The Modern Fear of Tragedy (ft. Hadestown)

So, twoish weeks before Thanksgiving Break, I became obsessed with Hadestown. The timing was nearly providential, because I was going to NYC for break, and that city happens to be home to Broadway, and Hadestown happens to be on Broadway still...anyway. This is probably old news to you, given that I raved about it (briefly) in my November Wrap-Up, but I still like thinking about how providential it was. And...I digress.

Please allow me to regress. Hadestown!

One of the things which struck me most when I was listening to it to the first few times was that it's a straight retelling of Orpheus & Eurydice (as well as Hades & Persephone, to a certain extent). 

(And by straight, I mean "exact", not whatever else that word implies. Although technically it is that, too. XD)

In other words, she still goes back to Hades(town) at the end. 

(I don't consider this a spoiler, since it's exactly what happens in the original myth. If you don't know the original myth, that's on you.)

And the first time I listened to it (or, okay, maybe the second time, when I was actually listening to the words), I was a little shocked. And then very impressed. 

Because a lot of the time these days, people don't have the guts to write tragedies. Or at least, not romantic tragedies. There, I said it.

In the majority of popular culture, the guy gets the girl (or vice versa) at the end of the story, no matter what else sad is going on in the story. 

Think Harry Potter. Think Avengers: Endgame (I'm still irritated about that one. Steve did not need that!). Think Jumanji. Think The Hunger Games. Think the Ascendance series. Think every Disney movie ever. 

And I could keep going, but what I don't need to do today is trawl through my book & movie lists finding all the media where the guy gets the girl. Because it would be way too much. 

No one has the guts to look at reality and say "huh, sometimes romantic entanglements don't end happily", and write like that. And even when it looks like they're going to, oftentimes it gets turned around at the last moment! (Looking at you Endgame & Ascendance series. *eyeroll*) There's a ton of pressure also for authors writing retellings to end the retelling happily, if the original story doesn't have a happy ending.

You may be thinking, "Samantha! What about fiction as escapism, like Tolkien talks about? Why can't we have stories where the guy always gets the girl, if we're hoping for a more idealized and better world?"

Well, my answer to that would be twofold. 

1. You're taking Tolkien out of context
2. The reason why we have all these stories where the guy gets the girl is unhealthy

First of all, in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", Tolkien argues for escapism in fairytales, and the kind of escape he's talking about isn't from humanity and the life of human nature, but from the modern world. He's talking about escape into fairytales, which often show the most brutally real picture of human nature and human tragedy ever, not an idealized and better world. But it's still beautiful. Think even about Tolkien's own work. The story of Turin Turambar is inescapably a tragedy, and a romantic tragedy at that. But he didn't look at it and go "oh, it's sad, therefore it's not escapist, therefore it's bad". No. He (probably) looked at it (even if subconsciously) and said, "this is an escape from the modern world, which still reflects the inescapable effects of sin, but also shows the beauty that can be found in tragedy". 

Just to back all that up, Flanner O'Connor argues that the mark of a really good author is his or her clarity of vision, and ability to see human nature as it is, and depict that. 

(At this point, am I just name-dropping Catholic authors? ...maybe.)

All of this doesn't mean that authors are compelled to write about The Hard Facts (which are very much subject to interpretation), but rather than they should write about people and the human condition, which, shocker, sometimes includes disappointment in love (often because of the human weakness of one of the parties). 

Secondly, I think that the modern world has idolized romantic love and especially the feelings of love to an unhealthy extent, while leaving out little things like duty or vows or circumstances or religious differences, &c. 

Think about the modern world. We live in a world where people decide that since they love each other they can do whatever they want. Love is king, and if you love someone, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, just be with them! Run into the sunset! Yay! 

Obviously, this then leads to things like fornication, adultery, cohabitation, divorce (often multiple times, as the fuzzy feelings of love wear off), aberrant behavior, and so on. 

The problem is that the fuzzy feelings of love do wear off (in six months to two years), and then what you're left with is either nothing (if the two people are not married) or the vows (if they are), which are easily broken if divorce is an option. And then we're back to square one: find someone you have fuzzy feelings for! give them everything! be with them! run into the sunset! yay! ...oops, I don't feel fuzzy feelings anymore. Must not be love! Leave that person! 

Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Since human beings were made to give themselves exclusively to one other person--even beyond the fuzzy feelings into love-as-willing-the-good-of-the-other--this makes people excruciatingly unhappy, even if they won't admit it. 

So, they want reassurance that the thing they've made the god of their life--love, and specifically those fuzzy feelings--are really worth giving their whole life in search of. So, they want their stories to reflect that, where people always end up with their warm fuzzy person.

And, okay, I kind of get it. Even as someone who's not of the persuasion that if you love someone, you should be with them at all costs, I do love stories where people end up with the person they love. Given that love (specifically romantic love or eros) is ordered towards possessing the other person, as a rightly ordered human being, I rejoice when it achieves its end. And that's a good thing.

But then, its end (in human relationships) is marriage, where the two people truly possess each other, and I'm not going to encourage that if it's a bad idea! Or if the two people aren't eligible for marriage! 

And ALSO, since I don't subscribe to the notion of people always getting to be with their warm fuzzy person, I think I'm more willing to entertain stories where even if the two characters are "eligible" for marriage (i.e. not married to other people or God), it just doesn't happen, either because of circumstances or because of flaws in the people themselves (or both). 

Because sometimes that's how life is and understanding that is part of seeing life and human nature with clarity of vision.

It's not necessarily that people who ascribe to the being-with-your-fuzzy-person idea because of their other romantic ideas don't know that sometimes that doesn't happen--they just don't want to acknowledge it, because their desire to be-with-their-warm-fuzzy-person is their god, and they don't want their god to lose its power. 

Anyway. All that to say: stories of people not getting to be with their warm fuzzy person are not popular these days, and I think that if we had more of them, the world would be a better place.

There are many stories which I would like to see told which go against the being-with-your-warm-fuzzy stereotype! I would like to read a story about someone who has an arranged marriage as a monarch and falls in love with someone else but gives that person up because their duty to their country as monarch is more important. I would like many stories about people who selflessly (and rightfully...not like the setup of Persuasion) let their love go so that their love can do something important in their life. I would like a story where someone's love dies, and they are able to move on and have a happy marriage to someone else. I would like a story about an engaged couple dying before they're able to be married (and bonus points if it's clear that they're remaining chaste until marriage!). 

Back to Hadestown. All of the above to hammer the point home that I really, really admire the chutzpah of the creators of Hadestown for keeping the original story and keeping it true to itself. Because I think even if it's not what's "popular" these days, it's really valuable for people to consume stories where the guy maybe doesn't get the girl. Even if it's sad. And it is! I find it sad! I'm not saying I'm a heartless person who hates romance! But I am saying that even though it's sad, I like it, and I think it's valuable. 

And even thought that trope isn't especially popular or sought-after...or at least, it's not what's being written...people do love Hadestown. Which is interesting to think about.

The thing I find most interesting about the tragic ending in Hadestown is that it's foreshadowed both directly (in the beginning song, "Road to Hell"! The lyric"See, someone's got to tell the tale/Whether or not it turns out well/Maybe it will turn out this time/It's a sad song, it's a tragedy" kind of gives it away) and indirectly, and it's caused by the flaw(s) in Orpheus's character.

Orpheus is used to getting what he wants with his music. Things aren't exactly easy for him, but he can afford to be a musician. (He's part of the creative class, if you will. We've been talking about the rise of the creative class in my Urban Planning class.) He's naive. He can take time to work on his songs. He somehow doesn't have to worry about where he's going to get his next meal. He gets the girl...at the beginning of the musical, at least. His music can make rocks cry. Obviously he can get whatever he wants. 

Whereas Eurydice clearly is a subsistence worker, scrabbling for her living, hungry, lacking. Nothing has ever come easy for her. Thus, she has chutzpah, she has determination, she has a certain level of ruthlessness. (She's part of the working class, if we're using the Urban Planning matrix.) 

When facing the world head on, Orpheus wants or needs Eurydice by him. He needs her courage to bolster his own, since because everything is easy for him, he's never had to develop courage and chutzpah of his own. 

It might be a bit strong to say he's a coward. But he's never had to really work for what he wants. His music has always convinced the world to do what he needs it to do. (Very clearly displayed in "Wedding Song", where he assures Eurydice that the world will provide for their needs. Oh, Orpheus.) And when subsistence work is necessary (as it is towards the end of Act 1 of Hadestown, when Eurydice is starving), he hides. He doesn't do it. He works on his songs. 

When she's gone, he goes to the underworld to get her back. And it's the hardest thing he's done in his life thus far. He ends up bruised and battered, but he's pursuing his love, with the strength with which she'd pursue him. She's in front of him, he's running after her. 

But then, when Hades asks him to walk out of hell without looking behind him, it's the new hardest thing he's ever had to do in his life. And he doesn't have Eurydice with him to lend him her strength...and he's not running towards her. She's behind him. He always looked forward to her for his strength, and now he can't. Hades even anticipates this--I love the line he has in "His Kiss, The Riot", where Hades sings "Nothing makes a man so bold/As a woman's smile and a hand to hold/But all alone his blood runs thin/And doubt comes..." 

And because Orpheus hasn't had much practice developing his own strength, building the virtue of courage, doubt does come in. He doubts the word of Hades, he doubts Eurydice, and he can't do it. He doesn't have the strength, either of character or of conviction. 

He fails.

He fails because of his own flaws, his own lack of growth in virtue. It's a tragedy because of his human flaws.

And that's the best kind of tragedy, because it reminds us what happens without God's grace. The world is a tragedy without God's grace, which is why so very many of the Greek myths or plays are tragedies. And I think that a retelling of one of those is extremely timely, in a world where God's grace is not expected or even believed in, because it gives a glimpse of the world that an essentially atheistic society should be expecting.

And even as someone who believes in God's grace, I can admire the clarity of vision in seeing human nature here, and the incredible compactness of the storytelling and of Orpheus's character arc.

It's SO BEAUTIFUL, GUYS. IT'S REALLY SUPER AWESOME. 

So, what do you think? Do you like tragedies, from time to time? Are there stories you'd like to see about people not getting their warm fuzzies? Are you a fan of Hadestown?