules that serve to inhibit his success to those who accept the system and refuse to fight back. One might even go so far as to argue that A Raisin in the Sun is a superior tragedy to Oedipus according to Aristotle’s own rules; after all, the pity aroused in a tragic figure needs to also be accompanied by fear and recognition that the same fate could await everyone. Doubt-lessly, more audience members have fearfully recognized the fate of Walter than of Oedipus.
Finally, Aristotle’s outline for tragedy insists upon a reversal and a catharsis at the end of the play, and where the reversal of Oedipus is declared superior because it is the reversal from good fortune to bad, A Raisin in the Sun presents an imperfect reversal of bad fortune to good. The reversal that Aristotle speaks of is also known as peripety and essentially it is nothing more complex than what might be termed a twist of fate. For Oedipus, of course, the twist comes in the form of trying desperately to escape the Oracle’s warning that he would kill his father and marry his mother only to have his escape route lead him exactly toward that fate rather than from it. For Walter, the reversal is somewhat more complex. The twist of fate on the surface is that Walter loses the money that has been of such supreme importance only for the family to wind up making the move into their dream house regardless, but in fact that peripety in A Raisin in the Sun is something more nebulous. The reversal in Walter’s life is that by losing money he at last comes to understand the real value of it. But peripety without catharsis is still not tragedy. The reversal that Oedipus undergoes results in a climax that reaches the height of catharsis; by the end of the play everything that has come before has been undone; Oedipus achieves redemption himself and there is the promise that the audience viewing the play may possibly be able to achieve redemption for their own mistaken judgments.
Catharsis is also achieved in A Raisin in the Sun though, because the reversal is less tragic in the sense of devastation, it is a catharsis of a different kind. The tragedy that unfolds for Walter and his family is obviously not of the same stripe as that which unfolds for Oedipus and his family. The difference in the level of tragedy at play in the contemporary play is of the kind in which the fates of characters are served not by the individual will that disturbed settled social orders but of limitations of individual will itself. The catharsis in A Raisin in the Sun is established as a result disenfranchised characters essentially stop the movement of the world by saying no more. Walter and his family come to realize that society is constructed in such a way to keep them down and out, but one man can make a difference. They are not subject to the whims of all-powerful gods like Oedipus. The forces they might may be strong, powerful and difficult to overcome, but the struggle is not doomed from the start. And that, finally, may be the single most dramatic difference between the tragedy of Oedipus and the tragedy of Walter. Since neither die at the end of the play, the seminal feature of tragedy clearly is not death; it is isolation from the ability to control the forces of the world. Oedipus, no matter what he did, was probably doomed to live the Oracle’s fate; Walter, in the face of overwhelming odds, can, potentially at least, overcome the forces governing his fate.
Oedipus and Walter Lee Younger should be considered tragic figures despite reaching that tragic status from differing perspectives. Oedipus is assuredly the classic Aristotelian tragic hero, but today’s audiences are alienated from his story not so much because of time, but because of his status as a king and because of his unlikely tragic circumstance. Walter, on the other hand, may be less a tragic figure in terms of where he stands by the end of the play, but his tragedy speaks volumes to millions of people who have more potential to recognize his reversal as their own than does Oedipus. Walter’s story unfolds in such a way as to indicate that catharsis is absolutely possible for a modern tragedy and for a modern audience. Walter’s tragedy is all the more immediate because there is the sense that he can ultimately escape it. Oedipus will remain forever locked in the consciousness as a character thoroughly incapable of escaping his fate.
