Assignment no. 3
Paper No. 3
Sem.1
Prinjal shiyal
Question ; (1) what is Hamartia? What role does it, play in the characteristics of tragic hero?
Ans;
Hamartia means;
I. What is Hamartia?
Hamartia is the tragic flaw or error that reverses a protagonist’s fortune from good to bad. Hamartia, pronounced hah-mahr-tee–uh, is derived from the Greek phrase hamartanein meaning “to err” or “to miss the mark.” Hamartia includes character flaws such as excessive ambition, greed, or pride which result in tragic consequences.
II. Examples of Hamartia:
Hamartia is a main element of the classic tragic play. Usually, this tragic flaw causes a complicated story to arise and develop. For a basic understanding of hamartia, though, consider these short story examples:
Example 1
Gregory is extremely driven and will not give up for anything. While training for football season, he twists his ankle. His doctor advises him to take at least two weeks off from training, but he refuses to and continues to train despite the injury. At the first game, he falls again and breaks his ankle. He is unable to play for the entire season due to this injury.
In this example, Gregory’s hamartia, or tragic flaw, is his excessive drive. Because of his drive, he ignores an injury and that injury worsens so much so, that he destroys his career for that season.
Example 2
Madison is very full of herself, so much so she is constantly criticizing her friends. Slowly, her attitude becomes too much for her friends to deal with. Once the head of a full lunch table, Madison now eats lunch alone.
Madison’s hamartia is her ego. Because she is so full of herself, she pushes all of her friends away, until she is left with no one but herself for a friend.
Example 3
Evan is doing alright in his geography class, but he has begun to fall behind. His teacher and parents advise him to begin studying more seriously. Lazy and uninterested, he ignores their warnings. At the end of the year, Evan fails the class.
Evan’s hamartia is his laziness. It ultimately causes him to fail a class that he could have passed if he had only studied.
III. The Importance of Using Hamartia
Hamartia shapes the tragic plot. Without a fatal flaw, the protagonist would continue to live a flourishing life with little to no difficulty. It is the flaw that causes his or her good fortune to shift to bad fortune, usually at the most climactic point in the plot. Furthermore, hamartia emotionally-charges the tragic narrative, instilling pity and awe in the audience. The tragic hero is imperfect and therefore relatable to the audience, as we all have flaws. The dramatic and tragic effects of the flaw may serve as a moral lesson, showing the negative effects of hamartia that is unharnessed and yields terrible results.
IV. Examples of Hamartia in Literature
Hamartia is often associated with tragic plays.
Example 1
A classic example is from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.
Othello’s fatal flaw is his jealousy. Fueled by Iago’s lies, Othello flies into a jealous rage and murders his wife. Having discovered that she is in truth innocent, he kills himself as well.
Othello claims that he has not meant to cause so much pain, but that he has loved too much, meaning his love has caused his jealousy which has in turn driven him to extremes.
Example 2
For a second example, consider Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
Macbeth’s fatal flaw is his unchecked ambition. In his drive for power, he murders, saying:
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other.
The only thing that leads Macbeth to action is overwhelming ambition which pushes him forward faster and faster, ultimately leading to his tragic end.
V. Examples of Hamartia in Pop Culture
Example 1
One example of hamartia in both pop culture and history is the film Marie Antoinette in which the French queen is depicted as greedy, selfish, and self-indulgent.
Related Terms
Hubris
Hubris is defined as excessive arrogance and pride, and it is one of the most common types of hamartia. As a type of hamartia, hubris leads the protagonist to a tragic demise. Specifically, hubris often leads the protagonist to committing crimes and hurting others, due to the belief that the protagonist is above the law and more important than others.
For a classic example of hubris as hamartia, consider Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein in which Victor Frankenstein places his own ego, needs, and desires over those of his creation:
Victor Frankenstein is filled with excessive pride and drive. This arrogance leads him to create a monster. In his pride, he fails to respect the monster as a thinking, feeling creature or respect his wishes and desires, even though the monster attempts numerous times to speak to him in a civilized manner. Neglected and forsaken, the monster ruins Frankenstein’s life. It is Frankenstein’s hubris that drives him to his ultimate demise.Marie Antoinette parties excessively, eats and drinks excessively, and buys clothes, shoes, and jewelry excessively. Such spending leads to debt, an unhappy country, and her death.
In Poetics, Aristotle suggests that the hero of a tragedy must evoke a sense of pity or fear within the audience, stating that “the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity."[2] In essence, the focus of the hero should not be the loss of his prosperity. He establishes the concept that pity is an emotion that must be elicited when, through his actions, the character receives undeserved misfortune, while the emotion of fear must be felt by the audience when they contemplate that such misfortune could possibly befall themselves in similar situations. Aristotle explains such change of fortune "should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad.” Such misfortune is visited upon the tragic hero "not through vice or depravity but by some error of judgment." This error, or hamartia, refers to a flaw in the character of the hero, or a mistake made by the character.
Tragic hero;
An example of a mistake made by a tragic hero can be found in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. In the story, the character of Oedipus is given a prophecy that he will murder his own father and marry his own mother. Although he goes to great lengths to avoid fulfilling the prophecy, Oedipus learns that the life of a man he took, Laius, was actually that of his own father, and that the woman to which he is married, Jocasta, is actually his own mother.
Creon of Sophocles' Antigone is another notable example of a tragic hero. Polyneices and his brother, Eteocles, were kings, and the former wanted more power, so he left and assembled an army from a neighboring city. They attacked and the two brothers killed each other. Through Creon's law forbidding the burial of Polyneices, Creon dooms his own family. Other examples provided by Aristotle include Thyestes.
Therefore, the Aristotelian hero is characterized as virtuous but not "eminently good," which suggests a noble or important personage who is upstanding and morally inclined while nonetheless subject to human error. Aristotle's tragic heroes are flawed individuals who commit, without evil intent, great wrongs or injuries that ultimately lead to their misfortune, often followed by tragic realization of the true nature of events that led to this destiny.[3] This means the hero still must be – to some degree – morally grounded. The usual irony in Greek tragedy is that the hero is both extraordinarily capable and highly moral (in the Greek honor-culture sense of being duty-bound to moral expectations), and it is these exact, highly-admirable qualities that lead the hero into tragic circumstances. The tragic hero is snared by his or her own greatness: extraordinary competence, a righteous passion for duty, and (often) the arrogance associated with greatness (hubris).
These legendary heroes belong to a princely class existing in an early stage of the history of a people, and they transcend ordinary men in skill, strength, and courage. They are usually born to their role. Some, like the Greek Achilles and the Irish Cú Chulainn (Cuchulain), are of semidivine origin, unusual beauty, and extraordinary precocity. A few, like the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and the Russian Ilya of Murom, are dark horses, slow to develop.
War or dangerous adventure is the hero’s normal occupation. He is surrounded by noble peers, and is magnanimous to his followers and ruthless to his enemies. In addition to his prowess in battle, he is resourceful and skillful in many crafts; he can build a house, sail a boat, and, if shipwrecked, is an expert swimmer. He is sometimes, like Odysseus, cunning and wise in counsel, but a hero is not usually given to much subtlety. He is a man of action rather than thought and lives by a personal code of honour that admits of no qualification. His responses are usually instinctive, predictable, and inevitable. He accepts challenge and sometimes even courts disaster. Thus baldly stated, the hero’s ethos seems oversimple by the standards of a later age. He is childlike in his boasting and rivalry, in his love of presents and rewards, and in his concern for his reputation. He is sometimes foolhardy and wrong-headed, risking his life—and the lives of others—for trifles. Roland, for instance, dies because he is too proud to sound his horn for help when he is overwhelmed in battle. Yet the hero still exerts an attraction for sophisticated readers and remains a seminal influence in literature.
The appearance of heroes in literature marks a revolution in thought that occurred when poets and their audiences turned their attention away from immortal gods to mortal men, who suffer pain and death, but in defiance of this live gallantly and fully, and create, through their own efforts, a moment’s glory that survives in the memory of their descendants. They are the first human beings in literature, and the novelty of their experiences has a perennial freshness.
Suuming up; generally we can see that tragic hero in William Shakespeare's Othello. Hero, in literature, broadly, the main character in a literary work; the term is also used in a specialized sense for any figure celebrated in the ancient legends of a people or in such early heroic epics as Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Beowulf, or La Chanson de Roland.
Paper No. 3
Sem.1
Prinjal shiyal
Question ; (1) what is Hamartia? What role does it, play in the characteristics of tragic hero?
Ans;
Hamartia means;
I. What is Hamartia?
Hamartia is the tragic flaw or error that reverses a protagonist’s fortune from good to bad. Hamartia, pronounced hah-mahr-tee–uh, is derived from the Greek phrase hamartanein meaning “to err” or “to miss the mark.” Hamartia includes character flaws such as excessive ambition, greed, or pride which result in tragic consequences.
II. Examples of Hamartia:
Hamartia is a main element of the classic tragic play. Usually, this tragic flaw causes a complicated story to arise and develop. For a basic understanding of hamartia, though, consider these short story examples:
Example 1
Gregory is extremely driven and will not give up for anything. While training for football season, he twists his ankle. His doctor advises him to take at least two weeks off from training, but he refuses to and continues to train despite the injury. At the first game, he falls again and breaks his ankle. He is unable to play for the entire season due to this injury.
In this example, Gregory’s hamartia, or tragic flaw, is his excessive drive. Because of his drive, he ignores an injury and that injury worsens so much so, that he destroys his career for that season.
Example 2
Madison is very full of herself, so much so she is constantly criticizing her friends. Slowly, her attitude becomes too much for her friends to deal with. Once the head of a full lunch table, Madison now eats lunch alone.
Madison’s hamartia is her ego. Because she is so full of herself, she pushes all of her friends away, until she is left with no one but herself for a friend.
Example 3
Evan is doing alright in his geography class, but he has begun to fall behind. His teacher and parents advise him to begin studying more seriously. Lazy and uninterested, he ignores their warnings. At the end of the year, Evan fails the class.
Evan’s hamartia is his laziness. It ultimately causes him to fail a class that he could have passed if he had only studied.
III. The Importance of Using Hamartia
Hamartia shapes the tragic plot. Without a fatal flaw, the protagonist would continue to live a flourishing life with little to no difficulty. It is the flaw that causes his or her good fortune to shift to bad fortune, usually at the most climactic point in the plot. Furthermore, hamartia emotionally-charges the tragic narrative, instilling pity and awe in the audience. The tragic hero is imperfect and therefore relatable to the audience, as we all have flaws. The dramatic and tragic effects of the flaw may serve as a moral lesson, showing the negative effects of hamartia that is unharnessed and yields terrible results.
IV. Examples of Hamartia in Literature
Hamartia is often associated with tragic plays.
Example 1
A classic example is from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.
Othello’s fatal flaw is his jealousy. Fueled by Iago’s lies, Othello flies into a jealous rage and murders his wife. Having discovered that she is in truth innocent, he kills himself as well.
Othello claims that he has not meant to cause so much pain, but that he has loved too much, meaning his love has caused his jealousy which has in turn driven him to extremes.
Example 2
For a second example, consider Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
Macbeth’s fatal flaw is his unchecked ambition. In his drive for power, he murders, saying:
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other.
The only thing that leads Macbeth to action is overwhelming ambition which pushes him forward faster and faster, ultimately leading to his tragic end.
V. Examples of Hamartia in Pop Culture
Example 1
One example of hamartia in both pop culture and history is the film Marie Antoinette in which the French queen is depicted as greedy, selfish, and self-indulgent.
Related Terms
Hubris
Hubris is defined as excessive arrogance and pride, and it is one of the most common types of hamartia. As a type of hamartia, hubris leads the protagonist to a tragic demise. Specifically, hubris often leads the protagonist to committing crimes and hurting others, due to the belief that the protagonist is above the law and more important than others.
For a classic example of hubris as hamartia, consider Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein in which Victor Frankenstein places his own ego, needs, and desires over those of his creation:
Victor Frankenstein is filled with excessive pride and drive. This arrogance leads him to create a monster. In his pride, he fails to respect the monster as a thinking, feeling creature or respect his wishes and desires, even though the monster attempts numerous times to speak to him in a civilized manner. Neglected and forsaken, the monster ruins Frankenstein’s life. It is Frankenstein’s hubris that drives him to his ultimate demise.Marie Antoinette parties excessively, eats and drinks excessively, and buys clothes, shoes, and jewelry excessively. Such spending leads to debt, an unhappy country, and her death.
In Poetics, Aristotle suggests that the hero of a tragedy must evoke a sense of pity or fear within the audience, stating that “the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity."[2] In essence, the focus of the hero should not be the loss of his prosperity. He establishes the concept that pity is an emotion that must be elicited when, through his actions, the character receives undeserved misfortune, while the emotion of fear must be felt by the audience when they contemplate that such misfortune could possibly befall themselves in similar situations. Aristotle explains such change of fortune "should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad.” Such misfortune is visited upon the tragic hero "not through vice or depravity but by some error of judgment." This error, or hamartia, refers to a flaw in the character of the hero, or a mistake made by the character.
Tragic hero;
An example of a mistake made by a tragic hero can be found in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. In the story, the character of Oedipus is given a prophecy that he will murder his own father and marry his own mother. Although he goes to great lengths to avoid fulfilling the prophecy, Oedipus learns that the life of a man he took, Laius, was actually that of his own father, and that the woman to which he is married, Jocasta, is actually his own mother.
Creon of Sophocles' Antigone is another notable example of a tragic hero. Polyneices and his brother, Eteocles, were kings, and the former wanted more power, so he left and assembled an army from a neighboring city. They attacked and the two brothers killed each other. Through Creon's law forbidding the burial of Polyneices, Creon dooms his own family. Other examples provided by Aristotle include Thyestes.
Therefore, the Aristotelian hero is characterized as virtuous but not "eminently good," which suggests a noble or important personage who is upstanding and morally inclined while nonetheless subject to human error. Aristotle's tragic heroes are flawed individuals who commit, without evil intent, great wrongs or injuries that ultimately lead to their misfortune, often followed by tragic realization of the true nature of events that led to this destiny.[3] This means the hero still must be – to some degree – morally grounded. The usual irony in Greek tragedy is that the hero is both extraordinarily capable and highly moral (in the Greek honor-culture sense of being duty-bound to moral expectations), and it is these exact, highly-admirable qualities that lead the hero into tragic circumstances. The tragic hero is snared by his or her own greatness: extraordinary competence, a righteous passion for duty, and (often) the arrogance associated with greatness (hubris).
These legendary heroes belong to a princely class existing in an early stage of the history of a people, and they transcend ordinary men in skill, strength, and courage. They are usually born to their role. Some, like the Greek Achilles and the Irish Cú Chulainn (Cuchulain), are of semidivine origin, unusual beauty, and extraordinary precocity. A few, like the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and the Russian Ilya of Murom, are dark horses, slow to develop.
War or dangerous adventure is the hero’s normal occupation. He is surrounded by noble peers, and is magnanimous to his followers and ruthless to his enemies. In addition to his prowess in battle, he is resourceful and skillful in many crafts; he can build a house, sail a boat, and, if shipwrecked, is an expert swimmer. He is sometimes, like Odysseus, cunning and wise in counsel, but a hero is not usually given to much subtlety. He is a man of action rather than thought and lives by a personal code of honour that admits of no qualification. His responses are usually instinctive, predictable, and inevitable. He accepts challenge and sometimes even courts disaster. Thus baldly stated, the hero’s ethos seems oversimple by the standards of a later age. He is childlike in his boasting and rivalry, in his love of presents and rewards, and in his concern for his reputation. He is sometimes foolhardy and wrong-headed, risking his life—and the lives of others—for trifles. Roland, for instance, dies because he is too proud to sound his horn for help when he is overwhelmed in battle. Yet the hero still exerts an attraction for sophisticated readers and remains a seminal influence in literature.
The appearance of heroes in literature marks a revolution in thought that occurred when poets and their audiences turned their attention away from immortal gods to mortal men, who suffer pain and death, but in defiance of this live gallantly and fully, and create, through their own efforts, a moment’s glory that survives in the memory of their descendants. They are the first human beings in literature, and the novelty of their experiences has a perennial freshness.
Suuming up; generally we can see that tragic hero in William Shakespeare's Othello. Hero, in literature, broadly, the main character in a literary work; the term is also used in a specialized sense for any figure celebrated in the ancient legends of a people or in such early heroic epics as Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Beowulf, or La Chanson de Roland.
Really useful one, compact yet packed with important points.Thank You very much for the effort to make the hard one looks so simple. Further, you can access this site to read Othello’s Tragic Flaw
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