Modern Tragedy

Literature is the mirror that reflects the invisible side of the world. Whether the metaphorical description or the emotional influx it brings to readers makes literature a dispensable part in human’s society. Tragedy, which evokes the darkest repercussion of human sufferings and destructions, experienced great evolvement throughout centuries.

The brokenness of hope might be the most significant factor that contributes to the success of a modern tragedy. The pure hopelessness is able to bring in the deepest desperation and panic, and without hope everything dies. In addition, the tragedy should relate to some current controversial and sorrowful issues, which may lead to readers’ emotional resonance because they feel real. Characters’ confrontation with the impossibility of justice and sacrifice for others are common elements in a tragedy. A Thousand of Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a typical example of a modern tragedy. The fiction describes the life of an illegitimately born girl Mariam, who leads an impoverished life with her mom before and during the time of Afghanistan war. Unlike the fairy tales of a poor girl who finally leads a happy life with a prince, Mariam’s life is a pure tragedy, who never experiences any so-called happiness. She lives in a repeating circle of hoping and desperation. On Mariam’s 15 years old birthday, her father, who is an affluent cinema manager, forgot taking her to a movie. Therefore, Mariam goes to her father’s mansion and waited on the front stairs for a whole day. By the end of the day, the driver sends her back to her shack but then finds stunningly that her mother has killed herself. Mariam then has to live with her father. She is well treated there until one day her father compelle...

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... distinctively, in modern tragedies the miseries are often caused by others’ flaw and the main characters are merely a victim of social injustice or other people’s compulsion on them. This change may be a reflection of the common social phenomena that no one is willing to be accused by making a mistake and when something is going against one’s will he or she is more likely to pass the buck to others.

Literature reflects how people perceive the world. The ways literature achieves the catering for emotion varies from time to time. Especially from the perspective of tragedies, which call for great emotion outflux and resonance, people of different time and from different cultural background appeal to different approaching of sadness. Generally, the common characteristic of modern tragedies is that it derives from daily life and the dark, invisible side of society.