Tragic Hero / Sympathy Essay
Example
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, a tragic hero is one who: “is a man of noble stature;
however, while the tragic hero is pre-eminently great, he or she is not perfect” (Aristotle). It is this imperfection that
nourishes the relationship between the reader and the character(s); it draws the reader closer because each of us is flawed
in some large or small way. As the character reflects our blemishes, sympathy is developed and the reader begins to feel
sorry for the character. By definition sympathy is “the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in
sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration” (“Sympathy.”). Each of these three men was flawed.
This is what is appealing about them, they are real, imperfect creations that share errors in judgment, insecurities, tempers,
desires, and neuroses; through familiarity we want them to receive sympathy because we too crave compassion for our
foolish behavior, imperfect characteristics, and ultimately our sins. While each of these men has behaved poorly they each
genuinely believed what they were doing was in the best interest, Oedipus was oblivious to his transgressions and
earnestly hoped to find the killer of Laius, Okonkwo saw a culture he thrived in deteriorate in front of him and fail to rise
to the challenge he initiated, but Troy Maxon is the character I find most sympathetic because he did the best he could
with the limited information and recourses he possessed and I admire and recognize that struggle.
An aphorism from my youth says “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” (Proverb). I do not know how I
feel about that saying but I do know it applies to each of these men. Clearly they are not all hell-bound; while their
behavior caused a tornado of unintended consequences their intentions were never malicious. The reader’s heart-strings
are pulled as the revelations of Oedipus’ fate unfold. One cannot help but feel sorry for Oedipus because he truly felt he
was doing everything in his power to avoid the dreadful prophesy he was destined to fulfill yet he could not successfully
outrun his fate. The cleverness of Sophocles is that he develops a character so outrageously vain and dislikeable all while
depositing him in the most regrettable of circumstances thus causing the reader to reassess any feelings of sympathy.
Oedipus’ tragic flaw was his overconfidence. His excessive pride makes it easy to dislike him, but he does not deserve
the tragic end which he experiences, albeit one he did to himself. The cleverness which Sophocles develops the story is
part of its appeal. The dramatic irony richly textures the entire drama, the viewer or reader is aware of all of the
coincidences that are all too uncanny yet Oedipus remains steadfast in his arrogance and commitment to apprehend the
killer. As Oedipus vows to hunt the former king’s killer he recognizes that “Laius and [he] would be closely connected by
children from the same wife, if his line hand not met with disaster. But a chance swooped down on his life. So [he] shall
Tragic Hero / Sympathy Essay
Example
fight for him, as if he were [his] own father” (Sophocles 16). The irony is that the king truly was his father yet, Oedipus is
so blind to the clues right in front of him. Sight too is used to expose Oedipus’ arrogance through irony as he mocks and
disparages the blind prophet Tiresias for his inability to assist in the hunt for Laius’ killer. “You have mocked at my
blindness, but you, who have eyes, cannot see the evil in which you stand; you cannot see where you are living, nor with
whom you share your house” (Sophocles 28). Oedipus mocks him because he cannot see yet in the end it is Oedipus who
cannot see the signs placed before him and ultimately blinds himself once he finally realizes he has fulfilled the dreadful
prophesy of his youth. Oedipus truly is a tragic character, even one who produces sympathy but he is not the most
sympathetic of our three literary figures studied.
“Man hands on misery to man/it deepens like a coastal shelf” (Larkin). Philip Larkin realized parents do the best
they can but usually end up screwing up their own kids just like their parents were screwed up in turn by their parents and
so on. It is a rather pessimistic view of parenthood but possibly the most honest. Okonkwo’s father was a loser. Or at
least by Umouofia’s standards of success his father was outrageously unsuccessful; and Okonkwo’s ambition in life was
to be as different from him as he could possibly be. Much like Sophocles’ drama the irony of Achebe’s work is that while
his protagonist, Okonkwo, worked incredibly hard to try not to repeat his own father’s failed lifestyle they both were
ultimately buried in the evil forest because it “is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the
Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil…” (Achebe 207). The cycle was
complete. Father and son both buried in disgrace. The tragedy behind this insecure child-man, Okonkwo, is that he was a
fighter in a fighting culture. He fought for his land, his crops, his titles, his tribe, his family, and fought to be entirely
different than his father, Unoka. But, arguably it is Okonkwo’s tribe that failed him. They shrunk from action,
acquiesced in the face of infiltration from a new faith, a new government, a new economy, and a new lifestyle. Okonkwo
valued the past, so much so that he was willing to lay down his life for the culture that afforded him two barns full of
yams, 3 wives, and two titles; but things changed, things fell apart, traditions began to unravel. Achebe’s protagonist can
be classified as a tragic hero because he had achieved high status—lost it—died a tragic and shameful death and suffered
from a tragic flaw. Many readers may suggest that Okonkwo’s tragic flaw was his arrogance and his resistance to change
or compromise but, I see Okonkwo as a more fragile man. He spent a great deal of his life fighting yet the one struggle he
seemed to lose was the fight with his own demons that dominated his thoughts and fears; “…his whole life was dominated
Tragic Hero / Sympathy Essay
Example
by fear, the fear of failure and weakness. It was deeper and more intimate...[i]t was not external but lay deep within
himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father….[he] was ruled by one passion—to hate
everything that his father Unoka had loved” (Achebe 13). The neurotic behavior Okonkwo displays is the endless attempt
to separate himself from his father. Unfortunately, he overcompensates by being too violent and too impatient. He killed
Ikemefuna because “[h]e was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). Okonkwo was anything but a simple man, he
was troubled by his relationship with his own father and disappointed with his son, his fellow clansmen, and privately I
think he was disappointed with himself. All said I feel sorry for Okonkwo but, nonetheless my deepest sympathies are for
August Wilson’s character Troy Maxon.
“They [screw] you up your mum and dad / they may not mean to but they do / they fill you with the faults they
had / and add some extra just for you” (Larkin). The opening stanza of Philip Larkin’s poem suggests humanity is
flawed, and yet as advanced as we fancy ourselves to be we are grossly unable to recognize our flaws thus incapable of
preventing the same flaws from becoming perversely hereditary. The painful honesty of the poem is that Larkin is
correct. Mitch Albom may have shared it best when he wrote in his book The Five People You Meet in Heaven, “[a]ll
parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some
parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair” (Albom 56).
Albom’s words are poignant and germane to the character Troy Maxon, he is a tragic father who aims to do his best in life
and as a father, but falls short—horribly short. In the hands of August Wilson and his Pulitzer Prize winning play Fences
Troy Maxon rises to the height of a tragic hero and the literary character I feel the most sorry for. Troy mishandles his
son Cory and all of his relationships—not on purpose, not with malicious intent, but with devastating results. Troy is a
bitter, hardworking man who is dissatisfied with his life but continues to honor his duties and responsibilities. Troy’s
bitterness is twofold; he resents his father for being abusive and neglectful, but admires him because he never abandoned
him and his siblings. He is also bitter toward white society and athletics because he was a talented baseball player in the
Negro Leagues before Major League Baseball integrated preventing him from ever getting a chance to play professionally
and pursue his dream. It is the latter that causes Troy to stand between his son Cory and a college football scholarship.
“Papa done went up to the school and told Coach Zellman I can’t play football no more. Wouldn’t even let me play in the
Tragic Hero / Sympathy Essay
Example
game. Told him to tell the recruiter not to come” (Wilson 61). Troy is wrong, but I feel he is misunderstood because he
genuinely believes what he is doing is in his son’s best interest. Troy is operating on the best information he has, which is
all any of us can do, he draws on his own personal experiences, but he does not realize that times are changing. What
Troy wanted for Cory was a better life than he had. He wanted Cory to “…learn how to fix cars or build houses or
something, get you a trade. That way you have something can’t nobody take away from you. You go on and learn how to
put your hands to some good use. Besides hauling people’s garbage” (Wilson 40). Admirably, Troy wanted what every
parent wants—a better life for their child. Troy’s wife Rose understood what an opportunity the scholarship meant to
Cory and his future and she tried to appeal to Troy and Cory’s connection with athletics and that he was just trying to be
like his father but that was exactly what Troy feared. “I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away
from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to me. I wish him that. But I don’t wish him a
thing else from my life” (Wilson 43). Troy was a large figure but, he was scared and uninformed and without a father of
his own to show him how to behave like a caring father and husband. He was without a role model; a father to him was
somebody who just put food on the table, clothes on your back, and a roof over your head. Troy succeeded in providing
for his children, but he lacked a model that showed him how to love his family. Cory asked his father “[h]ow come you
ain’t never liked me?” (Wilson 41). Troy’s shell did not soften he berated Cory for asking such a ridiculous question and
began to list all of the things he does for Cory; he ultimately says “I go out of here every morning…bust my butt…putting
up with them crackers every day…cause I like you? [I do it because] it’s my job. It’s my responsibility! You understand
that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house…sleep you behind on my bedclothes..fill you belly up
with my food…cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not ‘cause I like you! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you”
(Wilson 42-3). Perhaps this is why I chose Troy as the most sympathetic tragic figure we have studied, because I see my
father in Troy. Troy’s sense of sacrifice, duty, and responsibility to his family mirrors my father’s. Like Troy’s disdain
for his job as a garbage man my dad worked for 33 years at a job he was overqualified for, not because he wanted to, but
because he had a wife and three children to care for. My father was callous like Troy, not abusive or unfaithful to my
mother, but he struggled to show he cared. Rather than embrace us or tell us that he loved us he would show us with his
actions. He bought each of us new cleats for football season, he put up a backboard and hoop above the garage when we
told him basketball was our favorite sport, he helped pay for college tuition, taught us how to build credit and how to
Tragic Hero / Sympathy Essay
Example
manage our money. Nobody is perfect. Doing the best you can with what life gives you is all you can ask for. My dad
did the best he could and I think Troy Maxon meant to as well.
Troy qualifies as a tragic hero because in the black community during the pre Civil Rights era in the Hill District
of Pittsburg he achieved high status as the first black garbage truck driver. Troy’s dissatisfaction with his place in life was
the catalyst for his most tragic mistake, his infidelity. Troy cheating on Rose and having a child with Alberta was the
final action that drove away his wife, his son, and his best friend. In the end he successfully alienated himself from
everyone who cared about him and died a lonely man. Troy Maxon may have acted like an insensitive jerk and at times
he was but, he often had sincere good intentions. While the road to hell may be paved with good intentions August
Wilson waits until the final line of his drama to show his audience that the terrible Troy will not exist in eternal anguish
but, will have his sins forgiven. Redemption for Troy Maxon, but not without drama; Gabriel’s trumpet fails twice
signifying that Troy is not worthy of access to St. Peter’s heavenly gates; his imperfections too egregious, but Gabriel is
adamant that his older brother be admitted to heaven so he does a fitful dance “and the gates of heaven stand open as wide
as God’s closet” (Wilson 108).