The Tragic Tragedian

This entry was inspired by an account in The Great Divorce. Near the conclusion of the novel, the ghost through whose eyes and ears we experience the grandeurs and terrors of Heaven-Hell (depending on your perspective) observes a particularly bizarre exchange between an unfathomably resplendent angel, Sarah, and her (former?) husband, Frank. However, the husband's person has been split into a dwarfed figure (his real soul) and an actor-spokesman, specifically described as a tragedian. The tragedian holds the man's dwarfed soul on a chain. The conversation is far too long to relate or do justice summarizing, so I will have to refer any interested readers to the book itself.

For the purposes of this journal, what I found so interesting here was not so much what was exchanged verbally in the conversation (although it does provide crucial context), but rather the symbolism of Frank's split form. The tragedian was not a genuine part of the man's soul, but was a self-absorbed creation who he set up to try to obtain power by taking advantage of others' compassion and love. The tragedian was a false character, an image who had no real substance to him. However, by Frank refusing to let go of him, to let go of his effort to exert power through pity, he could not obtain joy. He was swallowed up until the tragedian was all that was visibly left, and thus became a partaker of what I believe is a much worse kind of misery than he was trying to instil in others.

To me, the message is that whenever we play the martyr or put on a false performance to take advantage of the goodness of another, we are putting forth an image of a pitiful creature that does not actually exist. And, if not controlled, that creature threatens to swallow our selves into it.