Literary Criticism: Compare Tragedy and Whole Truth

How does Aldous Huxley compare tragedy and whole truth in literature?

Tragedy and the Whole Truth is a major work in the field of literary criticism of English literature. Aldous Huxley presented a beautiful analysis of tragedy and whole truth and showed us a new way of thinking. Prior to Huxley, many people believed that tragedy is the best form of literature and only tragedy will survive not whole truth for it is not a good thing. However, Huxley showed that great writers did not neglect whole truth and even while writing tragedy, they presented whole truth.

First we need to know what tragedy and whole truth actually means. By tragedy we mean something sad. In literature, tragedy means tragedy play. Many famous drama of world literature is tragic drama. There are many famous Greek tragedy plays. William Shakespeare, the famous English dramatist, also wrote tragic dramas such as Macbeth and Hamlet, which became very popular. These tragedy plays survived for centuries and provided food for thought to people.

By “whole truth” Aldous Huxley referred to the ordinary matters of our daily lives and presenting them properly. As the instance of whole truth, he mentioned Homer’s Odyssey. Odyssey tells the story of the journey of Odysseus to Ithaca, his homeland. During this journey, he and his companions faced great dangers. Once, a monster ate six of his companions. After reaching to a shelter in the island, Odysseus’ companions, instead of crying, first searched for food and then mourned for them and fell asleep crying.

Tragedy is higher and chemically pure. Because the author presents only one idea meaning, we only see sufferings, losses, pain in tragedy and all these are present in human nature. Hence, any good tragedy has great effect on us and it has a power called “Catharsis” which lightens up the sorrow of human heart. The better the tragedy, the powerful the Catharsis becomes. Catharsis helps us to overcome sorrows. Hence, tragedy is given great importance in all the countries.

On the other hand, whole truth is chemically impure because it contains many more ingredients than tragedy, but Aldous Huxley does not think less of it than tragedy. In his regard, Huxley takes an example from the novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding where the female protagonist, Sophia Western, falls on the ground while attempting to ride on a Western horse. The incident creates some humors and the way Fielding describes the incident is also very humorous. In tragic dramas, we cannot see a scene like this because it is chemically impure. At the same time, we also understand that whole truth suits novel very well; the main genre of current-day literature. Hence, we cannot neglect whole truth and it is no less inferior to tragedy. What Huxley tried to say is that if whole truth is used properly then it would become richer than tragedy. At the same time, the author can also utilize the artistic features of tragedy.

Huxley wrote this essay at a time when novel became a very popular genre and drama and poem were losing their charm. Cinema has become very popular and by “reading books” people started referring to reading novels.  If we look at our lives we would see that we do not read or watch drama that much and very few people these days read poetry or enjoy reading it. Most of the time, we study novels. From time to time, we watch tragic plays in theatres or on television but they are not so popular. But Aldous Huxley thinks that both tragic play and novel have great importance and very much necessary for human beings.

The absence of these two elements will destroy the balance of the world and a major damage will happen to human through process. Hence, the writers of tragic plays should pay attention to whole truth and writers of novels should learn from tragic plays.