Tragedies originated in Ancient Greek culture, and were first analysed by Greek philosopher Aristotle in his critical novel ‘Poetics’. Aristotle suggested that tragedies were ‘an imitation of an action that is serious and complete…(they) achieve, through pity and fear, a catharsis of these sorts of feelings’, implying that a tragedy must evoke some sort of sympathy from the reader or audience, and ‘imitate’ a situation that could occur in real life. In this case, it seems that both ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Age of Innocence’ could be placed under the genre of a tragedy, as they both, to a certain extent, follow Aristotle’s idea of one. However, it could also be argued that neither Newland nor Gatsby fit the characteristics that apply to a
