Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes
Parallelism and Structure in Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes The tragic heroes in William Shakespeare's tragic plays often show repeating traits and parallelisms. Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear all show very similar attributes which all suggest a basic mold used by Shakespeare for his characters. Beyond the hamartia of pride, which is shown in all of Shakespeare's tragic heroes, a number of other flaws and quirks are repeated as well as basic beliefs and morals. This often repeated mold of a tragic hero has lasted well beyond Shakespeare's tragedies and has evolved to become the standard form for the tragic heroes of today's tragedies, both in literature and film (Burton 251). One theme used often by Shakespeare was insanity, whether faked, natural, or incited by wild emotions. Insanity moves between a number of his tragedies and is used to help set and advance the mood and theme often. In Hamlet insanity plays a major part in both the character development and the story line when Hamlet takes upon an antic disposition, or a feigned insanity, as a disguise so that he can learn many secrets. This insanity evolves into a temporary insanity incited by extreme emotion when Hamlet kills Polonius and ignores this act and also i
This insanity leads King Lear to rediscover himself and through his insanity he actually gains wisdom and knowledge through a better understanding of the world. When he banishes Cordelia for not telling him she loves him in the first act his pride forces him to send off the only of his daughters who actually does love him. The courses that follow as result of this not only force Hamlet to kill his two child-hood friends and the father of his girlfriend, whom he also leads to death by driving her insane, Ophelia, but this pride also leads to Hamlet's own downfall and the potential downfall of the kingdom. Hamlet is essentially the best person of character of the tragic heroes but is lead to do some of the most heinous acts (Elliot, Ghandi). What is probably the strongest and most prominent similarity between Shakespeare's tragic heroes is the basic mold that they are all good people brought down by their weaknesses, or hamartia, and lead unfortunately to their own demise. Although by this point his extreme pride has already put him in an almost unfixable position and over-time leads indirectly to his own murder. This is characterized as the modern day definition of a tragic hero and was displayed very prominently by all of Shakespeare's tragic heroes. In the beginning of the tragedy Lady Macbeth is much stronger than her husband and is his driving force, but over time Lady Macbeth cannot live with what she has been a part of and breaks under this pressure, she then slowly goes insane. The one character believed by many to be the furthest from this mold, yet still fitting it, is Macbeth (Burton 356). In King Lear insanity becomes a more permanent state for King Lear after he is banished from his own kingdom by his daughters. The new King, Hamlet's uncle, then knows that Hamlet knows of the murder because Hamlet's pride refused to allow Hamlet to hide this fact from him until Hamlet could exact his revenge. Shakespeare used insanity often in his plays and showed it in his tragic heroes a way to advance and further their development and over-all character (252). Whether it be the more subtle ones such as the connection of insanity between them, their beliefs and actions towards and about women, or the basic definition of a tragic hero fitting all of them very closely all of Shakespeare's tragic heroes are very similar in character. Othello cannot live thinking that Desdemona would be cheating on him and his pride leads him into a fit of extreme jealousy.
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