THE THREE UNITIES

Simply put, they are nothing but three rules regarding the composition of drama. These rules were introduced by Aristotle in his ill-written #Poetics, so they are also known as 'Aristotelian Unities'. These precepts were formulated by taking into consideration the dramatic practices of Greek Classical writers, specially Sophocles and his tragedy entitled 'Oedipus, the Rex', one of Aristotle's favourite Classical plays. Thus, these rules are labelled as 'Classical Unities' also. They are as follows:

#1) Unity of Action

#2) Unity of Time

#3) Unity of Place

According to the French Neoclassical writers and critics of the seventeenth century, the adherence to these three unities was indispensable and the success or failure in complying to these rules used to determine the fate of the writer and the work. If a playwright succeeds, he/she was reverred, otherwise he/she was reproached and the work was relegated to the margins.

According to Aristotle, a tragedy is meritorious if it is 'an imitation of an action' which is 'serious, complete and of a certain magnitude'. It leads the audience, 'through pity and fear', to 'the proper purgation of these emotions'. Let us understand how the phrases quoted above were interpreted later, in order to formulate the Aristotelian concept of Tragedy:

#a) It is an imitation of 'an' action. It means it must deal with, and develop, only ONE action.

#b) It is an imitation of an 'action'. It means it is different than an epic which is descriptive or narrative. Hence, 'Plot', for Aristotle, revolves round 'men in #action' and so it must be 'Action-oriented' and not just 'Character-centered' resulting in the plurality of actions.

#c) It should be 'serious' which means the play must deal with a tale of suffering. Need not to say that it forbids an intermingling of comedy with tragedy, expecting it to b 'pure' and distinctive as tragedy.

#d) It should be 'complete' in itself which means that the handling of the plot must b concentrated on a single action in a cause-effect sequence, producing the play as an 'organic' whole. The organization must be so tight in structure that the omission of any part of it would collapse the whole. Any addition which does not contribute for overall development of the plot must be removed if it does not affect the organic whole.

#e) It must b of certain magnitude which delimits the length of the play. Certainly, according to Aristotle, this is one of the characteristics which distinguishes tragedy from epic as epic, being descriptive in nature, may extend to the indefinite course of time and space.

#f) The action must aim at, and succeed in, arousing 'pity and fear' in the minds of the spectators which will later be purged properly (a proper outlet to these emotions) towards the end of the play.

In this way, unity in the structural parts of the play must be achieved by a playwright in his/her dramatic composition. Any insertion or omission which violates this dramatic unity will produce a defective piece. However successful a play may be, but it will b meritorious only when these norms are observed strictly and properly in a play-writing. These Aristotelian guidelines regarding the structure of a plot became imperatives to be followed for the later playwrights under the headings of three unities which can be briefly explained as follows:

1) Unity of Action: 

The combination of incidents which are the action of the play, should be one – one story told, which is not to say it has to be about only one person, since characters are not in the centre of the tragedy, but the action itself is. He is against the plurality of action because it weakens the tragic effect. Number of incidents should be connected to each other in such a way that they must be conducive to one effect. The Unity of Action limits the supposed action to a single set of incidents which are related as cause and effect, "having a beginning, middle, and an end." No scene is to be included that does not advance the plot directly. No subplots, no characters who do not advance the action. This unity of action evidently contains a beginning, a middle and an end, where the beginning is what is “not posterior to another thing,” while the middle needs to have something happened before, and something to happen after it, but after the end “there is nothing else.” The chain of events has to be of such nature as “might have happened,” either being possible in the sense of probability or necessary because of what forewent. Anything absurd can only exist outside of the drama, what is included in it must be believable, which is something achieved not by probability alone, “It is, moreover, evident from what has been said that it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened but what may happen¬ what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.” (Poetics in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Adams. P. 54) Aristotle even recommends things impossible but probable, before those possible but improbable. What takes place should have nothing irrational about it, but if this is unavoidable, such events should have taken place outside of the drama enacted.

2) Unity of Time:

As for the length of the play, Aristotle refers to the magnitude called for, a grandness indeed, but one which can be easily seen in its entirety – in the aspect of length, than, one that can easily be remembered. The ideal time which the fable of a tragedy encompasses is “one period of the sun, or admits but a small variation from this period.” The Unity of Time limits the supposed action to the duration, roughly, of a single day. Aristotle meant that the length of time represented in the play should be ideally speaking the actual time passing during its presentation. We should keep in our minds that it is a suggestion i.e. to be tried “as far as possible”; there is nothing that can be called a rule.

3) Unity of Place:

According to the Unity of Place, the setting of the play should have one place. Aristotle never mentioned the Unity of Place at all. The doctrine of the three unities, which has figured so much in literary criticism since the Renaissance, cannot be laid to his account. He is not the author of it; it was foisted on him by the Renaissance critics of Italy and France.

In short, a play should have one single plot or action to sustain the interest of the spectators and it can also lead him to proper purgation. The action in a play should not exceed the single revolution of the sun. The play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.