Life Imitates Art

Abstract

Enron is more than tragedy; it is epic theatre. Epic theatre is not one narrator on one stage; it is a multitude of simultaneous theatric performances, collectively negotiated by inquiry participants (reporters, regulators, analysts), narrating while wandering in an unstable labyrinth of networked stages. Narrators of the Enron epic (in contrast to tragic) grasp together a wider cast of characters, interlace more historical incidents, and suggest broader systemic changes to capitalism and democracy. The stages of dramatic action (rising, crisis, falling, and denouement), which we are taught to expect in narration, do not settle into one emplotment in epic as they do in tragedy. The authors contend that the tragic narrative form constrains meltdown inquiry, whereas epic expands it. The tragic version of this corporate meltdown absolves us of culpability and responsibility, as the tragic hero becomes our scapegoat.