Cathartic Aspects in Confessional Writings:

Abstract

The cathartic and healing experience in art are often linked to watching tragedies, listening to music, painting, or writing confessions. Research has shown that when beholding a tragedy, it constitutes a healing result which is described by Aristotle as a catharsis of negative emotions. This particular use of this word has given rise to the richest and most extensive discussion of Aristotle’s Poetics in the secondary sources, partly because Aristotle provides no explanation of it, and partly because it is considered a powerful metaphor that people are led to seek in it the meaning of their own healing experience in response to tragedies. This study aims at finding a relation between Catharsis and the confessional tradition, for it investigates the cathartic aspects in confessional writings: in De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905) and A Sister’s Confession by Guy de Maupassant (1883) and it evaluates both the readers and the confessional writer’s shared cathartic experience. Based on a review of the literature on Aristotelian Catharsis, theories on the effects of tragedy, and the confessional tradition, a thorough analysis was executed on the two designated works: De Profundis and A Sister’s Confession to reveal their cathartic aspects despite being works of prose and not drama, by accentuating on the tragic element that both works introduce and seem to offer. The analysis of these confessional works demonstrated a common point that of ‘tragedy’, which, essentially, evokes pity and fear for readers and cleanses negative emotions of that sort. The results indicate that the chosen materials possess a healing element that of catharsis.