Examples Of Tragic Hero In Hamlet

Hamlet: One of Many Tragic Heroes Although tragic heroes in literature differ from one another with their own unique stories, they are all bound together by several common characteristics. Furthermore, many of these characteristics revolve around a general story line that consists of a noble and heroic character, who, in making a flawed judgement error, inevitably dooms him/herself. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet displays many of these same characteristics shared by other tragic heroes. Hamlet, then, can be considered to be a tragic hero as he exhibits hamartia in his flawed, indecisive judgement whilst in pursuit of revenge, experiences a dramatic moment of peripeteia brought about because of his innate flaw, and also undergoes

When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attribute Hamlet’s moodiness and his antic disposition at times to his vast ambitions, Hamlet replies that he could “count [himself] a king of infinite space”, if not for his “bad dreams” (2.2.273–275). Hamlet’s reply reveals that his bad dreams, presumably caused by the startling revelation from the ghost, has plagued him into a state of indecision, and if not for such bad dreams, his mind would be free to take action to become even a king of infinite space. As such, a major factor in Hamlet’s indecision and flawed judgement stems from the burden of having to carry out revenge for his father’s death. Moreover, Hamlet states in his famous soliloquy that “Conscience does make cowards of us all” (3.1.91). In this sense, Hamlet refers to conscience as more of the contemplative and reflective type rather than a moral obligation, and identifies such contemplativeness as root of the indecisiveness and cowardice of humanity. Here, Hamlet also accurately portrays and even agonizes over his tendency to delay and over-think things, thereby

As any other tragic hero, Hamlet also has many moments of anagnorisis throughout the play, often occurring during his soliloquies when he reflects upon himself and the world. After having witnessed the First Player’s profound emotional recountment of the story of Pyrrhus seeking revenge, Hamlet reflects upon himself, comparing how the Player “But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, / Could force his soul to do so to his conceit… and all for nothing” (2.2.579–584), while he himself remains “Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of [his] cause… pigeon-livered and” lacking “gall” (2.2.595-604). However, he ultimately does decided on setting a course of action after much self-critique of himself, planning to “catch the conscience of the King” (2.2.634) through a play, in order to gain “grounds / More relative than this” (2.2.232–233). In a stark comparison of his own actions, or lack thereof, to the Player’s, Hamlet is at the same time both amazed and dismayed that even an actor could show such emotion toward a fictional character (Hecuba) in a fictional situation when he himself cannot even bring himself to act upon his own feelings for his own dead father. However, his realization of his own hamartia and