Catharsis

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Introduction

          This word ‘Catharsis’ used in criticism for first time by Aristotle. Later on the meaning of this word has become ambiguous.

          In Greek Catharsis means either purification or purgation. We can say that the Catharsis means purification of the bad things, bed feelings and negative thoughts. Release of painful emotion out let the emotions by art especially by drama.

          Catharsis is a term in Dramatic art that describes the effect of tragedy principally on the audience. Catharsis is function of tragedy and that emphasize upon two things ‘pity’ and ‘fear’. Person feels pity when we see murder of good person or fall down the hero. At that time person feel the fear when they put their own self in the place of good person.

          The emotion of the pity and fear aroused by the action of the tragic hero and since then has been a course of considerable controversy. Whenever we go to the theatre to see the picture and then he became very free and we felt the freshness of mind. That’s why drama or novel helps to express our pity and fear. This process cleans their emotion. Thus, we can say that the importance of tragedy it makes man light and free and man mind clean or clear.

           ~ Origin and meaning

                   “Catharsis common meaning is the pleasure of the pity and Fear”.-     Aristotle

                              This in the Greek signifies ‘Purgation’ and ‘Purification’ are both much disputed as catharsis. Catharsis from the Greek word     it means purification and cleansing on two meters however many commentators agree. Aristotle in two first place sets out to account for the undeniable through remarkable fact there many tragic representations of suffering and defect leave on audience seeing not depressed but relieved or even exalted.

          This pleasure of pity and fear of the basic way to dustings the tragic from comic or other forms, and he regards the dramatist judgment or as it is offend, Although misleadingly and less literally translated his tragic flaw.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

   ~ Definition of Catharsis

          The purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tension, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music…

~ Definition of Tragedy

          ‘Tragedy then is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude; In the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament the secret kinds being found in separable parts of the play in the story of action not of narrative ; through “ pity and fear effecting the proper purgation- catharsis of these and similar emotions…’

          The catharsis is function of tragedy. Catharsis has three meanings as under in the chart…

Clarificati

                            

 Let’s understand these three words is in detail,

1) Purgation:

          Catharsis is a reflexive process. Tragedy arouses pity and fear and through this somehow drives them out. Usually catharsis is translated “purgation” in the politics. Music should be studied with a view to purgation in listening to the performances of others. The concept of arousing a passion in order to “purge” it is quite emphatic here. “Tragedy said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of passions. Freud later abandoned hypnotism, but his mature method of psychoanalysis still involves the reconstruction and “purgation” of painful childhood experiences. One objection to Homeopathic theory is that it makes Aristotle too reliant on Plato. Plato believed that the emotions are threats to the intellect, and his ideal man must fight constantly to reduce them to the minimum. Aristotle said that the emotions are as much a part of the human being as the intellect. They are not bad; they are merely capable of harm if not properly controlled. This line of thought gives rise to the purification theory.

2) Purification:

          The purification theory is attractive because it does not involve “driving out” of emotions. After all pity is usually considered a good emotion, and fear in its proper place is healthy. They should be controlled, but not “driven out”. The purification theory is usually supported by reference to the argument found in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that mental health is mean between two extremes. Catharsis is kind of moral conditioning. The purgation theory the purification theory can be considered an answer to Plato, but it is one based on Aristotle’s understanding of emotions, not on Plato’s.

          There are great many varieties of the purification theory. During the renaissance two famous Italian critics Robertello and Castelvetro- suggested that tragedy help to harden or “temper” the emotions. The purification theory involves the idea of moral instruction and moral learning. Thus it is purify us and we feel relaxes.

3) Clarification:

          Through this theory we clarifies yourself and after clarification we feel happiness. Because our frustration comes out through this theory. So it helps to us to clarify our self.

~ Catharsis 

                  

 The word catharsis has been translated in three ways. Each translation is revealed to a prominent theory of catharsis, for example the purgation theory, the purification theory and the classification theory. The word catharsis has been translated in these three ways:

                     “Through pitiable and fearful incidents (tragedy achieves) the catharsis of these emotion.”

                     “Through pitiable and fearful incident (tragedy achieves) the catharsis of such emotion”.

                    “Through the representation of pitiable and fearful incident (tragedy achieves) the catharsis of such incidents”

                    Now let’s know some examples of Catharsis through which we can understand the real meaning of it.

~Example of catharsis:

                                     Oedipus the king has written by Sophocles. In this drama  the tragic hero Oedipus moves us to pity because since he not an evil man his misfortune is greater than he deserves, but he moves us also to fear, because we recognize similar possibilities of error in cut down lesser an faliable selves.

                                 Aristotle ground his analysis of “The very structure and incidents of the play” on the same principal  the plot he says which will most effective evoke “tragic pity and scene is one in which occurs a sudden periaptra aim to produce this effect in the highest degree as the principal that determines the choice and moral qualities and the organization of the tragic plot.

                               Accordingly Aristotle says that the tragic hero will most effectively evoke both our pity and terror if he is neither properly good nor totally bad but mixture of both, and also that this tragic effect will be stronger. If the hero is in the sense that he is of higher than ordinary moral worth. Such a maind is exhibited as suffering a chand in fortune from happiness to misery because of his mistaken choise of an action, to which he is led by his hamartia “error or mistake or reversal in his fortune from happiness to disaster.”

                     A man who killed someone in a drunken driving incident experiences catharsis by volunteering in a children’s shoulder.

               Playing the piano is a catharsis for a tried, busy mother after a long day of work.

  In Oedipus a greek tragedy, Oedipus unknowingly marries his mother. At the end of the play when the tragic mistake has been revealed, jacosta commits suicide and Oedipus gouges his eyes out. Both character experience release in death; Oedipus by doing  penance by going out his own eye.

~ Conclusion:

          So after all we can say that Catharsis is very useful theory through which we can purify our self. And while viewing play or movie at that time we attached our self with the character and all our emotions and fear comes out.

             

   

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