Melodrama = Tragedy + Time

The most profoundly important writing on the subject of playwriting is Aristotle’s Poetics, which outlines the elements of a tragedy in the Greek form, with a special interest on the “perfect” play, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. In mythology, this is equaled by Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, which outlines the essential elements of any mythological text, from Gilgamesh and the Bible to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

Melodrama is rife with “perfect” texts, but has not been analyzed to the structure of Campbell’s mythologies or Aristotle’s tragedies. The closest thing to a structural analysis of melodrama is a series of identifiable motifs present in films of the genre, and the universal archetypes, first theorized by Carl Jung, that are present in all genres. Hollywood Melodramas are, arguably, closer to Greek Tragedies than nearly any other form. The elements that are different between the two genres reflect the differences in attitudes between the eras in which they were conceived. Tragedy is a product of a hopeful time, when gods and kings were the driving force behind society. Melodrama is the product of a cynical time, a postindustrial world where Karl Marx is more influential than god. Thus, the old adage, comedy equals tragedy plus time, is more aptly applied to melodrama than comedy.

Tragedy, in Poetics, is described as the story of a character with a high social standing, with a tragic flaw, or hamartia, that experiences a change of fortune, which in turn provides catharsis, or emotional release, to the audience.

Melodrama is, essentially the same. Class conflict is a heightened portion of the story, with the protagonist being some sort of victim to it, though a high social standing is not necessary. Many melodramas concern the middle class, and the desire for upward mobility, or the lower class, and the desire for respect. The tragic flaw that melodramatic characters have is often related to this class conflict, i.e. vanity (in American Beauty), or disillusionment (in Ordinary People). The change of fortune in melodrama, however, is reversed. Lester Burnham goes from having to worry about keeping up his vain illusion to, in his words, “waking up”. The catharsis comes from the expression of extreme emotion in a character that has previously been stoic.

The essential part of melodrama that differentiates it from tragedy is modernity. Greek tragedy, to the modernist, would be absurd and hamfisted. Melodrama is the imposition of tragic story onto a modern world.