Throughout the course of literary history, there have been many types of heroes at the center of their respective tales and epics:  the archetypal hero, the tragic hero, the hero with many faces, the Shakespearean hero, the ironic hero (or "anti-hero"), to name a few.  More recently, characters such as the modern hero, and the "pop-culture hero" have also been developed in their own right.  In my opinion, although many "heroes" exist, the tragic hero is the most absorbing, captivating, and intriguing literary character in existence.  I have always been a tremendous Star Wars fan, and with the prequel movies being made (fairly recently), my adoration of the Star Wars realm has grown; although I still love these films for those aspects that lured me in as a youth, I am now old enough to appreciate the deeper, and tragic, story that is being told in these films.  With these prequels, the tale of Anakin Skywalker can now be seen and heard, giving audiences the chance to familiarize themselves with the man behind that infamous black, mechanized breathing suit, whom we see briefly during Return of the Jedi.  No longer is the life of Anakin Skywalker an enigma; audiences now will see how, from a chance meeting on Tatooine, to his restoration and redemption, Anakin follows his destined, tragic path.  Truly, the Star Wars saga is an epic of our times, much like The Iliad & The Odyssey were to the ancient Greeks, as it is the story of Anakin Skywalker: the archetypal tragic hero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Tragedy involves the "fall" of the tragic hero; one must have an admirable and dignified position from which to fall, or else there is no true tragedy (only pathos would exist).  Additionally, involving characters of stature ensures the tragedies will affect the lives of others, and not the fallen one alone.  For example, a fallen king, and his subsequent tragedies, will affect more than himself and his royal family; they will affect his entire kingdom.

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    The tragic hero must fall, in part, due to a flaw or short-coming in his own character and personality.  Most commonly, this tragic flaw is hubris (excessive pride), which often appears when the tragic hero tries to attain too much.

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    While the role of Fate and Destiny often come into play, there must be an element of free choice existing in the downfall of the tragic hero.  The tragic hero falls, in part, because he chooses one course of action over another.  Without an element of free choice, the tale cannot truly be a tragedy.

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    The collective audience cannot be left feeling that the tragic hero has received what he has deserved.  An element of the tragedy is to witness the injustice of what has occurred to the tragic hero.

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    Before his death, it is imperative that the tragic hero comes to some degree of understanding and realization of the choices made in his life, and the resulting outcome based on those decisions, as well as what went wrong, or what was really occurring. 

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    After witnessing the plight of the tragic hero, the collective audience will experience a feeling of catharsis, or emotional purgation; they will feel emotionally drained, but exultant.

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   No literary work that ends with the tragic hero alive is, in the full Shakespearean sense, a tragedy.  The tale must depict the troubled part of the tragic hero's life, which precedes and leads up to his death.  Essentially, it is a tale of suffering and calamity, ultimately conducting the hero to death; these are the fundamental characteristics of "tragedy."  In Shakespearean works, the tragic hero is always a man of rank, and the calamities that befall them will be atypical and exceptionally disastrous in themselves.  The tragic hero falls, unexpectedly, from a high position (a place of glory, honor, or joy), and as a consequence, the collective audience is left in awe; awe at the depths in which the tragic hero is suddenly plunged.  Therefore, the ensuing catastrophe will be of monumental proportions.  For example, a tale of a simple man slowly worn to death by poverty, disease, minor concerns, sordid vices, and petty persecutions, however piteous, would not be tragic, according to the Shakespearean sense of the word.  The pangs of despised love and the anguish of remorse, it is often said, are the same in a peasant and a prince.  But not to insist that they cannot be so when the prince is truly a prince - when the tale of the prince, or general, or whomever the tragic hero may be, has a greatness and dignity of its own - is a mistake.  The prince's fate affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire.  When he falls suddenly from the height of greatness to the dust, the fall produces a sense of contrast, of the powerlessness of man, and often the omnipotence of Fate, Fortune, or Destiny, which no tale of private life could possibly rival.  Such exceptional suffering and calamity, then, affecting the hero, and generally reaching far beyond him, so as to make the whole scene one that is of woe, are essential elements in tragedy, as well as the primary source of tragic emotions, chiefly pathos.   

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   As an audience, we see a number of human beings placed in certain situations, and certain actions arise from their many relationships.  These actions cause other actions, and so on, until the resulting web of interconnected deeds leads to complications, and ultimately, an inevitable catastrophe.  The effect of this series of events on the imagination is to make the audience regard the sufferings which accompany it, as well as the catastrophe in which it ends, not only as something which happens to the characters involved, but equally as something which is caused by them.  This, at least, may be said of the principal characters, and among them, the tragic hero, who always contributes in some measure to the disaster in which he perishes.  Therefore, the center of the tragedy may be said, with equal truth, to lie in action issuing from persona, of flawed perceptions, and human frailty, for which the tragic hero is ultimately responsible.  In Shakespearean tragedy, the hero recognizes his own responsibility for the catastrophe which befalls him too late to prevent his death.

    Abnormal conditions of the mind are never introduced as the origin of any deeds of any dramatic moment; these conditions are not the cause of a tragic conflict, but are the result of a tragic conflict.  Chance, whether it appears as Fate, Fortune, Destiny, Accident, or one of its many other faces, is a prominent fact of life.  That men may initiate a chain of events, but can neither calculate nor control it, is a tragic fact.  Although Shakespearean tragedy uses Accident, it does so sparingly; the audience must take into account that any large use of Accident in the tragic sequence would certainly weaken, if not destroy, the sense of the casual connection between character, deed, and catastrophe.  Often times, these accidents are those of which actually are connected to flaws in character or behavior, and which, therefore, are not, in the full sense, accidents.  Hence, in Shakespearean tragedy, the tragic hero is responsible through his own behavior, or action, for the exceptional nature of the catastrophe itself.

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    As can be expected, the actions and deeds of the tragic hero are most often motivated by both external and internal struggles, which lead to complications from which further conflicts arise; it is a snowballing effect which drives the action towards tragic resolution.  A great majority of Dramatis Personae fall, without difficulty, into two antagonist groups, and the conflict between these groups ends with the defeat of the tragic hero.  While external conflict exists, the collective audience must also be aware of the internal conflicts that the tragic hero attempts to deal with while these external, hostile forces surround him, and eventually overwhelm him.  Whatever forces act in the human spirit, whether it be good or evil, personal passion or impersonal principle; doubts, desires, scruples, ideas - anything that can animate, possess, and drive a man's soul - these are the "spiritual forces" which generate the internal turmoil of the tragic hero.  In Shakespearean tragedy, a combination of external and internal struggles or conflicts, not simply one or the other, induces and provokes the tragic hero.

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    Being of high estate is not everything; the nature of the tragic hero is also exceptional, and generally raises him, in some respect, much above the average level of humanity.  The Shakespearean tragic hero is made of the substance we find in ourselves, and within the persons who surround him, but with an intensification of the life which they share with others.  They are raised above them; and the greatest are raised so far that, if we fully realize all that is implied in their words and actions, we become conscious that in real life we have scarcely known anyone resembling them.  They possess a fatal gift that carries with it a touch of greatness, such as a fierce determination, or fixed ideals; and when nobility of mind, or genius, or immense force are joined to it, we realize the full power and reach of the soul, as well as the conflict in which it engages acquires that magnitude which stirs not only sympathy and pity, but admiration, terror, and awe.

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    Most often, the tragic flaw takes the form of obsession; in the circumstances where the audience sees the tragic hero placed, this tragic trait, which is also his greatness, is fatal to him.  To meet these circumstances, something is required which a smaller man might have given, but which the tragic hero cannot.  He errs, by either action or omission, and his error, joining with other causes, brings on his ruin.  This fatal imperfection, or error, is of differing kinds and degrees - it can appear as mere excess and precipitancy, or can be as powerful as murderous ambition.  In most cases, this tragic error involves no conscious breach of right; in fact, it is sometimes accompanied by a full conviction of right.  Very rarely  will the tragic hero perform acts or deeds which they themselves know to be villainous, and yet, these particular "villains" are given a power and audacity, which excite astonishment, courage which extorts admiration, and a conscience so terrifying in its warnings and so maddening in its reproaches, that the spectacle of inward torment compels a horrified sympathy and awe from the collective audience.  As these feelings of sympathy and awe affect the audience, they, at the least, balance their desire for the defeat or destruction of tragic hero.

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    Although the Shakespearean tragic hero is generally "good," it is not required.  However, it is necessary that the tragic hero should have so much of greatness, that in his error and fall, the audience may be vividly conscious of the possibilities of human nature.  Hence, in the first place, a Shakespearean tragedy is never depressing; no one ever closes the book with the feeling that man is a poor, mean creature.  Man may be wretched, and he may be awful, but he is not small; his lot may be heart-rending and mysterious, but it is not contemptible.  

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    What a great man the tragic hero could have been, indeed, should have been!  With Shakespeare, at any rate, the pity and fear which are stirred by the tragic story seem to unite with, and even merge with, a profound sense of sadness and mystery, which is due to this impression of waste.  Man is such a piece of work; so much more beautiful and so much more terrible than we know.  And from this, comes the mystery - the existential question - Why should man be so, if this beauty and greatness only tortures itself and throws itself away?

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    We seem to have before us a type of mystery of the whole world, the tragic fact that extends far beyond the limits of literary tragedy.  Everywhere, from the crushed rocks beneath our feet to the soul of man, we see power, intelligence, glory, and life which astound us and seem to call for admiration.  And everywhere, we see men perishing, devouring one another, and destroying themselves, often with dreadful pain, as though they came into being for no other end.  Tragedy is the typical form of this mystery because the greatness of soul which it shows oppressed, conflicting, and destroyed, is of the highest existence in our minds.  It forces the mystery upon us, and it makes us realize vividly the worth of that which is wasted, and that such waste of potential greatness, nobility of soul, of humanity, is truly the tragedy of human existence.  

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    As mentioned previously, first and foremost in the Shakespearean tragedy will be existence of a man of high estate: a king, a general, a prince, etc...  Normally, the audience will hear about him from other characters before he makes an entrance in the play, thus giving the first impression of the greatness of the tragic hero seen through the eyes of others.  Within the first or second act, we will become aware of a driving force within the tragic hero that is almost, if not entirely, obsessive in nature.  We will also witness the nature of the inner torment he suffers as he pursues his obsession.  As both the inner and outer conflicts the hero faces as he pursues his course intensify, we see time becoming more and more important.  A sense of urgency develops not only within the plot, but also within these conflicts - conflicts that not only create tension, but create the effect of snowballing inevitability regarding the tragic hero's fall that he has put into motion himself.   

       The pace, as well as the sense of urgency, generally increase by the third act.  Contributing to, and furthering the obsession, and the control of the tragic flaw over the tragic hero, are misreadings, supernatural suggestion, and Accident / Chance.  Things happen a split second too late: the tragic hero operates on what he believes to be the case rather than what he actually knows to be the case.  Soon, they are one and the same to him.  As the tragic flaw, as well as these misreadings continue, new conflicts and complications arise which bring about the gradual alienation, or death of all forms of support for the tragic hero, so that by the end, he must face the opposing forces, and the responsibility for his actions, alone.  What the audience sees during this process of alienation and isolation is suffering, sleeplessness, rage, confusion, hallucination, and, finally, violence, as the internal conflicts intensify to an almost unbearable pitch.  At some point in the play, the opposing forces will begin to mobilize against the tragic hero, in order to bring the tragedy to its conclusion.

    Oftentimes, in the fifth act, the tragic hero is confronted by an enemy who has good reason to seek his death.  At about his same point in the play, the tragic hero will finally come to realize his error, often a misreading of people and events, which is bringing about his ruin.  Knowing and accepting that he alone has erred, and that he alone is to blame, is absolutely necessary in Shakespearean tragedy.  This tragic recognition inevitably takes place when there is no chance, nor time, to correct the error - it is too late.  Once tragic recognition occurs, death promptly follows.  Usually, at this time, the tragic hero will provide the audience with a particular moving display of courage or nobility.  With this display, we are left feeling satisfied with the death of the tragic hero, but it is accompanied by melancholy recognition of the tragic hero's long lost greatness: nobility, strength, and courage.  If only those qualities could have been redirected - if only the tragic hero hadn't made those mistakes.

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    This initial stage sets forth or expounds the situation or state of affairs, out of which the conflict arises.  Thus, exposition is the task of the first act, and oftentimes part of, or most of, the second act.  Here, the audience is made aware of the general setting, characters, character traits, problems within the play, and the conflicts, or potential conflicts.  Usually, by the time the second act is complete, the audience is aware of: the overriding problem of the play, the major conflict, characters involved in the conflict, and the protagonist, or tragic hero, himself, usually identified with his tragic flaw already in place.

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    The second part of the structure deals with a definite beginning, the growth and nature of the conflict, and forms the bulk of the play, comprising the second, third, and fourth acts, and oftentimes parts of the both the first and fifth act.  This division unveils the developing complications arising from the conflicts as the problems intensify.  Time, and a sense of urgency become increasingly important as the speed of the action increases.  A sense of inevitability begins to advance as the audience watches the tragic hero alienate his allies and closest supporters, until he is all alone, with his back against the wall, in the fifth act.

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    Usually, from the second act onwards, the audience sees the action rising, with the tragic hero powerful, advancing, and scattering the opposition, until late in the fourth act, when a reversal of fortune starts to occur.  Opposing forces begin to openly resist, and to make plans for the removal of the tragic hero; as the opposition's power advances, the tragic hero's power is, obviously, waning.

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    In the final acts, the opposition reaches its full strength, and defeats/destroys the isolated, weakened tragic hero.  This is where tragic recognition transpires, and the final scenes of the play are normally such that the audience becomes aware, again, of the greatness of the soul that has just been dispatched.  Although we can see the justice of it, the usual feeling of satisfaction at the death of a tyrant or killer is conspicuously lacking.

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A.C. Bradley. Shakespearean Tragedy.