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Analyse Aristotle,s elents of tragedy
Analyse Aristotle,s elents of tragedy
Analyse Aristotle,s elents of tragedy
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Recommended: Analyse Aristotle,s elents of tragedy
Manal Siddiqui period 1
12/7/15
Tragic Hero
There have been many tragic heroes since the beginning of time. Some of those being Oedipus and Brutus. They are classified as tragic heroes according to Aristotle's elements of a tragic hero. The way they evolve shows all the steps it takes to be a tragic hero. A modern day movie named "There will be blood" has a character by the name of
Daniel Plainview who could also be viewed as a tragic hero according to Aristotle's key points. In Oedipus's tragedy, he starts out as a king who is intelligent and liked by most people. People admire him and come to him for help to solve the plague. When Oedipus saved the people from the Sphinx and solved the riddle, the people viewed him as a hero. His tragic flaw
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When his downfall occurs, Oedipus gets banished from Thebes because that was the punishment of the murderer and that is what made him a tragic hero according to Aristotle. Similarly, in "Caesar", Brutus can be classified as a tragic hero. He kills his friend Caesar for the good of Rome when he says " as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome". His intentions were good but his flaws lead to his downfall which caused his death. He did all of this for the good of Rome but did not end up having a good ending. A modern day movie that compares to the two stories would be
"There will be blood", and the tragic hero in that movie is named Daniel Plainview. He started off as a guy who was well respected and had a high position in society. But when he started using his son for buyer's and became selfish, that's when things started getting bad for him. He started being greedy and was looking for more power than he already had. He became a cold blooded killer and killed anyone that got in his way.
Daniel changed his success into his downfall by caring only about himself and killing people. He started from having everything to losing it all in the
What would you do if someone told you you would end up killing your father and marrying your mother when you grow up? You would do anything to keep that from happening, wouldn’t you? Oedipus did in Oedipus the King by Sophocles. Unfortunately, Oedipus fails in avoiding his fate. Faced with a choice between pursuing the truth which everyone tells him would lead to his destruction or accepting a life without knowing any better, Oedipus chooses self-knowledge over self-deception. This makes Oedipus a perfect example of a tragic hero. In Greek drama, a tragic hero is a protagonist of a noble birth who possesses a tragic flaw that leads to his down fall but shows the courage to accept responsibility for his own actions.
Christopher McCandless is the ideal tragic hero because he had everything in the world but he gave it up to go on a two year trip into the wild and through his own actions he paid the ultimate price. McCandless had a goal to achieve in the wilderness but as Aristotle said “The tragic hero's powerful wish to achieve some goal inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty.(Aristotle #2)”Although McCandless met his fate at the end of his journey the fact that he attempted this grand adventure makes him a hero rather than an imbecile.
The definition of a tragic hero is perceived as on who is neither wicked nor purely innocent, one who “is brave and noble but guilty of the tragic flaw of assuming that honorable ends justify dishonorable means”. In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Brutus takes the role of the tragic hero. Brutus’s honor, nobility, and self-righteousness makes him “a tragic figure, if not the hero” (Catherine C. Dominic).
A tragic hero is one with a supreme pride, yet has an unfaltering sense of commitment and is a good man overall. A tragic hero has the capacity to suffer and, because of an error in judgment, will experience a dramatic transformation that evokes a profound pity. This is a tragic hero and based on this conception, Oedipus is an evident
Oedipus fits Aristotle's definition of the tragic flaw and protagonist almost flawlessly. Aristotle described the protagonist as "someone regarded as extraordinary rather than typical..."(1117). Oedipus freed Thebes from the Sphinx by solving her riddle-- something nobody else had been able to do. The priest in the first scene of Act I calls Oedipus "...our greatest power" (1121) and describes him as rated first among men.
“Brutus, a Tragic Hero” Tragic heroes are composed of the following characteristics: nobleness/wisdom by birth, a tragic flaw, reversal of fortune by the tragic flaw, and anagnorisis. Being excessively honorable can be a person’s tragic flaw. In Julius Caesar, written by William Shakespeare, Brutus is shown to be a tragic hero. Born a nobleman, Brutus was Caesar’s close friend. However, he betrayed and murdered Caesar, which eventually led to Brutus’s death.
A tragic hero is defined as a person of high social rank, who has a tragic flaw or flaws that lead to their downfall. These heroes’ downfalls are usually either complete ruin or death. Tragic heroes face their downfall with courage and dignity. While many characters in Julius Caesar could fit these conditions, the person who fits the role of a tragic hero the best is Marcus Brutus. Brutus develops into a tragic hero throughout the play, and this is shown though his qualifications of a tragic hero, his high status, his tragic flaws, and his courage in the face of his death.
The tragic hero is one of literatures most used (and sometimes abused) characters. The classical definition of a tragic hero is, “a person with heroic or potentially heroic qualities. The person is doomed by the Gods or some other supernatural force to destruction or suffering. The hero struggles against the fate, but due to a personal flaw, ultimately fails in the battle against fate. It is my personal opinion that Brutus,as he is portrayed in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, is a tragic hero by this definition. I came to this conclusion due to the fact that Brutus shares many similarities with other tragic heroes in literature such as Oedipus, Hamlet, and Ralph from Lord of the Flies. All four characters share the two critical traits that are needed to be tragic heroes: a tragic flaw that eventually leads to a tragic downfall. The tragic hero was defined by Aristotle, yet the “invention” of the tragic hero goes to Sophocles.
Through Aristotle’s specific definition of a tragic hero, it can be concluded that Oedipus is a tragic hero. Oedipus The King was written by a well-known tragic dramatist named Sophocles. This story is considered to be one of the greatest tragedies of all time. In fact, the Marjorie Barstow of the Classical Weekly says that it “fulfills the function of a tragedy, and arouses fear and pity in the highest degree” (Barstow). It is also very controversial because of the relationship that Oedipus has with his mother, although it was unknown at the time that they were related. The qualifications of a tragic hero, according to Aristotle, include coming from a royal family and falling from power due to actions that only the protagonist can take responsibility for. The main character must also have a tragic flaw, which is defined as a “weakness in character” (Gioia). There have been many protagonists in other plays that represent a tragic hero, but none exemplify Aristotle’s tragic hero traits quite as well as Oedipus does because of many reasons including his royal history, his tragic flaw, his hamartia, and his his fall from power.
In his classic work "Poetics" Aristotle provided a model of the tragic hero. According to Aristotle, the tragic hero is more admirable than the average person. This results in the tragic hero being admired by the audience. For the audience to accept a tragic ending as just, it is crucial that the tragic hero be responsible for their undoing. At the same time though, they must remain admired and respected. This is achieved by the tragic hero having a fatal flaw that leads to their undoing. One of literature's examples of the tragic hero is Achilles from Homer's The Iliad. However, Achilles is different from the classic tragic hero in one major way - his story does not end tragically. Unlike the usual tragic hero, Achilles is able to change, reverse his downfall, and actually prove himself as a true hero.
Tragic Hero in Julius Caesar A tragic hero is the character whose actions deeply affect the other characters and who creates a series of events that eventually lead to the character’s downfall and the downfall of his loved ones. Such a hero possesses a flaw in character that influences his actions and thinking and especially his judgments. In logically determining who the hero in Julius Caesar is, one simply must find the one character who fits the above guidelines. Marcus Brutus is the only one, and, thus, he is the tragic hero.
According to Aristotle, a tragic hero experiences a change in fortune from good to bad brought about by his or her own errors. By this definition, Brutus acts as the tragic hero of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar because, despite his good intentions, his actions ultimately lead to his death and the downfall of the Roman Republic.
Aristotle defines a tragic hero as "a [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake." When Aristotle states “a great man” the hero is neither a villain nor a perfect citizen, but is basically good and decent in his nature. The mistake that is mentioned is some moral blindness or error that is his/her downfall. Also not that the God’s are also in some sense responsible for this hero’s mistake and inevitability of his downfall. Also when it comes to a tragic hero, Aristotle states that three main things happen to draw the audience to the character.
Oedipus Rex qualifies as a tragedy. It fits all the characteristics as defined by Aristotle. The tragic hero of a play is a man of some social standing and personal reputation, but sufficiently like ourselves in terms of his weaknesses that we feel fear and pity when a tragic flaw, rather than an associate, causes his downfall. Oedipus is the tragic hero in this play for many reasons. Even though he does not know it, he fulfills the oracle's prophecy by killing his father, Laius, and then sleeping with his mother, Jocasta. His father was just a tragic mistake. Oedipus thought that the person he killed was just a random person that was harassing him.
The concept of tragic hero is very important in the construction of tragedy. It is the main cause of pity and fear. The tragic hero is a character between the two extremes; he is neither virtuous nor evil. At the same time, this character is better than the ordinary men or audience, he has some good qualities. Moreover, as a tragic hero, he is moving from happiness to misery by his downfall at the end. In fact, this downfall is caused by an error or a flaw in his character not by a vice or depravity. Another feature in the tragic hero is that he has good reputation and he is a man of prosperity. It can be said that Oedipus is a tragic hero because he has all the previous mentioned characteristics and the whole play is a classical application of this concept.