And you must needs have hear, how I am punished with a sore distraction. What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. (5.2 243-246)” Here Hamlet apologized to Laertes saying that his madness was at fault for the murder of his father. A person who was insane would neither realize that he/she is mad nor would know that their actions were uncontrollable. Hamlet showed that he was sane when he was with specific characters, such as his best friend, Horatio.
He commits murder and puts his entire kingdom in danger. Still, many of his evil acts are committed while he is under the influence of the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth, who are often considered to be the true villains of the play. At the end of the play, Macbeth realizes the evil he has committed and seems to feel sorrow for such. Because of this realization Macbeth is often viewed as a tragic hero, for tragic heroes almost always recognize the errors they have committed by the end of their stories and seek, in some manner, to atone for them. Macbeth is indeed a bit too complex to be categorised as a villain or a hero.
In the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare Marcus Brutus contains multiple elements that would qualify him as a tragic hero. A tragic hero is a man of noble stature who displays hamartia. Hamartia in tragedies is a crime committed in ignorance, also considered a tragic flaw. The hero’s downfall, therefore, is the result of his own catastrophic choices. A tragic hero is a man of noble character who dies because of the decisions he has made, even if the hero’s misfortune was not completely deserved.
Is John Proctor a tragic hero and is this play an example of a tragedy? John Proctor portrays the tragic hero in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” Proctor, the protagonist of the piece, is revealed to the audience in his time of anguish and struggle, making his untimely death all the more unfortunate. In this tragedy, Proctor fights to save the town from insanity and chooses his death, rather than shame, in his struggle. The elements of a tragic hero are applied to Proctor in order for the audience to a feel sympathetic connection to a character who committed an unholy sin of adultery. John Proctor though not of high noble stature is, nonetheless, a good man and is highly regarded in Salem.
King Lear’s Edmund and Othello’s Iago are undoubtedly Shakespeare’s most evil characters. Even when put up against each other, the two villains prove to be similar in several aspects. It is their differences, however, that point to the real villain of the two, and the one that is truly evil. The similarities in the means by which Edmund and Iago perform their intrigues point to their position as villains, but it is the reasons for their actions and the eventual unwinding of their plots that sets Iago miles ahead of Edmund in terms of evil nature. Iago and Edmund both utilize trust and love as instruments of destruction while at the same time exacerbating inherent tensions within the relationships of their victims.
The most important factor of a tragedy is the choice made by the tragic hero. In the star-crossed lovers’ tale of “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, Romeo made the “tragic” choice to poison himself after thinking his “soul mate” Juliet was dead. In the case of John Proctor, he decided he would rather die with the “purity” of his good name than confess to a lie and ruin his name. If he chose the other course of action, it is likely he would not have died. It is
In Othello Iago, Othello’s most trusted friend and ally, deceives and manipulates everyone in the play to bring about Othello’s downfall. In the dictionary, evil is defined by a conscious and deliberate wrongdoing, humiliation of people designed to diminish their psychological well being and acts of unnecessary violence with unjustified motives with selfish reasons. Iago embodies all the traits of evil that were just listed. The main characteristic of a villain that Iago shows is one of deception and lies. He uses and controls others to diminish the psychological wellbeing of Othello.
Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is “Tragedy is a story taking the hero from happiness to misery because of a fatal flaw or mistake on his part. To be a true tragic hero he must also elicit a strong emotional response of pity and fear from the audience.” (Aristotle) Creon fits perfectly into this description of a tragic hero.There have been many controversies regarding the true nature of Creon in the play “Antigone” by Anouilh.In this essay of mine, we shall perceive Creon as a noble man rather than an arrogant tyrant.In my view,Creon was the protagonist while Antigone was undoubtedly the antagonist, the cause of the whole tragedy who caused her own downfall as well as the downfall of Haemon and Eurydice courtesy of her obnoxious and immature behaviour. To prove my point here, I shall start with the fact that Creon hadn’t desired power.He was a patron of art, a lover of music, an idealist. This had been stated by the Chorus in the Prologue. This throne had been forced upon him by the circumstances after the death of Eteocles.
Sometimes the tragic hero suffers from hubris, like know-it-all Oedipus. The goddess Nemesis waits until just the proper moment to tap his arrogance, blind him to the reality around him, and thereby lead him to his own destruction. But note: What separates the tragic hero from the arrogant fool who suffers the same fate is the sheer magnitude of his gifts, and thus the depth of the abyss into which he falls, and the spirit with which he
The tragic flaw that eventually leads to his downfall, a reversal of fortune brought about by the hero’s tragic flaw, which was the fact that the other character realized their misjudgments and the real wickedness was found out, which was Iago. The audience feels pity and fear for Othello because his weakness took over him and killed him; the audience may also liken themselves to the character and learn from it. Iago creates an alternate world filled with lies that overwhelm the trusting and naive Othello. Othello's downfall comes about due to a combination of the influence of Iago and the fatal character flaws of the admirable Othello. Othello is afflicted with a jealous tendency and inability to understand others and their motives.