"What is catharsis?"
The release of emotions through creative expression.
The Healing Power of Creative Expression
Catharsis is the release of pent up emotions through the process of creative expression, whether that be writing, painting, or any other artistic medium. By translating abstract feelings into concrete form, we are able to grapple with, explore, and ultimately find resolution in our emotional struggles. In this way, catharsis is a profoundly healing experience, capable of alleviating spiritual burdens, and restoring health through introspective reflection. By engaging in cathartic acts of creation, we can learn to overcome our emotional roadblocks, and take steps towards a happier, healthier life.
Here are two examples of catharsis in action that demonstrate its prevalence in literature.
After the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother, Hamlet is consumed by the desire for revenge and crippled by existential despair throughout the play, but it is only in the final scene, moments before his own death, that he is finally able to prune away his tangled emotions, and through his mortal sacrifice, bring cathartic resolution to both his own storyline and the larger narrative of the play as a whole.
Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar follows Esther, a young woman who spirals into a deep depression amidst the suffocating expectations of 1950s American society, but through chronicling her ups and downs over the course of the novel, Plath gives readers a window into the cathartic potential of creative writing, as Esther's own work serves as a vessel through which she is able to confront and ultimately overcome her psychological turmoil.