Apples (© Vesoonse fe eee [owen eS | The Flaw in the Flaw UNDE xing about Shakespearean tragedy de Ee Russ McDONALD the descriptive theory of Aristolle a5 set time and translat millions of high tragic character, ut causes us tO judgment, not wi and, by naming U~ imore important in his heaven, all ify aesen ‘most familiar and en the notion that the topic figure is SE Jeading inevitably—and perl it seems, thinking about Shakespeare's kind of intellects: ie ‘a more balanced and of tragedy in general “The law of the flaw is a selatively to find the notion of tragic error essoct zd specifically with 3 RSITY OF NORTH CAROLI: Ferth inthe Poeics, Shakespeases own Brack ne Mihe earlyetwentieth-century COMMENT aaerpot to mention the difficulies oF passing ©! school and college st ‘dents, have led us to simp! 4 AT GREENSBORO three main sources: distortions of wn complex ideas t0 jify the question of se ccek ways of smoothing out its hairy ‘and unruly surfaces—The Seeing of these simplifications is the dOti7e of the Gage) srr inescapable weakness of cTarales properly—to death. Comfortable and useful though” eee eerrrms ofa agi aww amounts 108 ST pypass, a means of proceeding hat permits us to move quickly ge too much, Its time to challenge this orthodoxy and to replace gh a weakne’ procrastination’ or “ambition "of the somew ‘What is worse, its utili farreaching interpretive implications. Per 6 ie right with the world,” the theory x ( experience bad fortune get what they deserve, that suffering Jf some kind of weakness, that he great tragic figu tyr and shouldn't eesent their misery, (Rat anybody who gets \ ably a pervert who ought {9 ‘be punish tine of the tragic flaw “ericourages self-satisfaction and tther peoples problems,” and she S sthy recounts her efforts to contest such conclu J gions in teaching Oedipus the King and appropriate sonception Of sf eharacter, af Suc gnperection or erToy, and speaksio! Me hero’ these nouns-are part of a complex and balanced analysis ‘which Bt tres to the competing energies n ShNeSTESS frevatence of the flaw thecry Owes My Permits us to apprehend « comple: TF : rer imanter that mystery Ts a convERvER: EL Fappens to Hamlet and Oedipus and IT ther tragic heroes whe ‘uch to its value as ar P students, It allows us to pat the agic h ed. Phyllis Rose 8 35 compl the turning, of one’s back on aie Shakespearean prot recent phenomenon. To read Aristotle himself is t act, a mistake in .d while its true that orale + nchavacteristic action” y3i Ty of the tragic figure. The ‘an instructional device: it vegentation of a mysterious human experi "of explaining what ‘lien to us and it ero in-a box label Pat fancier model, “hubris.” G¢ as a pedagosical aid has Ted us 16 overookite serious and fram the Victorian notion that “God's of the flaw suggests that those wpe the result “ea shouldi’t have been surprised rouble is prob- © eaipus was my ace in the ele pecquse I think there's no way he can be Sfp , ving fs fate. An orate Mas Srophesied that e wil step with Ris mother and Kill a a Ale;‘The Flaw in the Flaw / 9 his father, so, horrified at the prospect of committing these crimes, he leaves the people 4 he thinks are his parents. Of course, he runs smack into his real parents and commits the crimes he has been fleeing from. But how can he be seen as morally responsible? My students say he should never have left Corinth. He shouldnt have tried to escape the prophecy. His tragic flaw was arrogance. He flew off the handle. He shouldn't have killed that guy at the crossroads, Under the circumstances, he shouldn't have gone to bed with any woman without checking very carefully whether or not she was his mother. (Hers,"" New York Times, Mat. 1, 1984) If the flaw in the flaw is that it blames the tragic figure and exonerates the world— “Im OK, Hamlets not”—we must also be wary of the intal error involved in reversing the terms, which is to excuse the hero and assign the blame entirely to his environment. An alternative to both positions is to see the dramatis as a kind of tragic incompatibility between the hero's particular form of greatness and the earthly drcum- stances that he or she is forced to confront. In Shakespeare’ tragic conception of the world, heroic ability becomes a handicap; distinctive talents constitute an ironic form >of fallibility: Rather than thinking of the tragic figures as “flawed,” we might regard them as gifted, as possessing a surplus of talent that puts them into immediate conflict with a hostile world. So widely credited is the image of thé proud, irresponsibte, ‘or doomed protagonist that apparently we need to be reminded that Shake- some pressure on the word to make it accpssityand meaningful to a contemporary NW. audience. What follows are some guidelj«es for tefreshing our thinking—and that of "(01 ) our students—about these compelling people. an Bhs ne Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Bruty, Macheth-all are exceptional, superhuman, dit W24S hevoes ferent from the rest of us. A wa is to say that they are outsiders, theater because we know that w |seq Olivier’s Othello or Mel Gibson's Hamlet: casting directors don't tolnobodies. Once the play begins, ~ Ie spes greatness is signified most oby“ously by extraord}naily patterns of speech: nobody else sounds like Hamlet ("Whet to suffer / The slings and arrow ‘i of eutrageous forfune”) 9 ie, | Take him and cut him out ight make them mare sympathetic Qo Cxco p77 if in little stars”) 6F ’ “one red’) primary (inacldet* tion These men ang/women 5] [ches Shakespeare'sragic characters are visionaries, purist, idealists. Believing ina strict |’) correspondencé between the way things are and the way things appear to them, they commit thempSelves imaginatively to the fulfillment of al ideal, whether personal or political ox/both. This is what Alfred Harbage notices when he remarks on “their unworldliniss, their incapacity for compromise,” and speaks\of them as “imperfect ones torn by their dreams of perfection, mortals with immortl longings in them” (The Compete Pelican Shakespeare, p. 821). Most of the.qualities ba World ae holaiciyNene 40 Thinking About the Plays simplicity or naiveté. Even Hamlet, the most intellectually capable and sophisticated af the Jot, displays a youthful ‘confidence and optimism in his capacity to know the an nd by that means to set himself free. That ‘Othello is sometimes thought of a5 Nimpleton is partly a function af his devorion "0 a2 elementary and clearly defined are of honor, honesty, loyalty, and conjugal [ow Romeo and Juliet conform well to seria pattern because, relatively speaking, they or5 children. Brash and independent, the young lovers seek to realize an ideal union 118 deceptive and corrupt world. There eee sure, haste in their wooing and weddiNgy ‘not to mention their deaths; and Weccarelessness with which they act has been ther, iby some as Shakespeare's indict- ment of their behavior as thoughtless and, foolish. “They stumble that run fast,” says Fear Lawrence, a statement often quoted 25 final evidence of Shakespeare’ disap- proval. And yet to narrow the meaning fof Romzo and Juliet to the cliché that “haste Protge wwaste” is surely to misrepresent the desteucr0" of innocence that gives the play its extraordinary poignance. Passionaie love, both physical and spiritual, is what Fectroys them, but it is also what draws us (© them. Shakespeare does not present their passion as a flaw. [Macbeth may be difficult to think of as a hero or a visionary, since it is easy 19 condemn him as ambitious and leave it at' that ‘And it is true that Shakespeare's practice is more complicated here Saucbeth becomes a criminal very early in the play Are shocking nature of his crimes making him much less sympathetic than Hamlet 01 Fence. In other words, it is hard to discern id wurderer. Nevertheless Pe own strength an / If only we could be sure possibilty, only we could be sure thot all the consequences pvepon as the deed is done. But such hopes are 5" onditionals, the “il Temind us that Macbeths vision of the perfect crime is quixot [His fantasy is under semed not only morally but also verbally, by the slippage-o?meaning that we see in | the puns. In these few lines alone, the means of “done” changes with each of its \ three uses (and the echoes Durican and Dursinars and “the dunest smoke of hell” ) \are audible in the background). The proximity and similarity of “surcease” and “suc-!\ ir vith their equivalent sounds and related meaning fald be accounted fo : Koowing that he should not, Macbeth acts ¥ x privilege. He hopes that by his own wil i ‘m wish into fact: the gres ' ese delivered during the frst banguet Tess AES rs : > iF it were done when tis done, then ‘twere well on) ; s Te were done quickly If th assassination Ay? ; Could tammel up the consequence and catch \s with his surcease success, that but this Blow woos Might be the bell and the end-all we azrs Qi oth ge . Sh 3: sat it would be finished, if only we £0 mntrol every , 7 ess add further complications, 2 fool! yore {since “success” signifies both “achievement and continuation (as in succession”). Mac- ee jelieves erroneously that he can’ move direc!y ‘and without resistance from what f beth is the “happy prologue” spoken by the witches into the “swelling act,” believes hat he can exert absolute control over fis destiny If only Fleance had not escaped eae pach chad else been perfect” (3.4.23), but evi is never complete, perfection never | [possible. — “but the tragic hero behaves as if t were, asi the world could be remade by strength of will, Corfolanus’ mother goes to the heart of the smatier when she says to her som, aaeenere too absolute.” The single-mindedness with ‘which the hero pursues the ideal ‘aston produces the central conflict of each play: for the world resists transmutationor control, and this conflict leads to a kind of dislocation, usually geographical (as in Hamlet trip to England, or Romeo banishment) but psychological as well. Despite the fierceness of the pressures that frustrate the heroic will, the tragic hero refuses to “compromise or to relinquish the object of desire. As Macbeth puts it, ina speech that demonstrates both the power of his will and the tendency of the world fo challenge ‘his desire, But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds sulfer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly (.218-22) (The (ees of patton ‘have become the nightmares that torture Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Each of the heroes is betrayed by commitment to a vision of perfection and by the force of will dedicated to that commitment. Even when it becomes clear that the ideal vision cannot be sustained, the hero remains faithful to it; and this rigidity is both self-destructive and ennobling. And what of the world that resists the heros attempts to change or control it? Shakespeare ensures that our attitude toward that world, like our attitude coward his heroes, is mixed. Itis a place of evil, disappointment, and mortality: its characteristics are apparent in the deceptions and illness of the Danish court that frustrate Hamlet, or in the misunderstandings and revenges that Romeo and Juliet attempt to escape a At the same time, however, we recognize it as our own world, the realm of the ordinary, the everyday, the nonheroic. These are the conditions that Malcolm and Macduff manage to restore at the end of Macbeth, The tragic figures imagine something extraor- ofl (2% dinary, seek to transcend the compromises of the familiar, and we both admire that fo imaginative leap and_acknowledge its impossibility. The contest between world and 7 V will brings about misery, insanity and finally deathisit also produces meaning and cnc 0 magnificence. : se a Tin Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare dwells on the attractions of the heroes’ dream. Surrounded by an urban environment of hate and violence, the lovers retreat into a = nocturnal realm of moonlight and privacy. They create a space free of the restrictions and prejudices implicit in the names Capulet and Montague. In this space, inherited ‘The Flaw in the Flaw 11 ideas can be discarded (“deny thy name”) and feelings truly expressed. Custom re- V+ iS) 4 quires one kind of behavior; the lovers choose another. As Juliet puts it in the balcony | YVte< la! scene: Fain would I dwell on form; fain, fain deny What I have spoke. But farewell compliment. on Dost thou love me? In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, ‘And therefore thou mayst think my havior light, But trust me, gentleman, I'l prove more true ‘Than those that have more coying to be strange. (2.2.93-95, 103-6) This innocent appeal to frankness and feeling is surely one source of the play's endur- ing popularity: in setting the simple candor of youth against the compromises and obstacles of their heritage, present against past, Shakespeare invites the audience to sympathize with the lovers and to wish for a world in which quarreling parents could bbe brought to their senses, Tybalt could welcame his enemies to the banquet, and Friar John, undeterred by the plague, could have delivered his message to Romeo. “If only” is the persistent theme.about the Plays ap | Thinking + inclined to sanction Macbeth's ambitious nate dreams of Fulfil: active power of Mac- a by an “easy” fe us of oUF hand, an audience is les cr go the Young lovers” passion iy in the play to sense the sedi sid where desires could be ree ittle water could cl (~ On the other fantasy ot sovereignty than 0 £m | ment. Although it is possible ear! \ perhis wishes if only this ere \ act, where “it were Sie, when is done.” where. a i ct whe ede-—in this tragedy Shakespes’ ‘emphasizes the danget of 4 urder, the visionary and ‘courageous hero rapidly de- Fcleal itself is associated with ry generates into a bloody ty rant, and most of the t onsequences of Macbeth’s ‘wickedness. In this Tsp’ present the 1w0 extremes of the tonal range that ShakesP‘ Fgedies: in the eatly play: Re ne eenttates om the leveliness of the ideal, teasing US vrrih the hope of tts realization: 25 ‘he Tater, dwells on the hideot personal wind political effects of the herds Subjective view. In both, however, he simultaneously vulates and ations, teasing, us with the promiets of illusion and 1% forcing us to feel HEN, rae itusionawent., The svuugele- agains imperfection is _, \ W doomed, but to bel the heroes 28/Tey to conclude that the attempt © not and such a judgment DC Falances and paradoxes oF STBET rowed ¢ oy worth aking. dox. Although the tragic hero 15 dead and the Spearean taped. ‘One final paraé visionary and vision are revived 2veTy time the play tnistic lines about life as a “Peck player” Survives—in the work of fiction, Shakespeare’ tragedl about reading and misreading ‘Macbeth’s error is that he the prophecies and warnings Sf the witches; he does, in other ‘words, precisely | what all of us do every iay-_he misreads a text, only we do it with literary texts, and | ep the consequences for us a7e ‘elatively minor. The text that ‘Macbeth misreads is the | text of the world, of the shadowy moral world of good and evil in which misunder- rev ing car have fatal results, The mpulse to dream is safest in the theater, or on the painter's carwas, oF in the IyTict impwlone, Shakespeare has imagined the stories te Bfoes ana turned those lives 10% 2 eeethe theater is the medium FY which we nay briefly inhabit a more wrearly perfect world, and even though it is transient, OOF participation in ve world of the tragic hero momentarily enriches out the imaginativé experience of this one: gedy is given over to the appa recy Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth ics are all to some extent plays isinterprets t flags Len Ce Levev fo yale L* cole Pak wolich oe death (1) sien geno “join dispelled, both “ 0 his advari > are draws upon in all the he. yee woesCritical Article Response A large portion of Shakespearean scholars’ time today is spent creating new theories and criticism revolving around intensely close readings of one or more of his plays. They then publish these new ideas in critical essays and books. There are so many articles and books published on this one author that it would take several lifetimes simply to read what has been published to date. For this assignment you have been randomly assigned one of two critical essays. Your job is to closely read this article using annotations to prove you actively read. Once you have read the article multiple times, you then need to craft a one page response (Times New Roman 12 pt font Double Spaced with MLA heading) to the article answering the following questions: * What is the scholar’s thesis? * Do you think their thesis is valid regarding the play we have read? © Why or why not? o USE EVIDENCE FROM THE PLAY AND THE ARTICLE TO SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER Annotations: As you read make notes on the text by doing the following: * Circle any words you do not know- write the definition in the margin * Underline any section which might be pertinent (applicable) to your research paper write yourself a reminder note in the margins so you do not lose that brilliant thought! + Box sections in which you see a clear connection with the text- write a short explanatory note in the margins Annotations: Written Response: [5 /16