AtD: Lew's experience of grace

[Richard Fiero]

Many tragic characters experience dismemberment or disintegration. 
Oedipus removes the offending means of perception and ratiocination. 
Slothrop disintegrates. Raskolnikov's and Willy Loman's personalities 
disintegrate as does the entity who writes below.

alice wellintown wrote:
>As Hector hectors Zoyd, "you gonna die."   Ain't no magic liquid, no
>earthly host gonna give you everlasting life. But,  Zoyd, in a dress,
>has a plan; he gonna perform. Nobody came. / Father McKenzie wiping
>the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave /
>No one was saved.
>
>What's the point? A comedy? A tragedy? A comictragedy?
>
>And the colored boyz go, "How Bizaare, How Bizaare."
>
>But once the big D and Absurdity are in the House, well, then Richie
>Havens gonna sing, Freedom, Freedom, free at last, free at last....
>
>cause Lord,  we ain't gotta carry dat weight.
>
>
>Now we can get on with the living. Life is gonna end with Death and
>all along the way itz gonna be Absurd.
>
>Back to Sartre, Camus, and Oedipus too. And, maybe we'll toss in
>Scooby-Doo for good measure.
>
>once Absurdity is accepted, there is a freedom.
>But then what's the plan for a meaningless life not even Scooby Doo
>can have a clue to.
>Like, yeah, like wow man, like "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"
>
>This is when Camus starts, like Hamlet, talking about actors and
>acting and Zoyd, though he doesn't know it, gets caught in the actor's
>trap. That's one of the things the Tube is for. Hector too, he gonna
>get Tubed.
>
>Henry Adams never learned a damn thing and some folks think he didn't
>have any fun either. Well, I bet he had lotz of fun.
>
>But now I'm sick and have this horrible sneeze coming again.
>
>A similar problem afflicts Swan Song, also one of the original plays.
>In it, an aged actor (the marvelous Robert Hock) comes into a dark
>stage after having napped through a theater party. His appearance
>echoes that of the servant Firs at the end of The Cherry Orchard. An
>old prompter appears, and the actor begins to lament the way the
>theater stood between him and happiness. It's a lugubrious and dark
>piece, and although both actors are excellent, it feels too long
>(especially after Chekhov introduces scenes from Shakespeare (Othello
>and Lear).
>
>http://www.offoffonline.com/archives.php?id=1840
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 9:05 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com> wrote:
> > alice wellintown wrote:
> >>
> >> I can't quite follow the logic here. Is it that humans can not and
> >> have never experienced grace? Or is it that humans cut off from grace
> >> are tragic?
> >
> > The human condition is tragic. I know this because I read about 
> Oedipus. Now
> > I think that was a play in a culture which had some pretty heavy-duty ways
> > to renew - gods all over the place and with a lot of planting and fertility
> > activities. Some have even claimed to have experienced a catharsis by just
> > seeing the play.
> > What's the point? How can the audience be having a good time? It's a
> > tragedy.
> >
> >
> >
> >