John Proctor is a character in The Crucible who can be described as a tragic hero. Firstly, John Proctor’s tragic flaw was his great amount of pride, that slowly tied a series of unfortunate events, eventually making Proctor succumb to his death. However, Proctor does...
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play written by the English writer William Shakespeare. Macbeth is a tragic hero who learns that he could come to be a King through a prophecy from 3 witches. The genre that the play falls under is a tragedy,...
“Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical” – Adam Philipp. Tragic heroes are protagonists that are introduced as honorable people with heroic traits, but they have flaws or make errors that ultimately lead to their downfall. The tragic...
From the very title of this historical fiction novel, Things Fall Apart, composed by Chinua Achebe, it foreshadows the tragedy which is triggered by the tragic hero. Defined by Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, a tragic hero is a character who is of noble stature...
“A man doesn’t become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall” as Aristotle once said. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is used to portray Achebe’s own characterization of a tragic hero. A tragic hero as...
Every hero has a flaw. As the dictionary states, a “tragic flaw is a literary device that can be defined as a trait in a character leading to his downfall, and the character is often the hero of the literary piece. This trait could be...
The renowned philosopher Aristotle formally outlined the parameters of the tragic hero in his work “On Poetics”. Aristotle primarily based his tragic hero model on Oedipus, a king from Greek mythology. He outlined the tragic hero as a person of noble birth who encompasses a...
Throughout history, literature and the way people interpret literature has changed dramatically. Different genres of plays including romance, action, and even heartbreaking tragedies that touch the reader’s heart have been shared for thousands of years. One of the most popular genres would be tragedies. A...
Many stories have a hero that is fortunate to overcome their problems, although some have flaws and meet tragic ends. In the Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is conveyed as a tragic hero as he loses his battle against mental stability...
The tragic hero displays a discrepancy between mind and feeling as well as between recognition and acting. Macbeth is the drama of self-alienation, derealization, loss of identity, expediency, nihilism and self-destruction; but at the same time, it is the drama of emotional intensity, intuitive self-insight...
In the world of theatre, there are many plays in which the central figure is one who harnesses extreme personality traits above all others. For example, Sophocles’ Oedipus is a fatherly king with great ambition and strength; and Shakespeare’s Macbeth is evilly ambitious, while Romeo...
An individual’s perceived perception of what is right in a time of great turmoil may easily be interpreted as the acts of an insane person. In William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” these acts of insane person are seen through the protagonist’s actions, Hamlet, as he does what...
The tragic hero is respected and respected,is a person who faces adversity,or demonstrates courage.However, sometimes he faces downfall as well. When a hero confronts downfall, he is recognized as a tragic hero in the face of danger. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays...
Jealousy is like poison, the effects may be minor at first, but the result is always unpleasant. Ironically, Othello’s jealousy leads to him wanting to poison Desdemona. His jealousy and Iago’s manipulation in this passage is what lead to the final events in the falling...
The title of the play ‘The Crucible’ means a pot where you melt substances at high temperatures or a severe trial. This is symbolic of the play as there was tension in Salem due to hysteria and everyone was put on trial for witchcraft. A...
“Overthinking leads the way to self destruction. Mind your mind or it will make you go out of your mind”. Hamlet, written by English dramatist, William Shakesphere, tells the story of a grief stricken young man who returns home from college only to find that...
The tragic hero is a popular archetype of classic literature, generally referring to a character that embodies the qualities of a classic hero as well as a fatal flaw that dooms him to failure. In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton illustrates Satan specifically...
The Greek mythology is filled with stories about people who are considered great heroes due to their extraordinary qualities. Although Greek heroes fight bravely to obtain honor and glory, their flaws can harm them or their loved ones. While in Homer’s The Iliad, Achilles is...
As in other plays, reflecting a specific culture, “Death and the King’s Horseman” has kept close to religious and traditional issues, but it has shaped culture into a great tragedy. Aristotle defines tragedy in his book poetics as: A tragedy is the imitation of an...
A tragic hero is usually pictured as the protagonist and is a type of character in a tragedy. Within this tragedy that they are a part of, they’re typically placed with heroic traits that allows them to gain the sympathy of the audience. However, they...
Heracles, Greece’s greatest hero, is a demigod whose mortal life is dominated by a series of successes due to his tremendous strength and failures due to his excessive passions. While, ostensibly, his passions cause him pain and bring about misfortune, he ultimately gains eternal glory...
In tragedies, the tragic hero is a noble character but has a fatal flaw which causes them to go through a reversal. In a reversal, the tragic hero goes through many events which not only causes them to suffer, but also disturbs the natural order...
There is a reason why Willy Loman is considered as a tragic hero where a great deal of it has to with his pride. As a matter of fact, through the character of Willy, Arthur Miller is able to build the theme of pride around...
Upon its introduction into the world by the Ancient Greeks, tragedies were known for featuring nobility as protagonists due to their high status. The fact that these noble men/women could descend from a position of such high prestige is what gave audiences the intense love...
The most crucial moment in the text of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, The Remains of the Day, does not occur until almost the very end of the book. The tragic implications of everything that has taken place before can only be put into the proper context...
There are several ways to define a tragic hero. Aristotle breached upon several of these characteristics during his philosophical years. Several definitions were provided at the top of this question, many of which can be attributed to both Othello and Macbeth : Shakespearean plays. These...
The position of a tragic hero is not unusual in many of Shakespeare’s works. The individual of Macbeth is a classic instance of a Shakespearean tragic hero. There are a multitude of things that contribute to Macbeth being labelled as a sad hero. Before these...
In both the story Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe, and the series Breaking Bad, by Vince Gilligan, there is a tragic hero that is in the process of destroying his life. Even though they do not measure up to the same situations, both of the...
Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, is a tragic play focusing on the common man during the late 1940’s. Much of the story is told by flashbacks of Willy Loman’s past, including him cheating on Linda, his wife. His older son, Biff, witnessed the...
One must be able to balance between reason and passion as reason falls towards rational thinking while passion leads towards making irrational decisions. Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play is known as a tragic hero due the fact that he was bound for greatness, but his fall...