Why We Love Tragedy

Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire

Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter as
Stanley and Stella Kowalski
(A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951)

Many a time, the message that "reading is an escape from reality" has been promoted. Why then, do we embrace tragic stories? With a flood of tragedy already permeating the real world, shouldn't our escapism be filled with romantic comedies and happily ever afters? Why do we love Shakespeare's tragedies, in which everyone dies in the end? Why do we love stories such as Hedda Gabler and The Yellow Wallpaper? And how is it possible that Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire became one of the most critically acclaimed plays of all time?

"They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then to transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at -- Elysian Fields!"

Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning play follows former schoolteacher Blanche Dubois and her spiral into insanity following a life of immense tragedy. Blanche's history includes a mass of traditionally sorrowful events: the infidelity and suicide of her young husband, the death of her family members, the abandonment of her sister, the loss of Belle Reeve, her continual search and failure for value in meaningless relationships, and eventually the loss of her job and her home after the failure of her relationship with one of her students. In each of Blanche's attempts to create a place of meaning and comfort, her past is exposed and her faux reality is shattered, thereby providing only more tragedy to be later unearthed. She is trapped in an endless cycle of attempting to present an ideal version of herself and being shunned by reality. 

"You needn't have been so cruel to someone alone as she is."

Considering the sorrow of the story, as well as the continual lack of any hope for change, it seems odd that with a goal of escapism, readers would pursue a story like A Streetcar Named Desire. The publishing date of 1951 provides some room for cultural differences between then and now, but even so, tragedies have been written, accepted, and loved throughout all of time. Simply using A Streetcar Named Desire as an example, one has to wonder why readers love tragedy, especially in a modern era where every news story provides tragedy enough. 

"Whoever you are -- I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Romance, as the top trending genre in today's literary market, provides an obvious escape. Where readers in the real world struggle to navigate the delicacy of a romantic relationship, they can find solace in the ease of a fictional relationship, in which hardship can be ignored and romantic endeavors can be life's biggest challenge and focus. Readers can escape their lives by embracing the happiness of others, and whatever challenges are strewn through the story are inconsequential considering the promise of a happy ending. 

"Funerals are pretty compared to deaths."

Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois and
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
(A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951) 

Tragedy, on the other hand, holds no such promise. There is no guarantee that everything will work out alright, in a fashion similar to that of real life. We have no certainty that all will be alright in the end. So what is the appeal? Why are we attracted to narratives that do nothing but reflect the grays of our reality? The answer is this: As long as the sorrow of the narrative is worse than the sorrow of our own life, we can find comfort. In reading a story like Blanche's, we can be assured that we are not so bad after all, since while we may have experienced one or two of the tragedies that strike her life, we are not nearly as hurt as she. We may struggle with alcoholism or the loss of a loved one, but at least we have not lost our grip on sanity! 

The allure of tragedy is this: rather than escaping our lives, we can compare them, and we will nearly always come out on top. Rather than finding comfort in ignoring our sorrows, we find comfort in believing that others suffer more than we do. It is a somewhat pessimistic perspective indeed, but it certainly does provide solace to know one's situation is not as bad as it could be. Blanche's loss of a cheating husband to suicide can make one feel far better about the argument one had with a boyfriend over something as inconsequential as shirt colors. Blanche's relationship with a seventeen-year-old student of hers can make one feel far better about unattainable crushes and constant friend zones. The comfort of tragedy is not in escaping our problems, but in providing a sense of superiority and the belief that one's situation is better off than another's. 

"You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be -- you and me, Blanche?"

Perhaps there is another comfort. Perhaps we enjoy the knowledge that others are suffering not because it allows us superiority, but because we know that we are not suffering alone. This would explain why Blanche and Mitch find solace in each other, at least temporarily. Their shared experience of losing a loved one draws them closer and allows them to feel comfort in one another. 

"You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother."

Even so, the bond of shared tragedy is not enough to keep Mitch and Blanche together. When he learns the truth of her past, when he learns just how much heartbreak Blanche has gone through and the things that sorrow has caused her to do, does not Mitch see her as less than? Whether he takes comfort in it or not, he admits to believing her tragedy makes her "unclean." So then it is clear that even more so than a sense of togetherness, a rejection of loneliness, tragedy provides us a sense of betterment, a moral superiority, whether we like it or not. Reading about or discovering another's suffering is enough to make us believe our own lives are not so bad. 

So tragedy offers escapism after all. Not in the sense that we ignore our struggles as we would in embracing the happiness of another, but in the sense that we minimize our sorrows by witnessing another's. A Streetcar Named Desire just so happens to be the perfect demonstration of both characters and readers enjoying tragedy.

"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! -- Don't turn the light on!"