Fallacy of Reduction

Frye speaks of the fallacy of reduction in his essay on anagogy in the Theory of Symbols. Fallacy of Reduction, shortly defined, is the tendency to group things or works together which do not necessarily fit. in other words, to reduce these works into a single category. I think it is human nature (at least it is my nature), to want to group things together and most certainly to try and explain things in the least amount of words in an effort to gain a more simple understanding. By doing this, as Frye says, "we should cut off a third and most important source of supply for archetypal criticism" (117). This is obviously an idea that Frye attempts to negate in Anatomy of Criticism. An example that came to mind was an example used often in class, especially during the Theory of Modes, and that is Death of a Salesman. By asking high school students if this would be considered "tragedy", we wind up lumping all tragedy into one category. However, we know that tragedy is not just tragedy, but in fact tragedy can then be turned around into six different modes. By trying to call Willy Lowman only tragic, one would commit fallacy of reduction. Instead, we all know that Willy belongs to the tragic low mimetic box. Hopefully soon I will be able to squelch my own tendency towards reduction. I will definitely practice.