Tragedy

What leads to tragedy? Tragedies have been written since the Ancient Greeks. The idea is, some people have a fatal flaw that drives them to their ultimate destruction. They are never able to overcome it. This idea fits well with those who are behaviorists and determinists and environmentalists (behavior is influenced by external - environmental - things) who believe people have limited freedom of choice - their decisions are forced on them by their genes or their environment, anything but their own self-directed experience. It is a very fatalistic view which says our destiny is not ours to control and things will happen as they have been programmed to do. In reality, this does happen a lot. People crash and burn because they have been unable to overcome their genetic heritage, or their environment. They may have failed simply because they believed they couldn't overcome their obstacles or because they weren't influenced (not by pressure alone) by others to change. On the other hand, many people do overcome their programming.

There is a lesson to be learned from people who succumb to a fatal flaw. But should we write that story? Tragedies are often tragedies at the Box Office, and so are not well received in Hollywood. Why don't people want to see tragedies? They tell us little about how to solve problems. The ending is not happy. Tragedies give us no hope that people can overcome. Interestingly, most of the tragedy stories I read are set in a completely existential background. The character usually has none of the normal roots that anchor people to life. His family doesn't love him, he has no true friends, he isn't part of a social group, he is irreligious, has no feeling of purpose, his mind is thoroughly confused, and he is sometimes on drugs or alcohol. It seems instinctive to writers that they have to set the character adrift in a sea of total meaninglessness before he can actually fall off the edge of the world.

Actually it's much easier than that. If you want something tragic to write about, write about someone who has established an identity consisting of something that is impossible for him to attain. A growing obsession that he is unable to separate himself from and it finally devours him. Examples: A hero or villain who's only satisfaction can be running the company, but the president won't retire for forty years. A housewife whose identity is a clean house, but she has five very active kids who won't help clean and she has to work outside the home. A military serviceman whose only mark of true valor is to take lives, but he lives in peacetime. A Church Pastor whose only measure of success is lives saved from Hell, but he can't get a single sinner on his knees. These people are all driven and they will all attain their goal at great expense, or disintegrate (as in nervous breakdown), or kill themselves, unless something intervenes and helps them redefine