Tragic Flaw in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Devi) Even though tragedies had been written before Shakespeare, it was Shakespeare’s distinctive features that took the stories one step further. Shakespeare’s tragedies focus on the hero’s tragic flaw, the hamartia, that lead them to his or her downfall. This resource helped me to understand some of the characteristics of a tragic hero to better analyze the character, Hamlet. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes were not ordinary men, but…
Two main characters share similar traits from respective pieces of literature, one is a quasi-ruler of an African hamlet and the other is a soldier fighting deadly robots. In Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, Ezeulu is the chief priest of multiple villages in Africa that is slowly being colonized by the British in the early Twentieth Century. Second Variety by Phillip K. Dick is a short science fiction story set in an apocalyptic future about a military officer named Major Joseph Hendricks, who…
which is a playwright written in 441 BCE. It is a tale about repulsive thoughts and gruesome endings; it tells the story of Antigone, a tragic hero whose…
Peripeteia is the shift of the tragic protagonist’s fortune form good to bad. Oedipus makes an ignorant error that causes the tragic flaw in the story. Oedipus fortune starts going good in the beginning of the story however his ignorance starts taking over that’s when he starts making his mistakes. The first mistake was when he referred…
All tragic heroes must exhibit a tragic flaw. In Medea, Jason and Medea share a common tragic flaw—selfishness. Because of Medea’s devotion to loving Jason many years ago, she left her family and her home to follow him, even killing her own brother. This begins Medea’s lifestyle of thinking of no one but herself. In following with Jason and Medea’s story, Jason leaves Medea to marry Megareus because he desires to marry into a royal family instead of Medea’s barbaric lifestyle. His…
A tragic hero is commonly defined as a literary figure who, during the course of the plot, makes a deadly flaw that seals his fate and ultimately leads to his demise. Two classic examples can be found in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: Brutus, the killer of Caesar, and the dictator of Rome himself. Marcus Brutus and Julius Caesar both serve as exceptional illustrations of tragic heroes because of their social relevance, their harrowing mistakes, and their cataclysmic deaths. It is…
By defination,the beginnig is that which does not presuppose anything else to have gone before it. Although Sophocles' play focuses attention only on the last day of Oedipus' long rule over Thebes, we do not feel the need of any information about what has gone before, when we read the prologue of the play. In fact earlier events are related by Jocasta and Oedipus in the liter part of the play. The middle is that which is necessary and logical sequence of the beginning. The first episode of…
In terms of classical literature and theatre, dating back to Ancient Greece, a tragic hero is a man of great wealth or power who falls from grace. This fall happens at times because of external forces, but more often the man’s downfall is caused by none other than himself. At times, this curse belies the character by an action of choice, be it due to personal failings or because of a misunderstanding. The downfall of Okonkwo, in spite of seeming to be a far different story altogether, is not so…
Hamartia, or the first step in Aristotle 's theory of the tragic hero, explains that the play must demonstrate a flaw or error of judgement. The play offers an illustration of "hamartia" throughout its prose, as at the beginning of the play; Oedipus thinks he is free of guilt. However, his rash anger leads him to unknowingly kill his real father, King Lauis, at the crossroads. The murder of Oedipus ' father is one of the essential links in his downfall, which indicates that his anger is a very…
A tragic hero is a person with heroic potential who is fated by some supernatural force, eventually leading to destruction or to great suffering. F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrote one of his utmost famous novels, The Great Gatsby, that focused on Jay Gatsby, a romantic fantasist who wishes to fulfill his American Dream by flaunting his wealth in hopes of impressing and eventually winning the heart of the love of his life, Daisy. Gatsby’s tragic flaws lie beneath his incapability to view reality,…