Hamlet Tragic Hero Research Paper

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Hamlet is nearly the perfect tragic hero. Nearly. At the beginning of the play, the motives behind the crime he wants to commit against the new king are noble, seeing as though his goal is to avenge his murdered father’s death. Fitting glove-like to the definition of a tragic hero given by Abram in A Glossary of Literary Terms, Hamlet is accompanied by a tragic flaw that results in his downfall, doesn’t get to survive to see the outcome of his actions, and aids in or directly causes all of the deaths in the play, including but not limited to Polonius, Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Ophelia, making him an almost perfect example of a tragic hero.
What has seen the most controversy in the argument of Hamlet as a tragic hero is the inability to find his true tragic flaw. He is not flawless, but the idea …show more content…

It can be argued upon in the case of Hamlet because not just one large flaw lead to his downfall, and what one feels is his true flaw can vary by opinion and interpretation. While there are the popular opinions of his tragic flaw being that he is indecisive regarding taking action against Claudius or too driven toward his ambitions (such as for the throne), Hamlet’s true fatal flaw is his understanding and use of the power of language and words. It is identification with and immense knowledge of language that bring his own tragic ending and the tragic ending of those around him. The idea of Hamlet’s connections to words is a main theme in the play, and throughout the novel the importance of language to Hamlet is emphasized in different ways (example of him reciting and writing play, word words excerpt, etc.). It is this connection he has that leads to his all-too-literary analysis of

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