Cathartic Egression of Emotions in Shakespearean Plays and Buddhist Jātaka Stories

Catharsis is a psychological stratagem used by people to purge emotions, especially negative emotions like fear, anger, and aggression. Catharsis is a natural mechanism adopted by people in their real-life situations to expel their emotions. The same mechanism has been adopted and integrated into literature, making literature more realistic and closer to human experiences. Introduced by Aristotle and later developed by different scholars, now catharsis has become a major aspect of character development particularly in tragedy. Different approaches to the purgation of emotions have been shown in the literature depending on cultural, social, religious and individual differences. Thus, this study aims to analyse the production of catharsis in William Shakespeare’s Othello and Buddhist Jātaka tales. The two pieces of literature represent two different cultural, social and religious backgrounds and thus, the production of catharsis in them is also different.