Is Hamlet a Tragic Hero Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Is Hamlet a Tragic Hero - Essay Example According to Aristotle, there are six major elements required to make up a tragic hero – three character elements and three behavioral elements. To begin with, the hero must have a noble stature. He must also have excessive pride in some aspect of his being. Finally, he has to have a tragic flaw, usually something related to his source of pride. These three character traits combined lead the character to his or her downfall through a three-step process that comprises the behavioral aspect of Aristotle’s definition. This process begins with a mistake in judgment or action that will eventually cause the hero’s ruin. The second event is when the hero realizes where he made his mistake. The final event is the reversal of fortunes the hero experiences as a result of his mistake (â€Å"Aristotle†, 1998). With this definition in hand, it is easy to see how Shakespeare’s character Hamlet fits within this definition. Hamlet meets all three of the character requirements to be defined as a tragic hero. He is noble first because he is truly of noble blood being the only son of the reigning king and queen and second because he is dedicated to doing the right thing. Although everyone else has come out of mourning less than two months after King Hamlet’s death in honor of the new royal couple, Hamlet is accused of wearing black to seem more upset than the others, showing that he is still mourning the death of the old king which was only proper this early after he died. A lot of his inability to act throughout the play is based on this insistence that he act correctly rather than allowing himself to be fooled by the devil. Hamlet’s pride is in his intellectual abilities. However, his fatal flaw is in allowing himself to analyze a situation too much, which slows his actions considerably and provides his uncle with the knowledge that Hamlet suspects his actions. Hamlet also meets all of the behavioral requirements of Aristotle’s definition of