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Tragedy and Comedy Distinction
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#01
Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy · Todd McGowan · p.88
Tragedy and Pathos > Hamlet on the Bar Stool
Theoretical move: The passage argues that the comic character (exemplified by Falstaff) survives not by transcending finitude but by embracing lack, marrying it with an excess of desire—contrasting with the tragic hero who refuses lack and thereby dies; comedy's radicality lies in its exposure of authority as itself lacking.
Tragic heroes refuse to accept their status as a finite lacking being, and the result is an insistence on a desire that leads to death. Comic heroes, in contrast, remain constantly aware of their status as lacking subjects.