Tragic Hero Characterization I
"Pity and Awe, reconciliation, exaltation and a sense of emotion purged and purified thereby"1. As this quote from Aristotle's Poetics states, a tragedy must arouse feelings of pity and fear, thus producing a catharsis of these emotions in the audience. In order to arouse the emotions of the audience or reader, writers must produce characters that are known as tragic heroes. A tragic hero is characterized as the hero of a tragedy who is usually well known or prosperous, involves a protagonist who is better than ordinary people, and are neither completely virtuous nor villainous. The most important characteristic of the tragic hero is that he or she must come to a downfall as a result from ...
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In the play Antigone, Creon exhibits his hubris by refusing to listen to others. After being confronted by both Tieresias the prophet, the Sentry, and his own son Haimon, Creon refuses to submit to god's law due to his hubris. God's law declares that all men deserve a proper burial and Creon passes a law stating it a crime to bury Antigone's brother, Polyneices, because he considers him a traitor. Creon's opposing character, Antigone, exhibits the same hubris. On the opposing side of the argument, Antigone feels that her brother deserves a proper burial. The character feels so strongly towards her argument that she is willing to go against the orders of King Creon, putting herself at risk because she refuses to submit to man's law. Tragic heroes also suffer from excessive pride or hubris in Aeschylus' Agamemnon. The play's tragic hero, Agamemnon exhibits his hubris in the play by choosing to sacrifice his daughter over dereliction or failure of duty. He made the tragic mistake of ...
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is a descendant of the cursed house of Atreus. King Atreus was the son of Pelops. His father, Tantalus of Lydia, who was the founder of the family on which the Oresteia encircles, served Pelops to the gods as a meal. His brother, Thyestes, cursed him for feasting him on his own children's flesh. Atreus had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, who inherited the curse. Antigone also inherited a family curse. Her father, Oedipus, passed a curse along to all of his children after unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother. Because of the curses passed along to both Antigone and Agamemnon, their fate is already predetermined. The characters can not change their tragic fate ...
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Tragic Hero Characterization I. (2004, August 13). Retrieved April 19, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tragic-Hero-Characterization-I/12594
"Tragic Hero Characterization I." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 13 Aug. 2004. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tragic-Hero-Characterization-I/12594>
"Tragic Hero Characterization I." Essayworld.com. August 13, 2004. Accessed April 19, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tragic-Hero-Characterization-I/12594.
"Tragic Hero Characterization I." Essayworld.com. August 13, 2004. Accessed April 19, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tragic-Hero-Characterization-I/12594.
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