(An Analysis of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman’s film Juno base on Aristotle’s Poetics)
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” Dramatic theatre is one of the oldest and most respected art forms in history. Aristotle outlined what he believed to be the most logical sequence for a tragedy in his essay Poetics. These ideals can be applied to any modern day text to evaluate its traditionalism in terms of Aristotelian tragedies. The film Juno, produced by Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman, captures several of Aristotle's key points regarding tragedy.
According to Aristotle, for a dramatic work to be successful, the audience must be able to easily …show more content…
In simple terms, this means making the audience experience powerful emotions. More often than not, they cry, or exhibit some other physical expulsion of emotion. In theory, the audience could have a mirror in front of them to represent the audience’s relation to the fear and pity elicited by the protagonist. “Never apologize for showing your feelings. When you do, you are apologizing for the truth,” (Harris). From this quote we find that these purgations are equivalent to confessionals given on a sunday morning. In the film Juno I find the climatic/ purgatory point within this plot line is when Juno gives birth to Mark and Vanessa Loring’s baby boy. I see this point being pivotal in Aristotle's terms because all of the “bad” things to happen in this story all drop around this point. The tragedy of Juno becoming pregnant in highschool and Mark leaving Vanessa to raise the baby on her own all come to blunt reality when the child is brought into the world. You see all of the pain and struggle of labor combined with all of the emotional toil Juno faced as she pushes through giving birth. The one second of silence given to signify the child’s entrance is where that purgation erupts. Although what Juno faces is tragic, the symbolism of new life is also present in the scene, which deviates from the traditional take on