While hunting for something to read a few days ago, I came across what seemed to be quite an interesting novel—A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Reputed to be one of the “most depressing books ever,” it seemed to come with a promise to shock the reader with its dark themes and painfully descriptive writing. Despite going through numerous reviews and watching people talk (and cry) about their agonizing experiences reading it, I continued to feel inexplicably drawn to it; it almost seemed as though my urge to read it had grown tenfold. This surprised me—why was I so interested in reading something soul-crushing and depressing, especially considering the bleak times we all are currently living in? Was there not enough sadness out there already? But I wasn’t the only one who had identified this curious urge—a friend of mine recently mentioned how she had noticed that a large percentage of our best films, novels and plays were primarily tragic and somber. A little research quickly confirmed that despite the dark year the world was having there was no reduction in the amount of sad content that was being consumed on a daily basis. This led me to wonder—why does tragedy give us such pleasure? Why is it that we enjoy watching films and reading books about death, suffering and misery? Is it because we see horrifying subjects controlled through such impressive art forms? Or is it because tragedy actually reaches out to the dark side of human nature?
The consumption of such content extends centuries into the past, right to the rise of Greek tragedy in the 5th century BC, when the likes of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides brought audiences to tears with their plays. Numerous philosophers and scientists have attempted to address this perennial question—in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that Greek tragedy is involved with darkness and unreason. Sigmund Freud asserted that humans are all, at the unconscious level, quite wicked enough to rejoice in death. But this begs the question: how can the conscious human mind assent to such enjoyment? Surely there has to be some logical reason for this inclination to the tragic that isn’t sadism or schadenfreude.
As I delved deeper into my research, I uncovered numerous studies that psychologists had carried out. Researchers at Oxford University stated that watching traumatic films might actually boost our feelings of group bonding, as well as increasing our pain tolerance by upping the levels of pain-killing chemicals produced in the brain. Essentially, they hypothesized that the emotional wringing one gets from tragedy triggers our endorphin system, releasing feel-good hormones. Furthermore, fictional tragedy makes us feel empathy for those around us through the release of oxytocin in our brain, which automatically engages our circuits to prompt us to care about our loved ones. Recent studies have also shown the gradual shift from more “hedonic,” pleasure-oriented functions to more “eudaimonic” i.e. meaning-oriented functions to choose and view content that contributes to insights and our personal growth. Catharsis beliefs and the want to experience feelings (meta-emotions) also play a big role in us choosing to read or view something tragic. But while the feel-good emotions we receive from comedic content are commonsensical and easily explained, rarely do we stop to notice the benefits sad movies and films have on our psyche while we watch them.
Tragic stories, through dealing with unhappy events and unhappy characters, usually make people much happier after experiencing them, as they allow the viewer to reflect on their own relationships. Since negative emotions are prone to make people thoughtful, they are more likely to think after experiencing a fictional tragedy. According to a study by Ohio State University, the more viewers thought about their own relationships and loved ones as a result of watching a sad film, the happier they felt. Being exposed to such tragedies often makes us feel grateful for not having to endure what our favorite characters have had to. It reminds us that our lives aren’t as messy as we think, and it makes our miseries seem less insurmountable. Painful stories feel real, and that is exactly what we want in the content we watch. It gives us perverse pleasure to know that fictional characters are suffering with catastrophes of the sort we are.
Thus, in a time when we see thousands dead daily, whether from a global pandemic, a bomb blast, or a plane crash, does it do to immerse ourselves in tragedies inside the walls of our own homes? The simple answer: it does. We are our own main character, but we aren’t always lucky enough to be rewarded with blissful times or happy endings throughout our lives. Instead, as a species, we’ve had to endure a number of injustices and sadness. Each of us has felt helpless in the face of irreconcilable strife in our life. Watching melancholic content helps show us that we aren’t alone. Narrative psychology demonstrates that how we feel about our lives depends on how we write our own stories. On one hand, we can write “contamination stories” wherein negative events are written as punishments and poison to our life in the longer run. Or, on the other hand, we can write “redemptive stories” that frame our negative events as growing experiences. Tragedies allow us to take solace in sad things that can happen to heroes/heroines, or anyone for that matter and remind us that while life is difficult, we are lucky for the joys we do have. We do not have to be weak, alone, or deserving of the pain we go through. We are, instead, just as heroic as the tragic figures in our favourite shows who endure so much and still retain their character.
So watch the Schindler’s List for the tenth time. Cry your eyes out over The Fault in Our Stars (though I would suggest something slightly more nuanced than that). Immerse yourself in fiction that makes you feel something, rather than merely content that “entertains” you. A quote by one of my favourite authors, Virginia Woolf, explains this heavy yet holistic truth, the same uncompromising rule that governs her own oeuvre: “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It’s contrast.” My hope is that you’ll keep this in mind the next time you watch a movie or read a book that reopens your wounds and impales your contentment: Analgesia is overrated, while tenderness is vital, in today’s world.
The Candid Contrarian 