Aeschylus (Greek tragic dramatist, 525BC-456BC) said, “For this is tyranny’s disease, to trust no friends”. This is exactly what Julius Caesar should have done; not trusted his friends. In Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare, it is often debated who deserves the role of the tragic hero is this tragedy. Caesar’s tragic flaws do lead to his death, but Brutus is the obvious tragic hero. Although Brutus has the characteristics of a great man such as; nobility, idealism and honesty, what makes him the tragic hero of Julius Caesar is his unassuming sincerity and trust.
He has no men, no honor, no loyalty and no love. Instead of having these luxuries of a king, he has an overwhelming guilt – all because he killed Duncan. Macbeth realizes that since he performed many acts of evil, he will not receive good consequences but rather a life of sorrow and depression. On account of understanding what he did was unsound and evil, he accepts that he deserves these and therefore, is considered a classic tragic hero. With the death of Macbeth, William Shakespeare shows an insight of a perfect example of a classic tragic hero.
The blindest of all was obviously King Lear and because of Lear’s high position in society, you would think he would be able to determine the good from the bad but unfortunately, his lack of sight prevented him to do so. Lear’s first act of blindness came at the beginning of the play. First, he was easily fooled by his two oldest daughter’s lies. Then he was unable to see the reality of Cordelia’s true love for him and as a result, banished her from his kingdom. Lear’s blindness also caused him to banish one of his loyal followers, Kent.
Chantelle Driver English 12-1B Ms.Turner 15 December 2011 A Tragic Hero Named Macbeth Sometimes a tragic hero is created, not through his own villainy, but rather through the flaws in him. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth is our main example of our common tragic hero who possesses a tragic flaw, but what is a tragic flaw? A tragic flaw is a flaw in a character that brings about the downfall of the hero of a tragedy. Shakespeare uses Macbeth to show the terrible effects that ambition and guilt can have on a man who lacks strength of character. Ambition, moral weakness and selective perception, would be the major flaws of our character, Macbeth.
Hamlet can be seen as a Shakespearian tragedy in this respect, as it is very much the flaw in his indecisiveness that causes his lack of action to drive the play, perhaps shown best in Act 3, Scene 3 where he decides to not kill a defenceless Claudius, despite spending much of the play finding evidence of this guilt, and just before immediately murdering a man who he thought was Claudius. Macbeth, on the other hand, is much more in line with Greek tragedies, as it isn’t his ambition that acts as his flaw (established early in the play that in moderate amounts it is a positive trait, shown by his high station in the battle against Norway, which also shows his loyalty), but the acts he commits as a result, such as the killing of Duncan or following the Witches directly bring about his downfall. Another significant difference in Shakespearian and Greek
Poet T.S. Eliot infamously referred to Titus as “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written,” while playwright Edward Ravenscroft dismissed it simply as a “heap of rubbish” (Shakespeare, 399). Yet for all of Titus’s grotesque horrors, the violence that seemingly repulsed Eliot and company should not be viewed as erratic, uncalculated acts. Rather they should be understood as representations of a wider, symbolic significance. It is through dismemberment, and the dismemberment of hands in particular, that the play can be seen through an emblematic perspective to signify the justification of vengeance and the loss of political and personal agency.
Shakespeare employs Friar Lawrence as one of these characters that abets the death of Romeo and Juliet as he fails to deny the two “star crossed lovers” any part in marriage instead aiding their eventual demise through the careful yet greatly flawed plan where Friar Lawrence “gave thee remedy” that formed the basis of the two characters deaths. Not only was Lawrence to blame but it can also be said that parents of Juliet, Lord and Lady Capulet were also at fault forcing their young daughter into early marriage to a man in Paris who Juliet had no feelings for. Her father, Lord Capulet stated “…you will not wed, I’ll pardon you, graze where you will, you shall not house with me.” Here it is evident if Juliet were not to marry Paris her father will “excuse” her to find another home. Such tactics used by Shakespeare prove that Juliet had been terribly misguided from an early age and show that her demise was set up due to poor parenting
In William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, there were numerous factors that accumulated to lead up to the tragedies that occurred. The Weird Sisters were not catalysts for these tragedies, as they only acted as a mirror to reflect and reveal man’s true nature and flaws. A Shakespearean tragedy is when character flaws become so dominant that they lead up to a number of tragic events, and eventually the downfall of the characters themselves. This was demonstrated in the play when, after being foretold by the Weird Sisters that he would soon be King, Macbeth’s true nature began to surface. His desire for power eventually overpowered his morality and caused him to perform a series of violent murderous acts.
A tragic flaw is a flaw in a character that is the cause of a downfall of the tragic hero in a tragedy. A great example of an awesome tragic hero is Antigone in Sophocles play “Antigone.” In “Antigone” Antigone s a girl whose uncle (Creon) is king. Her brother, Polynecies, has died in a war and King Creon made a decree that no one should bury him. Well, Antigone disobeys Creon and buries her brother. She says that she did it for a higher cause.
Pamela Lora Ap Literature Period 2 10/29/09 “Oedipus Rex” Previously I have mentioned we have common flaws, one flaw that was pionted out in the play was selfishness. One of the characters that had that flaw was Teiresias, the soothsayer. In the play Oedipus calls Teiresias to come and see if he could see who was the murderer of king Laios. But Teiresias saw more than that but he didn’t want to be the one to tell Oedipus the truth. So Teiresias kept rebelling against Oepidus to let him go and not to bother him.