Hamartia

or the gods. No. I came . . . I stopped the Sphinx. I answered the riddle with my own intelligence” (27). Oedipus has excessive pride in his own abilities, thinking that his own wit could overrule fate. His hubris sheds light on his fatal flaw, or hamartia: throughout the play, he arrogantly believes that fate is malleable, when it actually turns out to be set in stone. Tiresias, on the other hand, believes that “Apollo is enough, it’s in his able hands.” He completely entrusts the gods with…

simple question “Who are your father and mother?” (402), is directed at Oedipus, it brings doubt and suspicion to the minds of both the choragus and the audience. Thus, it sparks chaos and that chaos builds until the end of the play. It also leads to hamartia of knowledge, as the answer to the question later becomes increasingly obvious, however…

“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage” said by Ray Bradbury (Good Reads). For Hamlet, in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Denmark has him locked inside of a cage of confusion. After Old Hamlet’s death, Hamlet is sent into a depression like phase where he does not know what to do with himself. However, once he meets with Old Hamlet’s ghost, he suddenly has a surge of motivation. This motivation makes Hamlet appear insane to the people around him, and his devious…

In Chinua Achebe’s postcolonial story of Things Fall Apart, Achebe portrays the main character, Okonkwo, as an angry man who is unable to show compassion which becomes his hamartia. This hamartia which impacts Okonkwo throughout the novel, eventually leads to Okonkwo’s own tragic demise. The death of Okonkwo was from his own fatal flaw, as a tragic hero. Not through the cultural displacement that may have affected the people around him. Aristotle describes a tragic hero as someone who: holds…

humanity is validated and is proved to have a better outlook. Three main theories of the tragic hero are the Aristotelian model, the Shakespearean model, and the modern tragic hero. Each model has five defining characteristics, which are nobility, hamartia, downfall, anagnorisis, and suffering. In the Shakespearean mode of tragedy, the play of Romeo and Juliet works best for modeling the tragic hero. For example, nobility was used often to describe the upper class. Romeo is the perfect…

Oedipus Rex, a tragic hero crushed because of his hamartia, was not a perfect man by any means. He had all he wanted, but by the end of the story everything he thought was true turned out to be untrue. Although Oedipus considered fate to be real, he had more confidence in his own knowledge and achievements to control his future. Also, Oedipus’ dependence on himself made his purpose and insight the best way to establish all of his decisions. Oedipus was very short tempered and tended to get…

The appalling saint is a character of honorable stature and has significance. Despite the fact that the unfortunate saint is pre-prominently awesome, she or he is not great. A tragic saint is a recognized individual possessing a high position, living in prosperous conditions and falling into mishap as a result of a blunder in judgment. Oedipus' honorability and uprightness give his first key to accomplishment as a deplorable saint. Oedipus is an unfortunate saint since he is not impeccable, but…

inevitably leads to his/her own destruction.” There are 6 traits to a tragic hero, and Creon displays all 6, starting with him being a person of high estate. Creon was made King of Thebes after the deaths of Eteocles and Polyneices. He suffered from hamartia after he became king when he refused to Burt Polyneices properly, just as his brother was. No matter who talked to him, he would not let them dissuade him and his opinion, for his pride was too strong. Another big piece of him being a…

had power over his own moira, regardless of the immortal’s design of such a thing. The statement in question, is only agreeable to an extent; yes, the immortal gods did have an influence on Odysseus’ delayed nostos, but it was the epic hero’s own hamartia that postponed his homecoming.…

downfall, their whole life falls with as well. In Shakespeare’s tragic play, Julius Caesar, Brutus wants to keep the democracy of Rome, and decides that murder is the only way to achieve it. Brutus proves himself to be a tragic hero with greatness and hamartia as shown by wanting the general of Rome to not be ruled under a tyrant and thinking Caesar had enough ambition to become a tyrant; however, Brutus does not make the audience pity him, due to him dying with the other conspirators. Brutus’s…