Tragic Hero Essay

706 Words3 Pages
A Tragic hero is some literary character who makes an error of judment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces brings on a tragedy. Oedipus’s tragic flaw was his intelligence paired with arrogance and metaphorical blindness that leads to his destruction when it drives him to search for the truth. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is when he tries to avenge his father he hesitates in his actions and his thirst for revenge. Othello’s tragic flaw is his gullibility and jealously. Willie’s tragic flaw was he doesn’t know from reality from fantasy. All of these tragic heroes have suffered greatly but Oedipus is by far the most tragic hero of them all. Oedipus tries to escape faith but faith had a way of catching up to him. There was a prophecy that he would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus tries to avoid this by running away from his “parents”. Then he is confronted with the sphinx and solves her riddle. After he becomes king, he marries Jocasta (his mother).Tiresias gets tired of Oedipus’s arrogance and tells him the truth about the fulfilled prophecy. Oedipus doesn’t believe him so; he goes searching for the truth his self. Once he finds out this is true he blinds himself and banned his self from civilization forever. He is the most tragic hero because fate was a main part of the tragedy. Oedipus rose to be king then fell to become a blind person who committed incest. Hamlet main goal was to avenge his father. Hamlet’s father’s ghost appears to Hamlet telling him what happened and to avenge him. Hamlet doesn’t completely trust the ghost so he puts on a play called mouse trap recalling the events that led to his father’s death. If Claudius reacted negatively it proves he is guilty and committed the murder. This gives Hamlet the green light to kill him but instead he kills Polonius. When Laertes hears news of this, he devices a
Open Document