Macbeth Tragic Hero
Macbeth Tragic HeroTo What Extent Does Macbeth Fulfil
The Demands of A Tragic Hero?
To be able to answer this question fully and profoundly we must first be able to accurately understand and be able to describe what is meant by a tragic hero. The classical idea of a tragic hero was first introduced by the ancient Greeks. The earliest known example of this was from Aristotle's 'Poeticus'. There are many essential points that are needed to be fulfilled to allow a character to be a true tragic hero. I will now try to explain the criteria needed.
The first and most important is that the character must be important enough for whatever happens to him to make a difference to the whole world. This means that you or I could not possibly be a tragic hero, as the consequences to the plot of our story would not influence the world in any way. However, in the story of Macbeth the tragic hero, i.e. Macbeth, is important enough to make a difference to the rest of the world.
The second point is that the character must be good-natured, very brave, has a good reputation and is well respected. As well as this however the tragic hero must have one tragic flaw with in him, in his personality or in his temperament. The tragic flaw cannot be from the outside it must be contained with in him. For if he did not have a tragic flaw he would merely be an ordinary, run of the mill hero. This tragic flaw could be almost anything for example it could be that the character was too greedy that then led him to want too much. Alternatively, it could be that the person was too gullible and so was easily drawn into traps.
The third essential point is that the tragic hero's position or rise to power in Macbeth's case must show a decline in any period. Lastly, the tragic hero must be able to redeem himself despite the flaw in himself and that in the end you must feel sympathy towards the character at the end of the play or story.
However, before examining whether Macbeth fills all the above criteria, let us take an example of one of the original tragic heroes. This is a story about a young boy named Oedipus. Many people wrote about Oedipus, one such writer is Iscalla. When Oedipus was born his mother and father gave him up to be adopted. Later when Oedipus was growing up, he asked his adopted parents who his mother and father really were. When the said that they were a King and Queen in a far off country Oedipus decided to look for them. He started by crossing the desert but when he met a man in the desert he got in a fight with him and...
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