clear that catharsis could function in that role. Setting catharsis aside,
I shall consider three proposals which appeal to truth, morality, and the
nature of the emotions, respectively.
Truth
Perhaps one reason we go to tragedies is that they present us with truths.
In Chapter 3, we looked at some problems with this claim; but, setting
those aside, would this perhaps provide a solution? For one thing, truth
can’t be all there is to it. If tragedy tells us truths, but does so via nega-
tive emotional responses, then one wonders why we couldn’t do without
the truth altogether, saving ourselves an unpleasant evening. Or, if we are
set on truth, wouldn’t we be better off getting our truth via a less dis-
tressing medium? One would have to provide an explanation as to why
we discover truths via tragedy (with its attendant pains) rather than by
neutral or even pleasurable means (or just not at all). James Shelley’s
proposed solution attempts such an explanation, using the notion of
repression. The truths presented by tragedy are truths that we seek to
repress in our everyday lives, because they are disturbing and they conflict
with how we wish the world to be. But repressing them is (somehow)
unpleasant or difficult. Hence, when they are revealed to us at the tra-
gedy, we experience the pleasure of no longer having to repress such dif-
ficult truths:‘tragedy relieves us from the pressures of thwarted truths.’^35
Shelley doesn’t deny that tragedy is pleasurable, nor that watching other
people suffer is unpleasant. The claim is as follows: that we repress all
sorts of unpleasant truths about the world; that repressing them is
unpleasant; and that releasing them (through watching a tragedy) brings
the pleasure of no longer having to repress.
We have already seen that deriving truths from theatre is not straight-
forward. Thefirst problem with Shelley’s argument is the lack of useful
examples. At one point he suggests the following, by way of a candidate:
‘a good man, acting in accordance with his best judgement, acts in way
that leads, unforeseeably though with astonishing ease, to his own
destruction.’^36 This seems a plausible (though not unproblematic) reading
ofOedipus Tyrannus. But plenty of people, myself included, would happily
agree that this is true, without feeling the need to repress it at all. Yet,
contrary to what Shelley’s account would predict, I can still enjoy a per-
formance of the play. Second, supposing the truths in question are in fact
so nasty that one has to repress them: why is the joy at no longer having
to repress them not outweighed by the horror at their release? If I am
sitting on a box that is full to bursting with venomous snakes, then the
effort of keeping them shut away may be troubling. But the pleasure at
releasing them (i.e. the pleasure of no longer having to exert myself to
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