The Beauty of Shakespearian Tragedies

Shakespeare’s tragedies are set to have an inevitable ending: the death of all characters. Normally, we read stories to find out how they will end, but Shakespearian tragedies present us with that crucial piece of information. This got me wondering, what if some other classic pieces were structured in a similar way? Imagine if Gatsby’s death introduced the classic novel The Great Gatsby or if Mersault’s death was the first thing we read about in The Stranger. I personally feel that such choices would ruin the plot and get rid of much of the suspense and surprise element that make these stories interesting. So then why are Shakespeare’s tragedies still so well-known and praised despite their already-known endings?

With a feeling of incompleteness, his tragedies urge readers to reflect upon the plot and what went wrong. Many times throughout the reading, we want to stop the characters from doing or saying something that would create more chaos. We feel pity for one character and utterly despise the other. 

While listening to Othello, I felt frustrated after seeing how easily Iago manipulated the entire cast. Though the mastermind behind most, if not all, of the deaths in the play was Iago, is he the only one to blame? What about Othello and his ease in believing that his wife was being unfaithful. What about Emilia and her stealing the strawberry-patterned handkerchief? 

This dramatic irony in his writing makes it all the more interesting to read, almost as if we are playing the roles ourselves. So maybe a Shakespearean tragedy’s beauty isn't in the fact that everyone dies at the end, it’s in knowing the end result and seeing how one inevitable mistake leads to another, culminating in ultimate death.