Hamlet And Aristotle Character Analysis

The first and foremost ingredient in any tragedy ,as dictated by the chef Aristotle, involves the main character, the protagonist of the story. Aristotle believes that the protagonist must be in a state of noble power, either born into the royal family or just in a high enough position in power where they have everything on the line. For the most part, Hamlet follows along with this first requirement of Aristotle’s standards of a tragedy. As one can conclude from the name of the title, Hamlet is the prince of Denmark. In this situation Hamlet, the protagonist, meets with the standard. A royal prince who in the end falls to his own demise. He not only falls from power, but from his own sanity blinded by his revenge.

Another example of this occurring would be in the drama by Sophocles, Antigone. Although it’s implied that Antigone would be the protagonist, it seems that most of the play surrounds her uncle instead. Creon, Antigone’s uncle, has now risen in power and taken over as king after the exile of the last king,Oedipus. Another tragedy that can also be applied to these …show more content…
Aristotle states that a tragic hero must not be the most flawless human being in the world. Like Superman, they have one fatal weakness or character flaw that leads to their unfortunate death or downfall. Put against this standard, Hamlet is a neat fit for this definition of a tragic hero. His burning sense for revenge obviously got the better of him as he isolated himself from the people who cared about him and went on to avenge his father instead of consulting anyone to get to the root of the issue. Hamlet was motivated by his revenge to end things but in the end he lost his life and his own sanity. Creon, on the other hand, was narrow minded, and prideful. He refused to see things from an alternate perspective. With this fatal flaw he causes a chain of suicides, the loyalty of his son and a end to his tyrannical