Tragedy: Are We in Love With Pain

Throughout the play the theme of morality and ethics are explored with the vicious, uncaring behavior of the characters who seem to get a almost passionate love out of using people such as Millwood who shows no caring for those she's used for her own pleasure, almost like a siren who calls men too her then devours them, instead of killing them though she leaves Barnwell destroyed by his own conscious. the almost sadistic relationship between both characters with Barnwell coming back to Millwood later and blames her for his troubles, and it her fault to a degree that his downfall leads him to killing his Uncle, which all of his problems seemed to start when he committed the sin of having sex with a woman before marriage. The tragedy of these two characters is largely a parody of the timeless tale of the fall of mankind as john Milton wrote in his world changing book Paradise Lost about humanity falling and being destroyed through sin, but having a chance at redemption which both characters get at the end of the play. The fact that audiences flocked to this play seems to show that people on some level enjoy seeing others in uncomfortable predicaments to be laughed at and scorned so long as it's not happening to the person, similarly to how people might judge a criminal without knowing what there crime is just to make themselves feel better. Millwood is a very interesting character in that she's more realistic about the reality of human nature in that by being a prostitute she is at the bottom rung and openly scorned by everyone just for her profession without anyone knowing who "she" is, so does that mean that everyone who came to see this play knowing the suffering that was going to happen to these two characters, is the audience the cruelest subject for there enjoyment in others misery?