Tragic heroes are a favorite of everyone, from thousands of years ago to the modern day. Some examples are Oedipus and Othello, they are classic stories of the hero doomed from the beginning, sometimes its a single flaw their Hamartia or manipulation by an evil character. But they all have something in common, it ends in tragedy.
Tragic heroes are men or women that were doomed from the start, it might be caused by fate or maybe a flaw with the characters like a mental illness in romeo and Juliet. But over all, all tragic heroes have two things in common. They start out well and are taken down by a flaw. Then they admit their flaw, They admit it was their fault.
The Hamartia is the tragic flaw that causes the downfall of the hero; There are many forms of the Hamartia. Othello’s Hamartia was that he was very insecure about his skin color. From the first scene where Iago is yelling up to Desdemona’s father that he is a black sheep and an animal. Maybe if he was not insecure Iago could not manipulate him to think Desdemona would get tired of him and replace him with Casio who is white. Oedipus’s asked a oracle about his fate and she said that he would kill his father and bang his mom, He decided she was wrong and that since he is such a smart strong man he would not fall. In his anger he killed like 4/5 guys and in the end of the story he finds out one of those men was his father and he had multiple kids with his mom, then they admitted they were wrong and accepted their deaths
Anagnorisis is the moment where the hero makes an important discovery, it may change the entire flow of the story. And over all just change everything, this is arguably the most important part in the story. In Othello the Anagnorisis is after Othello murders his wife and learns that she was faithful; that Iago manipulated everyone and convinced him she was a whore, it changed the whole story and made it a tragedy. Oedipus’s Anagnorisis is when he finds out he banged his mom and killed his dad; that the oracle he tried so hard to resist was right it over all changed the story and opened our eyes
The nemesis is the primary enemy that you can not escape, it typically has to do with the hubris in Othello Iago plays the nemesis because he always is working against Othello. Oedipus’s is his fate/ the oracle because he was fighting his fate the entire time but he could not survive
Tragic heroes are defiantly one of the best story writing method, it has rules but also leaves room for imagination.
