Tragic heroes are a major part of the tragedy genre of drama. A tragic hero is a character in a play, usually the protagonist, who has a flaw or makes a mistake that leads to his demise in the end. Often, this mistake may include the hero making a decision to fix a situation that winds up working against him. The tragic hero in Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is Oedipus, the king of Thebes. The tragic hero in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is Hamlet, son of the former king of Denmark. Both of these tragic heroes possess similar characteristics as well as differences. Oedipus and Hamlet are both characters who are imperfect and possess a relatively high status, and both of their downfalls are somewhat their own fault. Oedipus is of a high status and possesses
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He is the son of the former king of Denmark and the nephew of the current king. Hamlet’s downfall is also partially caused by his lack of thinking ideas through before acting on them. After a ghost claiming to be Hamlet’s father tells Hamlet that his uncle, Claudius, murdered him, Hamlet vows to obey the ghost’s wishes and promises to get revenge. Hamlet devises a less than foolproof plan to confirm Claudius’s guilt. He decides to create a play re-enacting the former king’s murder as the ghost told him. Hamlet declares, “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (2.2.535-536). Hamlet does not consider the fact that this play is not the best way to gauge someone’s guilt or lack thereof. The high probability that Claudius would react poorly regardless of whether he committed the murder is not realized or even truly considered by Hamlet. Also caused by Hamlet’s lack of thinking is the accidental murder of Polonius. When talking to his mother, he hears someone behind a curtain and stabs through it without seeing who it is. Hamlet’s strong desire to seek vengeance against Claudius is the biggest contribution to his downfall. Not only does he want to kill Claudius, he wants to make sure Claudius is miserable even after death. When Hamlet finds Claudius alone, he refuses to kill him because Claudius is praying. Hamlet says to himself, “A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven”
He is the son of the former king of Denmark and the nephew of the current king. Hamlet’s downfall is also partially caused by his lack of thinking ideas through before acting on them. After a ghost claiming to be Hamlet’s father tells Hamlet that his uncle, Claudius, murdered him, Hamlet vows to obey the ghost’s wishes and promises to get revenge. Hamlet devises a less than foolproof plan to confirm Claudius’s guilt. He decides to create a play re-enacting the former king’s murder as the ghost told him. Hamlet declares, “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (2.2.535-536). Hamlet does not consider the fact that this play is not the best way to gauge someone’s guilt or lack thereof. The high probability that Claudius would react poorly regardless of whether he committed the murder is not realized or even truly considered by Hamlet. Also caused by Hamlet’s lack of thinking is the accidental murder of Polonius. When talking to his mother, he hears someone behind a curtain and stabs through it without seeing who it is. Hamlet’s strong desire to seek vengeance against Claudius is the biggest contribution to his downfall. Not only does he want to kill Claudius, he wants to make sure Claudius is miserable even after death. When Hamlet finds Claudius alone, he refuses to kill him because Claudius is praying. Hamlet says to himself, “A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven”