Finding Joy Through Tragedy
August 22, 2024
Finding Joy Through Tragedy
How Honors seminars helped me resurrect my totally dead social life
By Devyn Gilbert
Hello! I’m Devyn Gilbert—just entering my 2nd year at the University of Washington—and I love talking with people. If you trapped me in a room for two hours with only a monk who had taken a vow of silence, there would still not be a single minute where I wasn’t chatting away. So, given my proclivity for yapping, I didn’t expect to struggle socially when I came to college. For all of high school I had lots of friends, and queer people like myself flocked to me. In my first quarter, though, I found myself feeling tremendously lonely and I couldn’t make even one queer friend. I was so wrapped up in adapting to my new environment that I didn’t even realize how being out of touch with my community was affecting me.
Thankfully, the same quarter I was blessed with the opportunity to take an upper level Honors seminar: Aristotle’s Concept of the Tragic in Theory and in Practice. Before you recoil in academic horror at the length of the title, it’s much easier than it sounds. The class consisted of 12 readings, one film viewing, and one assignment: a 6-8 page take-home final in which you write a tragedy. Before I delve into the meat of this story, I’d like to lay out my favorite things about the course:
- It’s one of my only classes at UW that consisted mostly of discussion (not unlike a book club).
- Professor Clauss will teach you Italian hand gestures and regale you with stories from abroad.
- The material spans centuries of content, but it’s all highly relatable.
The Balm of Another’s Heartache
We read through texts semi-chronologically, beginning with the classic Greek tragedies and ending with plays from the 1900’s. I’ve never felt so happy as when I was totally immersed in tragedy, especially when we read M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang.

According to Aristotle, the absolute must-do of a tragedy is “to incite pity and fear” in the reader, though class consensus was that he meant “to incite empathy,” but ancient Greek didn’t have a word for that. M. Butterfly certainly did its job, in that regard. In its simplest form, the play is about a queer person who undergoes a tragedy in a very isolating way. A queer person feeling isolated may ring a bell if you read the first paragraph of this essay.
As I read the play, Hwang’s writing pulled me out of my singular life and into a shared experience with Song Liling. I wept for them as I hadn’t for myself. At the time, I was unable to process my loneliness because it was so unfamiliar; so I experienced my emotions and my existence through the character rather than through myself.
Reading tragedies is an exercise in empathy and self revelation. The more you do it, the more you come to understand that you aren’t alone.

Interdisciplinary Honors courses have taught me to practice empathy.* As we walked through Union Bay Natural Area during another favorite course: Music, Birdsong, and the Limits of the Human, I learned to care about the important “secret” lives of animals. Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity invited me to connect emotionally with generations past. And Dr. Clauss’s “Concept of Tragedy” course taught me to relate deeply to others, even to hypothetical people.
Relating to non-hypothetical people

It took me a while to find my footing at UW, but I did it eventually, and I did it by practicing empathy for others. Understanding that I wasn’t just socially inept or the only one feeling that loneliness helped me realize that other people want me, or anyone really, to talk to them, but are just too timid to speak first.
I made a friend during spring quarter using this mentality. She had barely spoken for multiple class sessions, so I was intrigued by her peculiar vibe and approached her. Did our first few conversations consist almost entirely of me talking at her, not with her? Yes, they did. However, by knowing that it’s often hard for people to be vulnerable enough to show that they’re interested in friendship, I was able to push through the awkwardness until we touched on a shared niche interest: gay vampires. After we found that commonality, it was smooth sailing. We started bird watching together, and we’re still friends even though we aren’t in class together anymore.
If I may leave you with one piece of advice, it’s to try to understand that other people are more like yourself than you think. They’re probably scared to talk to you, too. When you overcome the hurdle of fear, you might also help someone who is stuck feeling lonely. If that sounds impossible, try reading or watching a nice, light tragedy.
Curious about Honors’ curriculum? CLICK HERE to browse current Interdisciplinary Honors courses.

About the Author
Devyn Gilbert is a second-year Interdisciplinary Honors Husky who is majoring in Global and Regional Studies and intending to minor in Human Rights. In the future, he’d like to pursue research and grad school. You can see what he’s been up to this year at https://devyngilbert.weebly.com/ and you can contact him at devyng5@uw.edu.