Catharsis, as Buero views it in almost all his works, is a sublimation, an improvement rather than a relief. Compassion, terror, and anger, once sublimated, must clearly approximate the human condition which tragedy attempts to define for us, but every spectator will react differently to the pathetic, moral, or religious ingredients of the tragedy. The theater's function, whether it leaves us passive or calls us to social action, is to elevate. (p. 817)

Buero states that he writes theater of a tragic nature about the problems of man and their doubtful final outcome, factors inherent in all tragedy, whether it be labeled realistic, symbolic, or imaginative. Considering tragedy a flexible phenomenon which may include disparate elements foreign to the dictionary definition of the hero conquered by fate, elevated action, noble language, and fatal denouement, he uses a variety of labels for his dramatic works such as tragedia, fantasía, drama, tragicomedia, parábola, and fábula. In these works he proposes that man is not necessarily a victim of fate—a tragic affirmation which stresses human capacity for overcoming obstacles and reverses….

The chance for a better world creates a tragic possibility for man based on a future hope which may not provide a solution. Man lives in a world where he must fail, triumph, and live. (p. 818)

At the heart of all tragedy Buero finds the problem of hope. When we despair or feel anguish, it is as though we were projecting the reverse side of the coin of hope, which insists on maintaining its force within our heart. Without light there can be no darkness; without good, no evil; thus, without hope there can be no despair or existential anguish. Man may deny life, but his rebellion occurs within the framework of unfulfilled and existing hope, at the very least, for change. One always hopes…. [The] existential characters within a given work are not inevitably doomed to death and destruction as victims of an adverse fatality which, at the whim of the gods, may destroy them.

In the twentieth century, tragedy, implying the need for an heroic and loving response to the fear of a meaningless world which causes our anguish, may result not only in catastrophe but in victory…. Even when a catastrophe occurs, as in the Greek theater, moral order remains…. Spiritual struggle, as it promotes nobility of soul in the tragic conflict, will lead to a kind of affirmation.

Buero accepts the Greek's moral transcendence as well as a duality of negative and positive poles where arousal leads to assuagement, destruction to renewal, and suffering to expiation. This kind of tragedy in its metaphysical or human aspect is part of a great vital affirmation whose eternally positive quality "confirma la función positiva de la tragedia" [confirms the positive function of tragedy]…. (pp. 818-19)

Buero claims his tragedy reveals his preoccupation with man's fate, both metaphysical and social, as reflected in the repeated conflicts one finds in his theater between individuality and collectivity, between necessity and liberty…. Being a realist, Buero realizes that true Christian love is difficult to promote in a world of established material values, but each individual, he feels, must strive to overcome his own shortcomings as a human being and in the process aid his society. (p. 821)

[Buero] claims that only social drama which aids one to feel more deeply the problem of man and his destiny deserves the name of tragedy. This problem may involve the elevation as well as the destruction of the hero, and the spectator may be as much moved by the former as by the latter. Buero rejects strictly social works which neither promote catharsis nor possess unique tragic importance, but he cannot, as some do, accept the idea that "where the conflict can be resolved through social means we may have serious drama but not tragedy." He rejects also those doctrinaire critics who accuse as reactionary those works which fail forcefully and openly to advance social causes. Through an exclusively didactic treatment of social problems, unless they involve individual conflicts and concrete situations, one may produce sociology instead of social theater. One must maintain a balance between the lyrical and poetic on the one hand and the didactic on the other, while achieving artistic integrity; for esthetic and ethical considerations, which are far from being mutually exclusive in the modern drama, serve to reinforce one another. (pp. 821-22)

Buero's social message has not been more explicit, not because he denies esthetic liberty and responsibility, but because he realizes the inefficacy of direct action against the resistance of the spectator to change his established ideas. In order to produce works of some originality, Buero had to invent special filters for his message which attempted to overcome these prejudices….

Buero stresses the impossibility of absolute freedom in writing, not only in Spain, but also in countries considered politically free. All writers are conditioned, even though they are not always aware of it. (p. 822)

[Buero] encourages the hope which lies in the human soul, postulating the possibility that one has of gaining victory over himself, because as long as man fights for faith and against his own evil, humanity and the world will survive. (p. 823)