ENG 231 7.R: Tragedy Paper and Presentation Expectations

Posted on February 22, 2024 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Project Two: The Tragedy Paper Expectations
  • Tragedy Project Resources (and Santos 2023 post on catharsis)
  • Tragedy Presentation Expectations
  • Tragedy Presentation Sign-Ups

If you have a question regarding the paper or presentations, then you can ask it here.

Project Two: The Tragedy Paper Expectations

When we started this project back on February 1st, I promised you 4-5 weeks to complete your game and develop your papers. Today marks the end of week four. The time of writing is upon us. Many of you have done some work already both in your journals and in your presentations. My hope is that ideas are fomenting. It is time to calcify them.

If you are still generating ideas, then refer back to the heuristic I shared last class.

Final papers will be due March 10th. I will respond to papers over the break.

Vitals:

  • The paper should be 7 to 10 pages (say 1700 to 3000 words)
  • The paper should be written in MLA or APA format with a corresponding Works Cited / Reference List. You should use the OWL MLA or OWL APA websites for formatting.
  • The paper needs to develop a definition of catharsis. This should include citing and explaining (the ambiguities) in Aristotle’s definition and explaining at least two of the competing definitions Curran presents. It will likely take you 2 pages (double-spaced) to do this. You might explain two versions of catharsis relevant to your paper, or contrast two and ultimately only use one. The learning objective for this part of the paper is that you can summarize/explicate intricate theory in your own terms.
  • The paper needs to work with one additional term we’ve discussed this project (see resources below). You might have to look up other sources to help develop your understanding of the term (Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, etc). Be sure to include these in your Works Cited / Reference List (check formatting in OWL). It is your job to talk about how/why this term relates to catharsis and then, in the paper, to talk about why that term is specifically important to understanding your experience of that game.
  • Taken together, these explications build what we, in the humanities, often call the Theoretical or Critical Lens for analyzing a game. The interpretation of catharsis you champion here HAS to show up in your analysis. Did you feel clarification, purge, refinement?

The paper should then close read 2-4 scenes from the game that help me understand the answer to one (or more) of the following questions:

  • Is this game a tragedy (by Aristotelian standards)?
  • Did you have a cathartic experience? What is that experience? To what extent does it concern “pity” or “fear”? Might you suggest a different word/emotion?
  • How/does the interactive nature of the game augment/diminish its potential as a tragedy capable of producing catharsis? Think of the Joel scene: what amplifies there is that we are not *watching* Joel shoot those doctors, but doing it ourselves. HOWEVER, if you were to focus on Joel’s final lie to Ellie, then we aren’t “acting,” we are merely witnessing, watching. (And, were I to write about this game, I would have 3 sections of the paper: Loss (focusing on the opening scene, Tess’ death, Sam’s death), Murder (detailing the hospital scene), and Lies (detailing that final epilogue).
  • Explore the complex relationship to the game’s protagonist / argue for the agent of the tragic action etc. What other term comes to mind when you think of your game?

Remember that this part is mostly advisory. Meaning–you have to show me you can read several academic sources and define catharsis–the stuff in the first bulleted list is non-negotiable. The stuff in the second bulleted list is offered as potential avenues for analysis. However, what you do in the paper is up to you. I want to read a paper that uses the concept of catharsis and another Greek aesthetic term to say something smart. Point to specific elements, scenes, choices, dialogue in the game. Don’t merely summarize plot, but analyze aesthetic intent and effects.

Finally, the paper needs to have an introduction that details your argument. Your answer(s) to that/those question(s) is your thesis. It is the point that your paper is attempting to prove. Make sure your introduction lays the argument out and “road maps” the route the paper will take to get there. The paragraphs examining scenes are your evidence in support.

The exact argument and organization of the paper is up to you: I cannot predict or assure that the questions I lay out above will work for every person’s experience with any given game. They are starting points. If you analyze specific scenes of the game using the theoretical readings we’ve read and discussed in order to reflect on your play and the designer’s intentions, you are ensured at least a B on the paper (see the rubric in Canvas).

Catharsis Resources

Note that there should be .pdfs of all readings in Canvas.

Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy:

VI.2-3
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of emotions.

What if Catharsis Wasn’t Merely Fear and Pity?

One more resource. Here is a blog post I wrote on Catharsis last year. You are free to cite this. You are also encouraged to argue against it (should you decide to do so).

  • MLA Citation: Santos, Marc C. “What if Catharsis Wasn’t Merely Fear and Pity?” Insignificant Wranglings, May 2022, https://www.marccsantos.com/eng-231-7-r-tragedy-paper-expectations/
  • APA Citation: Santos, M.C. (2022, May). What if catharsis wasn’t merely fear and pity?” Insignificant Wranglings. https://www.marccsantos.com/eng-231-7-r-tragedy-paper-expectations/

Okay, here goes:

First, let’s clear up what catharsis might mean, especially the idea that catharsis is a kind of pleasure. We all get that catharsis for Aristotle means that we watch something painful and then (sort of) feel good about it. But why do we feel good about it? How do we flush out the particulars? This is where things get tricky. Let me introduce two/ interpretations–I roll with the second more than the first.

Okay, the first is that we recognize in the protagonist something that plagues ourselves, one of our foibles, weaknesses, flaws. Hence we pity them. Or we see that they are the victims of the bad circumstances and we pity them. And, at the same time, because we identify with them, we fear that we could make the same bad decisions or find ourselves a pawn of a similarly unjust fate.

Perhaps the play resolves itself, and through the play we learn to overcome those bad things, to fix our flaw, to be better. Thus, we are purged, cleansed, of our pity and fear. The pleasure here is tied to the pleasure of learning, of becoming better.

I don’t really buy that model. Rather, I think we reconcile, accept, those flaws. Perhaps we learn the importance of overcoming our flaws, perhaps we are better at avoiding them. But I think catharsis more as a coming to terms with our frailties, learning to live with them, coming to recognize humanity as something over than divine, ideal, or perfect. The rhetorician Kenneth Burke once said that humans are “rotten with perfection,” with the idea of perfection, with creating ideals and then comparing ourselves to them. Judging ourselves lacking for our inability to meet the impossible ideal. I think the cathartic “pleasure” of coming to terms with our frailty is timid, subdued. It is a kind of peace that eschews from a contentment with our/selves.

I’ll also say that I don’t think the purpose of tragedy is to release just fear or pity. That’s feels too narrow to me. Both in the sense that I don’t think tragic exploration limits itself to what we fear and who we pity (for suffering what seems injust or caprice whims of fate).

Catharsis reaches out to us and reminds us, rekindles, relights, what is already there. Our fear of death. Our fear of loss. So, yes, fear is certainly part of us. But what about our struggle to find meaning in our lives? Our desire for a soulmate. Is there a fear that we won’t find meaning or love (we could spin it that way). But rather than fear, what about the frustration love (or its absence, or its betrayal) causes us? The pain of rejection or betrayal. Catharsis is a term for the resonance between what we see on the stage, the screen, the page, and our own troubles, thoughts, feelings. And we can have powerful relationships to characters that do not necessarily amount to only pity.

This isn’t to say we can’t have a powerful sympathetic response to a narrative to which we have no lived correlate– I find Eli Weisel’s Night to be incredibly powerful despite the fact that I have not experienced genocide. Night is doing powerful work; I would simply insist that it is not cathartic work, because there is no personal resonance for me. It operates in the realm of sympathy (feeling for) rather than empathy (feeling with). This does not mean it is not “pedagogic,” i.e., instructive– it certainly aims to teach us how (not) to live. But there is no connection to my life (and, without falling into the “universal” rabbit hole, etc. etc), no identification. I experience it from a distance.

So, if I had to lay down a fundamental first principle for catharsis, it would be that there must be a fundamental identification between the action of the tragedy and the audience/reader/player.

Tragedy Presentation Expectations and Materials

First let me say that these are not supposed to be formal or stressful. If you are not a fan of public speaking, you are welcome to put together a video recording of you giving a talk or produce a narrated PowerPoint presentation that we can listen to in class.

As of today, we have 23 people who are active in the class. We have 150 minutes to complete these presentations. Leaving about a minute and a half between presentations for a few quick questions and transition, you each have 5 minutes for your presentation. So that’s about 650-750 words. I want those words to be your best words, for you to show us your best thing.

The presentation should probably spend about 150 words summarizing the plot of the game for us. THAT IS NOT A LOT OF WORDS–but you should give everyone a big picture view of the topic/action/main character in a very tight paragraph.

The main part of the presentation should focus on a particularly interesting scene that produces catharsis. Given that we are all pretty familiar with catharsis, you should simply identify what flavor of Curran’s menu you are tasting and give us no more than a one sentence definition.

Then take us to a scene and give us a close reading. Think of my explication of Marlene and Last of Us last class. I would have more work to do on that–but that sample is 380+ words.

If you are concise, then you can discuss two scenes of the game. During your talk, I will signal when you hit 4:00 minutes and shut you down when you hit five. Practice your speech enough that it fits in that 4:00-4:45 minute window.

Your presentation should be accompanied with a slide show. Unless you are recording your presentation, I strongly prefer you use Google Slides for this–you can submit a link to the presentation to Canvas and it will make transitioning between speakers much faster as everyone presents. These do not need to be fancy–just share materials relevant to your presentation. Or maybe like this. Note how those speakers put notes in some of the slides–copy and pasted from their paper. They know when to read and when to speak. Again, if anxiety is a problem, you are welcome to read a paper. When I present theoretical material at conferences, I tend to read more than speak, and I write [change slide] in my paper to remind me when to advance my presentation.

There isn’t any one right way to do this, and the presentations will look and feel different. To provide some clarity, I will grade on three things:

  • Time and Polish [whether spoken or prerecorded]
  • Identifies a type of catharsis
  • Close reads a scene
  • Has “good” slides

Tragedy Presentation Sign Ups

Back to the Conference Sign Up Google Doc.

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