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Tragicomedy
What is tragicomedy ?
Tragicomedy is exactly what its name says. It is a mixture of both tragic and comic elements. Significant is the fact people from the same background might differ as to what is amusing or truly tragic.
Long term tactic
People informally and literature of various kinds recognize that often situations can have two sides. One might be immediately apparent, or the other view might occur later. It is a way to categorize living and to analyze experiences.
The ancient Greek playwrights worked with the concept and authors have used the technique . Not everything has both humor and sadness. But because both ends of the spectrum are intense, when they are placed close together that friction magnifies.
Eye of the Beholder
If people share a commonality, then amusements are generally similar.
Typically, severely negative life changes are recognized by most people as tragic because there is pain.
Let’s Talk About Humanity
If people have a consenus, they can communicate more easily than if there is discordant interaction.
In “The Visit” it might be agreed that committing perjury and “turning out” a pregnant teenager are grevious actions. That is the tragedy.
Rather than having physical humor, the play has irony, satire, and mismatched allegiances. That is the comedy or, at the least, the comedic elements. Word play is the angle. Situational juxtapositions are the means to show it.
DEFINITIONS, THEN AND NOW
DRYDEN’S VIEWS
More Current approach
There are ways of approaching challenges. Some people focus on the “holes” in the situation; others pull back and create/see humor. Both are ways of coping. Of course, there are gradations in between the two
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https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Tragicomedy
FAMOUS QUOTE
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and
a comedy for those who think.
-various attributions