 Liliom was a tragedy about a man who cannot learn to live with other people . The way Molnár wrote it , the man ends up hitting his daughter and then having to go back to purgatory , leaving his daughter helpless and hopeless . We couldn 't accept that . The way we ended Carousel it may still be a tragedy but it 's a hopeful one because in the final scene it is clear that the child has at last learned how to express herself and communicate with others . 
