Training Day

The movie Training Day, starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, on the surface does not seem like a comedy at all. When you look at the story of Alonzo, a main character of the movie, the movie seems more like a tragedy. However, by the definition presented by Aristotle, Ethan Hawke presents a character that ultimately fits the definition of the, "Ordinary Person" comedian.

Training Day is a movie that chronicles the day of a new police officer named Jake. He's shown the ropes by an accomplished and well-known cop named Alonzo. While Alonzo is showing Jake the ins and outs of being a cop in urban areas, Jake's presented with incidents that question Alonzo's techniques and whether he's doing it for the right reason. Ultimately, Jake finds himself in situations that threaten his life because he's trying to do the right thing. Alonzo is ultimately murdered tragically after his corrupt ways are exposed.

While the ending of the movie is Alonzo being murdered in his car after his was exposed, the ending for Jake is a much different one. Throughout the entire day of being lied to and misled, Jake keeps his integrity. He's always trying to do his job to the best of his abilities, which is doing what is right. By Aristotle's definition, the ordinary person is someone who is generally of lower to middle class, and is involving an ordinary task. Like succeeding at a job. That's exactly what Jake is. He's a dad with a wife and a new born bay, trying to make a living, and do what his job description tells him. Furthermore, the movie teaches us that doing your job and doing the right thing is what is rewarded. Jake was honest, sincere, and able to go back home to his family. Alonzo was deceptive, cruel, and was killed because of it.

Jake is the comedy in the movie. Alonzo is the tragedy.

Dangerous Love

Stamp Paid shows Paul D a newspaper clipping of Sethe but Paul D is convinced it is not her, "That it's not her mouth"(183). Paul D can not read so Stamp Paid tells him the story about Sethe leaving out some parts of the story so later Paul D confronts Sethe. When Paul D confronts Sethe the narrator describes, "And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe"(192). Sethe sees her decision to kill her children as "simple". She wanted to secure her children's safety and sending them back to Sweet Home was not safe. Also Sethe describes her children as "the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful". Therefore by allowing the teacher to take them back would be allowing him to destroy everything good about herself. After Paul D learns of what Sethe did he tries to find an explanation for it says she has two legs and not four, meaning she is not an animal. Paul D believes she can not justify what she did and she was wrong. My question is do you believe that Sethe was justified in trying to kill her children?

I think that we or anyone can't really argue if she was justified. I mean we could have a discussion about it and express our opinions but we can't say it was wrong. In my opinion Paul D was in the wrong for telling Sethe that she was wrong for doing what she did. He or anyone else especially us in the present day will never truly understand what Sethe had to go through. Yes, it is wrong to kill your children but she was killing them to save them. Which in a sick and deep way makes since to me. The children probably would have been better off dead then going through slavery. Are you really living if you aren't free? No. So death she felt was her only option. However, if Beloved really is the reincarnation of the dead baby and she isn't happy in the afterlife then what Sethe did was for nothing. But there was no real way for Sethe to know that so we can judge her for it.

The Greatest Comedies Reveal How Small We Really Are

I am no fan of Aristotle's. I vastly prefer Plato as a thinker and theorist in the Western world. But since we are here to discuss literature and not the widespread mental illness known as philosophy, I must recognize the impact Aristotle had in shaping the compositions and interpretations surrounding Western literary works.

For this post, I am supposed to either defend or dismiss the dramatic Comedy as Aristotle defines it. I believe that Dramatic Comedy can be a meaningful form of art just as a Tragedy is because our lives are simply not tragic. If art always depicted an Aristotelian Tragedy, then it would mostly invite pity parties and crocodile tears, nor would it deepen our insight about the world around us. In other words, art would be quite limited if it only depicted Tragedies. There are aspects of life that are above the notions of a Tragedy. If my story was about a man sitting alone in silence in a meadow while doing absolutely nothing except for staring at a blade of grass for a long time, then smile at the end, it would be a meaningful art form that is a not a Tragedy, but a Comedy. What I think is great about meaningful Comedies is that they can move us not through poignancy as Tragedies do, but through compelling us to look at the beauty around ourselves and simply be happy about it.   

Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is one of the most elegant works of Western literature, and it also happens to function as a Comedy. The entire poem is separated into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. At the very start, Dante is "lost" both literally and metaphorically, but he is rescued by the poet Virgil. In Inferno, Virgil guides Dante into the underworld, where people suffer in a form of poetic justice. In Purgatorio, Virgil guides Dante as they ascend the Mountain of Purgatory. In Paradiso, Dante is guided by Beatrice, a woman he deeply admired, through Heaven. In the last lines of the Divine Comedy, Dante meets face to face with the Trinity God. As he finally understands the mysteries of the universe, Dante's soul is aligned with the love of God in such a way that is so awe-inspiring he cannot express in words.

Although the idea of Divine Comedy being a Comedy is disputable since it does not fit any of its sub-categories, it does fit Aristotle's requirements. Hell, the title even gives it away for those not convinced. It begins in a state of loss and danger, then ends with the soul's journey to Heaven, and we know that it was going to end this way to begin with. Now as for whether this is a contemporary work, I do not think that it should be an issue. It still is an important work of modern Europe, more so than any of the romantic and slapstick Comedies, be it foreign or domestic, that spawn nowadays. That is not a knock on those other works as much as it is my way of praising Dante's work. I will explain why it should be held with such high regard in the West.

What frustrates me about current trends in literature is the heavy focus on humanity more than everything else. What I mean is that stories, conflicts, and thoughts have been largely humanitarian for the past two hundred to three hundred years, especially now since human rights are now a greater concern now than ever. Most Comedies, let alone all works of art, center around humans. Perhaps I am just being closed minded or "full of shit" as my aunties would jest, but I think that older works of literature are usually better because they tend to either focus on the world itself with humans sidelined or they integrate said material as powerful influences in human dramas. Mythologies from around the world are based on higher powers, spirituality, and the beauty of life itself. The older that a story is, the less likely it will portray humans on their own as the greatest points of interest whenever they are present. This is why I am picky towards most - but not all - contemporary works of art.

This is where a modern work such as the Divine Comedy steps in. Not only does it deepen our insight of the world, but the Divine Comedy attempts to delve into realms that are beyond our knowledge, comprehension, and material existence. It should not matter if we never come across such planes of existence exactly as Dante described them. So the poem in its entirety does not demand for its readers to be Christians, as pagan motifs are depicted throughout it. However, this is not to say that Dante thinks we as humans are insignificant, because all Renaissance thinkers emphasized the powers of men in their poetry. We tend to believe that everything revolves around ourselves, and yet it does not. We also tend to believe that we know many things about the world, and yet if science and religion have taught us anything, it is that we know next to nothing about the universe and our placement in it, and I think Dante wanted to get that point across to readers as long as his work remains. We see this theme prevalent throughout both Inferno and Paradiso. Ultimately, I see the Divine Comedy as the journey of the soul through something much larger than ourselves. This "something larger than ourselves" can be many things; in Dante's perspective, it is an entire universal order and our placement in this order. Just as how it was like with Dante at the end of his Comedy, we should feel delighted once we come face to face with something so vast, mysterious, beautiful, and divine.

Other works that this can be compared to are The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Ramayana, though I chose not talk about those because they are much older than Aristotle, and therefore were not written to be Comedies. I would also include Shakespearean plays such as The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream to compare to Dante's grand poem, but I did find his Comedies (albeit only the ones I've read) to pale in comparison to his tragedies.