eGallery of Tragic Heroes
Aristotelian Definition of Tragedy
Aristotelean defined tragedy as "the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude,
complete in itself." It incorporates "incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the
catharsis of such emotions."
The tragic hero will most effectively evoke both our pity and terror if he is neither thoroughly good nor
thoroughly evil but a combination of both.
The tragic effect will be stronger if the hero is "better than we are," in that he is of higher than ordinary
moral worth. Such a man is shown as suffering a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of
a mistaken act, to which he is led by his hamartia (his "effort of judgment") or, as it is often literally
translated, his tragic flaw.
One common form of hamartia in Greek tragedies was hubris, that "pride" or overweening selfconfidance which leads a protagonist to disregard a divine warning or to violate an important law
Definition of a Tragic Hero
A tragic hero has the potential for greatness but is doomed to fail. He is trapped in a situation where he
cannot win. He makes some sort of tragic flaw, and this causes his fall from greatness. Even though he
is a fallen hero, he still wins a moral victory, and his spirit lives on.
TRAGIC HEROES ARE:
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BORN INTO NOBILITY:
RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN FATE
ENDOWED WITH A TRAGIC FLAW
DOOMED TO MAKE A SERIOUS ERROR IN
JUDGEMENT
EVENTUALLY, TRAGIC
HEROES
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FALL FROM GREAT HEIGHTS OR HIGH ESTEEM
REALIZE THEY HAVE MADE AN IRREVERSIBLE
MISTAKE
FACES AND ACCEPTS DEATH WITH HONOR
MEET A TRAGIC DEATH
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THE AUDIENCE IS AFFECTED BY PITY and/or FEAR
FOR ALL TRAGIC HEROES
MacBeth - Tragic Hero
The character of Macbeth is a classic example of a Shakespearean
tragic hero. There are many factors which contribute to the
degeneration of Macbeth of which three will be discussed. The three
points which contribute greatly to Macbeth's degeneration are the
prophecy which was told to him by the witches, how Lady Macbeth
influenced and manipulated Macbeth's judgment, and finally Macbeth's
long time ambition which drove his desire to be king. Macbeth's
growing character degenerates from a noble man to violent individual.
The prophecies which were told by the witches were one of the
factors which contributed to the degeneration of his character. If it
had not been for the witches telling him that he was to be Thane of
Cawdor, Thane of Glamis, and King of Scotland, Macbeth would still be
his ordinary self. As a result of the prophecies, this aroused
Macbeth's curiosity of how he could be King of Scotland. As the play
progresses, Macbeth slowly relies on the witches prophecies.
Shakespeare uses the witches as a remedy for Macbeth's curiosity which
corrupts his character.
The influence of Macbeth's wife, Lady Macbeth also contributed
to his degeneration of character. Lady Macbeth's character in the
beginning reveals that she is a lovable person. When Lady Macbeth was
ready to kill King Duncan herself, it showed that Lady Macbeth could
not murder King Duncan because he reminded her of her father. This
proves that Lady Macbeth has a heart deep inside her. Lady Macbeth
plays an important role in this play because she provided a scheme
which caused Macbeth to assassinate King Duncan. After Macbeth had
killed King Duncan, he later regrets on his wrong doing. At the point
of this play the audience can note the change in Macbeth's character.
Macbeth's first murder was a trying experience for him, however after
the first murder, killing seemed to be the only solution to maintain
his reign of the people of Scotland. Therefore, it was Lady Macbeth
who introduced the concept of murder to Macbeth.
Macbeth's ambition also influenced his declining character.
However, Macbeth's ambition had not been strong enough to carry the
motive to kill King Duncan. Lady Macbeth's influence also comes in to
play because if not for Lady Macbeth, his ambition would not have been
intensified enough to drive him to obtain and maintain his title of
King of Scotland no matter what it took, even if it meant murdering.
Macbeth's ambition influenced the cause of his new character. This new
character of Macbeth contained greed, violence, and power hunger.
Macbeth shows this when he kills King Duncan.
In conclusion, the prophecies given to him by the witches, Lady
Macbeth's influence and plan, and his intensified ambition, all
contributed greatly to his degeneration of character which resulted to
his downfall...death. Therefore Macbeth character displays strong
signs of a tragic hero, making him the ideal classic example.
Tragic hero
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A tragic hero is an honorable man/woman/pigdog protagonist with a tragic flaw, also known
as fatal flaw, which eventually leads to his demise. The concept of the tragic hero was created
in ancient Greek tragedy and defined by Aristotle. In fact, an Aristotelian tragic hero must
have four characteristics: goodness, superiority (in terms of politics, reputation, or perceived
wisdom, etc.), a tragic flaw, and a realization of both his flaw and his inevitable demise.
Usually, the realization of fatal flaw results in catharsis or epiphany.
Contents
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1 Classical tragic hero
2 The modern tragic hero
3 Competing concepts of the tragic hero
4 See also
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Classical tragic hero
The works of Antigone and Oedipus Rex are examples of the flaw of hubris, or pride. Many
plays have followed Aristotle's idea of the tragic hero, but William Shakespeare was
considered the playwright who helped extend the idea of the tragic hero beyond a flaw of
making an error in judgment (as in Oedipus trying to escape his fate only to fulfill it) to the
internal conflict of moral argument.
While Shakespeare's King Lear and Brutus (of Julius Caesar) are heroes who can be easily
applied with the Aristotlean definition, his Hamlet and Macbeth are the two prime tragic
heroes where Aristotle's meaning ends and Shakespeare's begins. Hamlet's fatal flaw, as seen
by Aristotle, would be his failure to act immediately to kill Claudius. Unlike Oedipus,
however, Hamlet is well aware of his fatal flaw from the outset. He constantly questions
himself on why he continues to delay the fulfillment of his duty. In doing so, his continuous
awareness and doubt (e.g. using the play-within-the-play to make sure the Ghost was telling
the truth) incapacitates him from acting. Hamlet finally acts to kill Claudius only after
realizing that he is poisoned. But by procrastinating, everyone whom he ridicules and targets
also dies along the way, such as Laertes, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and
Guildenstern.
Macbeth, however, presents a problem; whereas in Hamlet, we are made to feel some degree
of empathy or sorrow for the hero because of the loss of his father and his mother's marriage
to his uncle, Macbeth as the hero arouses little pity or feeling. His tragic flaw is that of being
power-hungry, conniving, and utterly amoral when the opportunity suits him (note how in Act
III, Scene I the third murderer is not present at Macbeth's briefing and yet in Act III, Scene III
he is more informed than the other two murderers on what they are about to do). Macbeth
does not possess two of the qualifying factors for a "traditional" tragic hero. He lacks
goodness; he is also not superior, having been referred to by other thanes as a tyrant and an
incompetent ruler during his kingship. At the beginning of the play however Macbeth is
viewed as great, when he is being described as superior in battle by the Sergeant and when
described by Duncan.
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The modern tragic hero
In the Modernist era, a new kind of tragic hero was synthesized as a reaction to the English
Renaissance, The Age of Enlightenment, and Romanticism. The idea was that the hero, rather
than falling calamitously from a high position, is actually a person less worthy of
consideration. Not only that, the protagonist may not even have the needed catharsis to bring
the story to a close. He may die without an epiphany of his destiny, or suffer without the
ability to change events that are happening to him. The story may end without closure and
even without the death of the hero. This new tragic hero of Modernism is the anti-hero.
Two of many examples of the anti-hero in modern literature are Willy Loman from Death of a
Salesman by Arthur Miller and James Gatz from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is another example of the tragic anti-hero. Ethan, the
protagonist, is married to Zeena, but falls in love with Mattie, Zeena's cousin, when she
comes over to live with them. As a character, Zeena is sickly and unbendingly cruel. Her
coldness to Ethan drives him to Mattie. The love between Mattie and Ethan grows, but they
are unable to act on their feelings. The setting in which Ethan and Mattie are trapped,
presented as raging winter blizzard that denies both entrance and exit, drives both of them to
try to commit suicide by sledding down and hitting an elm tree. A true and cathartic tragedy
would have been for both of them to die like Romeo and Juliet, but as this is a story of the
anti-hero, Mattie and Ethan continue to live, but crippled. Ethan has a limp, and Mattie is
paralyzed from the neck down. Now Zeena has somehow recovered enough from her sickness
to take care of them. This reversal of fortune is considered ironic: Ethan used to take care of
Zeena but would rather avoid her; by the end of the story, Zeena is taking care of Ethan and
Mattie and enjoys being their caretaker.
Moreover, another irony is that winter is over, but Ethan and Mattie remained trapped. This
time, it is not the blizzard but their physical conditions that trap them, forever reminding of
their mistakes.
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Competing concepts of the tragic hero
A tragic hero was considered to need a catharsis, or a moment of emotional purgation, but it
comes at a time when it is too late to change the course of events already in motion. Each new
era of literature brings new definitions of what a hero must be in a tragedy. Aristotle's
definition remains the yardstick against which all other forms of heroes are measured.
Some other common traits characteristic of a tragic hero:
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He/she must suffer.
He/she must be doomed from the start.
He/she must be fundamentally noble in nature.
His/her story should arouse fear and empathy.
"Star-crossed" to meet a particular fate.
Physically or spiritually wounded by his experiences (ie Post-traumatic stress
disorder)