A pluralistic solution?
What we have set out here are some basic strategies for responding to the
problem of how I might pity Vanya. Given the enormous amount of
material written about this problem, these arguments have hardly been
given full exposure in this chapter. But I’ll end the discussion of this
problem simply by pointing out that there is absolutely no reason to think
that every apparent instance of an emotion directed towards afictional
character must be explained or analysed in exactly the same way. Some of
these strategies are incompatible, but many are not. Perhaps sometimes,
as Stendhal suggests, we get so carried away by the performance that we
really believe that a character exists and we respond accordingly. Perhaps,
on other occasions, our emotional response is a kind of make-believe, a
pretend fright that we act out to play along with the action. Or what we
first take to be a concern for a character disguises a feeling that we have
about a theme or problem that they represent, or a real person whom they
resemble. And perhaps, sometimes, wefind ourselves genuinely feeling
sorry for someone whom we know not to be real–whether we see this as
an anomalous instance of sheer irrationality, or whether it is a legitimate
case of sympathy for non-existents. Outside the theatre, our emotional
lives are complex, varied and difficult to describe with any great accuracy;
the same is probably true when we watch a play.
Tragic pleasure or the‘paradox of tragedy’
The second problem related to theatre and emotions is, in a sense,
dependent on there being some kind of solution to thefirst. When
I wrote, above, about my feelings after the performance ofUncle Vanya,it
is notable that much (although not all) of what I described was far from
positive. I feel sorry for some, I feel sad for others. Often, when we go to
plays–tragedies, but not only tragedies –we watch people whom we
admire or respect going through terrible misfortune: Desdemona is stran-
gled; Hippolytus is killed; Oedipus is blinded. Put simply, the so-called
‘paradox of tragedy’ is this: under normal circumstances, we don’tlike
crying, we don’t like feeling sad, we don’t like watching people whom we
care for suffering horribly and we don’t like being made to feel sorry for
them. But when we watch tragedies, we experience many if not all of these
things; and, in some way, we seem to like it, enjoy it, recommend it to our
friends. So, if we don’t like these things in everyday life, then why should
we like them at the theatre?^20
As with the other problems with theatre and emotion, the paradox of
tragedy has a long history. Gorgias, Plato, Aristotle and Augustine show
some awareness of it; Hume devotes an essay to it. We shall begin with
138 From the Stage to the World