Oedipus Rex and Othello-The Power of the Lie Aristotle defines a tragic hero to be a man with outstanding greatness, but cursed with a tragic flaw. Tragic heroes have typically been linked to tragedies and two excellent examples of tragic heroes are: Oedipus Rex and Othello. In Othello by William Shakespeare, Othello is driven to his end by his irrational actions, and fate. Sophocles also presents his work Oedipus Rex to tell the pitiful story of Oedipus who was condemned by gods to a terrible fate. In both dramas, William Shakespeare and Sophocles presented tragic heroes that were led to their downfalls by the power of fate, and the consequences of their freewill actions.
Pride, greed, and lust drove Iago to poisoning Desdemona 's father and eventually ruining the marriage between Desdemona and Othello. In his play, he approach the problems the world faces in a comedic manner. People let greed and lust persuade them to do crazy things. Othello and Iago are foil characters in Othello. Iago let his vengeful ways and deceitful motives alter his decisions while Othello appears in the opening acts as the very personification of self control”(Harbage).
From violent duals to envious revenge Othello’s death embodies the many consequences of previous events in the play. At the beginning of the play, Othello becomes general and appoints Cassio as second in command, but Othello does not even mention Iago. Quickly, envy builds inside Iago causing him to despise Othello. Iago methodically plans his revenge for Othello and ultimately accomplishes overall destruction and vengeance. Eventually, Iago “thoroughly unsettles Othello by making him believe that Desdemona has betrayed” him (Keyishian 3).
It also serves as an example of an epic hero failing to return home, which is known as nostos, thus for Odysseus, the epic hero, it delivers a foil for the successful voyage back to his home, Ithaca. In contrast, in the Oresteia, the myth demonstrates an overwhelming theme of justice. Agamemnons’ death here shows the curse hunting his household from generation to generation, starting from Agamemnon’s father
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” Even Napoleon referred that leaders are meant to be reassuring. Are all benevolent leaders successful? Niccolo Machiavelli, an economist in the Renaissance, will absolutely say no. His method of keeping immense power by using fear to manipulate citizens has been manifested for a long period of time, since the book The Prince was published. Similarly, his methods are manifested in William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar with characters that are attractive and expressive, yet flawed.
Although the protagonist fulfilled his role and died, his subsidiary caused a dilemma whether he is or not the hero of the play. Thus made of Shakespeare’s Othello a controversial tragic play that led to a great critical divergence. Close reading of the play text uncover the complexity of Iago’s personality that made two of the most important critics of the twentieth century : A.C. Bradley and F.R. Leavis, come up with a debatable criticism on whether Othello is he himself the hero of the play or it is the role of Iago his ancillary. A.C. Bradley claimed that all the credits of the tragedy goes to Iago, while F.R.
Creon as a Tragic Hero A tragic hero is a character whose actions result in personal downfall. This demise could be seen in isolation, unhappiness, and many times death. In the Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, two main characters, Creon and Antigone, can be seen as tragic heroes. Each character’s demise is a consequence of Creon’s orders to prohibit the proper burial of Antigone’s brother, Polynices, as he was considered a traitor to the kingdom of Thebes. Creon in the Greek tragedy Antigone exemplifies that of a tragic hero in that his self dignity and fear of losing his citizen’s loyalty results in the loss of his family, leaving him alive but alone.
This person is predominantly good, but suffers a self-inflicted falling out due to flaws in their personality. The tragic hero has a tremendous downfall, brought about by their hamartia. The character reaches an anagnorisis, a critical discovery that completely alters the predicament they are in, often after they are already trapped in the situation. Finally, a Shakespearean tragic hero will lose their life in the end of the play so the message of what is good in the play can be reestablished. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title figure of the play can be seen as a tragic
W.H. Auden once said, “The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse.” This suffering is what makes a tragic hero, along with other criteria. As is common in all tragedies, Antigone by Sophocles contains a very obvious tragic hero. Of the many characters, two stand out with similar flaws, Antigone and Creon. They are both flawed in their excessive pride, or hubris.
The paranoia of the ideology that power completely corrupts has existed throughout centuries. This obsession can cause people to act in an irrational way or out of reasonings. So was the case with the senators in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare centered his play around the Roman leader, Julius Caesar. Out of fear of his future political activities and his overconfident personality, the senators of Rome, including Caesar's best friend Brutus, created a conspiracy to assassinate him to stop him from obtaining absolute power over the Roman Empire.