Hamlet and Oedipus

Paper Summary:

This paper compares at length the tragic qualities of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus. It defines the three characteristics of a tragic hero with their exceptional ethics and tragic flaw, and shows how Hamlet and Oedipus fit each definition. The paper analyzes the personalities of both characters and supports its analysis with quotes from the plays.

From the Paper:

"The first requirement of the tragic hero is that he is basically a good person. Hamlet meets this criteria by displaying many good traits including intelligence, sensitivity, and humility. However, the greatest evidence of Hamlet's goodness is his unwillingness to commit murder, even when asked to take revenge for his father's murder. This illustrates that Hamlet is not just a basically good man, but an exceptionally good man.

Aristotle describes the characteristics of the tragic hero in his classic work "Poetics." Aristotle's model of a tragic hero involves an individual who is basically good, but has one tragic flaw in their nature that results in their undoing. The tragic hero's journey from prosperity to misfortune is not caused either by circumstance or by them being evil, but rather by a mistake their one flaw causes them to make. In creating this definition of a tragic hero Aristotle was attempting to explain why audiences are so interested in watching the tragic hero. Aristotle attributed the interest in the tragic character to three things. Firstly, the audience likes the hero. Secondly, the audience fears what will happen to the hero. Finally, the audience pities the hero. Importantly, for this pity to occur the hero must still remain liked even when he is doing wrong. This is why it is important that the character is not evil. Rather than evil, he is fallible, though at the same time, his own nature causes his downfall in some way. Overall then, there are three characteristics of the tragic hero: the character must be basically good but have one tragic flaw; the character must bring about their own downfall; and the character must engage the audience, with the downfall causing the audience to pity the character and his demise. Two characters that fit this definition of the classic hero are Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Oedipus from Sophocles' "Oedipus the King."

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