Eucatastrophe

QUOTE

Morris Mandel once said…

“The darkest hour has only sixty minutes.”

(Educator and journalist)

CONCEPT

Eucatastrophe

Eucatastrophe is a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien (author of The Lord of the Rings) to describe the sudden, joyful turn in a story.

Tolkien believed this narrative event wasn’t just literary but spiritual: a reflection of how grace or renewal can break through human darkness.

A eucatastrophe doesn’t deny suffering—it emerges through it, transforming tragedy into meaning.

STORY

Eiffel's Eyeful … Eye Sore?

In the spring of 1889, a Parisian engineer watched a crowd boo and hiss at his creation—a tower so ugly, they said, it would ruin the city forever. Yet within a generation, it became its most beloved symbol.

When Gustave Eiffel began building his 984-foot iron tower for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, Paris erupted in outrage.

Over 300 prominent artists and writers signed a petition calling the project a “monstrous” scar on the skyline. Newspapers mocked it daily, describing it as a “gigantic factory chimney” and “metal asparagus.”

Eiffel, however, pressed on.

For him, the tower was not an eyesore but an emblem of modern engineering—an experiment in beauty through structure. As construction rose above the rooftops, the criticism intensified. Guy de Maupassant, a french author, was said to dine in the tower’s restaurant simply because it was the only place in Paris where he couldn’t see the thing.

Then the fair opened.

Nearly two million visitors ascended the iron lattice that summer. What had seemed grotesque from below became breathtaking from within. The view revealed a new kind of beauty: the geometry of Paris unfolding beneath one’s feet. Public opinion began to shift.

Within a few years, the tower—once despised—was adored. Today, it welcomes more than six million visitors a year.

Tolkien described eucatastrophe as “the sudden joyous turn,” when despair gives way to grace. Eiffel’s tower embodies that turn in the realm of art and culture: an object born in controversy, redeemed through wonder.

Its story reminds us that progress often arrives disguised as failure—and that time itself can be the agent of redemption.

What we resist most fiercely may one day define us.