What Is The Circulatory Structure Of Waxen Wings By Ha Songan

Waxen Wings is a short story by Ha Songnan, that follows the saddening life of a woman, Birdie. Birdie desperately wanted to be able to fly in both physical and intrinsic senses, and for a time she believed she could. However, even with her desperate, lifelong attempts to fly and reach emotional liberation, she never quite could. Birdie continuously reached both physical and mental walls that prevented her from reaching her dreams. The question is if her troubles would qualify as tragedy. Tragedy is typically defined as an event that causes great human suffering and distress. Despite the bitter and melancholy experiences of Birdie, after careful consideration I have determined that Waxen Wings by Ha Songan is not a tragedy, but instead is an

Birdie’s life begins to be displayed with her in the present, observing a young girl out of a hospital window and is suddenly reminded of herself. Her life then fades away to the one of her ten-year-old self. Her life is then shown in phases, her ups and downs, over, and over, and over again. The same structure on repeat. “You miss a day of school, but nobody notices.” The you-but format frequently reappears throughout. This can be representative of the highs and lows of life through the feeling the format provides. She has an imaginative dream of flying, helping her reach her highs, but she is soon let down by life and is led to

Catharsis is the process of releasing strong or repressed emotions over a time, primarily throught art, which literature would be included under. A reader achieves catharsis through a fictional tragedy because Catharsis is also considered one of the most important aspects of a tragedy by the ancient greeks, specifically within their mythology. Perhaps another reason that Ha referenced Icarus, a greek mythical figure, was to emphasize that without catharsis, this story isn’t a tragedy. Additionally, at the end Ha writes, “In that shadow, half of you could now forever hang in midair.” If this happened to anyone in reality, they would probably consider this one of their worst moments. However, in this specific story, this moment was glossed over, when I read it, I felt empathetic, but I didn’t feel any emotion about it. In traditional tragedies both the main character and the reader would express strong emotions, which Waxen Wings