The Unexpected
It.s Friday afternoon and I.m finishing off the discussion of a crucial topic: how do dramatists generate unexpected outcomes? Tight coupling is one way. But before discussing tight coupling, let.s talk about the unexpected. Dramatists need unexpected outcomes, because, if outcomes were expected, where would the drama be in drama?–it would be boring without the unknown. But since the unexpected arises from the feeling of suspense, it can.t be entirely ‘out of the blue’ or ‘come out of left field’. In real life, the unexpected can come out of anywhere. A lump in the throat. A knock on the door at a strange hour. The day Kennedy died. But because suspense is a two way street between dramatist and audience–with the dramatist providing clues and the audience fitting together the puzzle–the unexpected in drama emerges from something the audience knows, or, in retrospect, could have known. That.s unexpectation. Which actually is a word: damn you spell check! What I want to share with assiduous readers to day is ‘tight coupling’. It is one way to create unexpectation naturally and seamlessly.
Types of Unexpectation
There.s a lot of ways to introduce the unexpected. Fate and the gods was the preferred old school method. Since the gods are more powerful, they can appear and do all sorts of things heroes don.t anticipate. And if you believe in fate and the gods–or at least believe in them within the context of the pay–you can accept that they cause unexpected things to happen. Other ways of generating the unexpected include: a lack of knowledge, thinking too fast, unpredictable responses from other people (et tu, Brute?), unintended consequences, and so on. Lack of power (fate), epistemological uncertainty (is that Desdemona.s handkerchief?), and ontological uncertainty (should I make a deal with the devil?) all can wrack havoc with expectation. Tight coupling is a little different. It.s different because it.s not a lack of power. You.re not scaling the golden walls of heaven shouting against the gods. It.s not ontological uncertainty (i.e. does God exist?). And it.s not epistemological uncertainty. What is it then?
Tight Coupling
Let.s ask the new god what it is. Wow, prayer answered in 0.59 seconds! Here.s google.s answer:
Google Search ‘tight coupling tragedy’
Here.s a definition from a sociological site:
Coupling can be thought of as the distance or slack between individual components. Systems can either be loosely coupled, like cars on a sleepy rural highway, or systems can be tightly coupled, like cars on the freeway at 5pm in L.A.
Here.s a definition from a site breaking down a tragic lesson learned on Mount Everest:
Complex interactions become more dangerous if tight coupling also exists within a system. Tight coupling means one breakdown triggers a series of other problems. Tightly coupled systems have four characteristics: time-dependent processes, a fairly rigid sequence of activities, one dominant path to achieving the goal, and very little slack.
They speak of systems. In drama, tight coupling would be the interdependencies between all the stages in a plan. So, if in order to achieve goal x, you need a, b, c, and d to happen AND if any one a, b, c, or d go awry, x does not happen, well that plan is tight coupled. But if, in order to achieve x, you need a, b, and c to happen AND if one of them goes awry that.s okay because there.s different options available, that plan is loose coupled.
Tight Coupling in Tragedy
Romeo and Juliet is tight coupled. Friar Laurence gives Juliet the sleeping draught so she can feign death. Only he and her know about this. And she.s going to be unconscious so really only he will know. They.ll bury Juliet. Friar Laurence will inform Romeo of the proceedings by snail mail (he.s been exiled to Mantua). Then when she awakes in the vault, they.ll both be there to whisk her away.
The goal is for Juliet to avoid marriage with County Paris: as diligent readers will all know, she.s in love with Romeo and Romeo with her. But there.s just so much that can go wrong with the holy man.s plans: maybe Juliet will have an adverse reaction to the potion (it.s got to be powerful if it knock you out for two days), maybe she won.t wake up, maybe something with happen to the friar, maybe they.ll inter her six feet under too soon, or maybe Romeo will hear of Juliet.s death before the friar tells him the plan! Because so many things can go wrong and because if any one of these things goes wrong, disaster strikes the whole enterprise, Friar Laurence.s plan is said to be tight coupled.
What eventually happens is that Friar Laurence charges Friar John to deliver the letter detailing the plan to Romeo in Mantua. While visiting the sick, Friar John is detained because the sick house is sealed on suspicion of the plague. The letter is never delivered. But Romeo finds out from Balthasar that Juliet has died. The rest you know.
Because the friar.s plan relies on tight coupling, the chances of an unfortunate accident go up. Drastically. The suicides of both Romeo and Juliet can be traced back to Friar John.s failure to deliver. That he failed to deliver is because he visited a sick house that happened to be sealed. The sick house really has nothing to do with Romeo and Juliet. But because the friar.s plan relies on tight coupling, even things that normally have no effect have a crucial affect on the outcome.
Tight coupling is a wonderful way for dramatists to drop the unexpected into their dramas in a way that is believable and convincing. Especially today since tight coupling is widely understood. Our receptivity to tight coupling probably comes from an awareness that tightly couple computer programs can bring down the whole computer necessitating a restart. But here.s what I find strange: besides Romeo and Juliet, I.m drawing a complete blank as to which other tragedies are tightly coupled. I can.t think of even one other one! I know they just have to be out there! Ugh.
Until next time, I.m Edwin Wong and I.m wondering why some days it.s so hard to be Doing Melpomene’s Work!