ArIsToTlE's CoNcEpT Of TrAgIc HeRo:

ArIsToTlE's CoNcEpT Of TrAgIc HeRo:

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First Aristotle talks of the characters of tragedy in general and then comes to the hero.

1)He says that the characters or the people who appear in tragedy must be good. He means by character only the moral aspect of man .The character has to do with choice,decision, judgment and if the motivates of the character are good and he makes right decision and acts according to it, then he is a good character(man).Tragedy deals with people above average. Even women and slaves can be goos.But one is inferior and the other is only worthless, according to Aristotle.

2) The second thing he says is that the character must be appropriate. It is talked not so much about individuals but of universal. We have characters of different professions .if we talk of solider ,the idea of bravery comes into our mind .we associate bravery and courage to solider. This is implied in the world solider. If the solider is coward ,then it will be inappropriate. We have this in comic characters but not in tragedy. Similarly Aristotle says that a manly women is inappropriate because manliness is something which we cant associate with a women at the universal level at the level of the idea of women .so the characters must be appropriate.

3) The third thing he says is that the character should be consistent same throughout. We should read that character in the permanent disposition of mind. It is something which has been developed over the years. What ever the character be,it must remain the same from the beginning of the play to the end of the play. For example, if he is brave in the beginning, he should remain the same till the end. Aristotle says that some people are inconsistent by nature. If the character is inconsistent I.e.his behaviour is inconsistent, then it must be consistently inconsistent.

4) The fourth thing is that character must be realistic, must be life like.Their mental, moral, moral constitution must be like the moral and mental constitution of the living people. Human nature is common. One thing that the playwright should never do is that he should not distort human nature. Yet he says that characters must be idealized because tragedy deals with people who Aristotle superior and grandeur. Though the character are life-like, yet it should be better than real people.Aristotle gives the example of a portrait-painter. He has a women before him and is painting the portrait of that women. That women has some very attractive features but she has also some ugly features. The portrait-painters of Greece highlighted the attractive features and turned down the ugly ones. So in the portrait she looked more attractive than in real life .Her beautiful features were highlighted .so this is true of the characters of tragedy. They should be idealized and made more impressive and attractive than the people in real life.This is the way a tragedy writer should draw his characters.

                   HERO:

Then coming to the hero, he says that the hero of tragedy must not be absolutely love good or absolutely bad.Of course the tragic fall of a good man will not arouse pity and fear, rather we will be shocked. And because of the manner in which he faces the calamities and difficulties arouses not pity but admiration.So an absolutely good man should not be made hero.This is proved not only by Greek tragedies but all the subsequent tragedies with few exceptions. In Greece ,Antigone is an exception. She is an absolutely good women .in later tragedies in the 2th century, we have this exception in the Murder in the Cathedral in which the hero is an absolutely good man.But in all other tragedies whether Greek, French, Roman, Elizabethan or of any period ,the heroes are not to absolutely good.
Similarly thetragic hero must not be absolutely bad, because the downfall of an absolutely bad man will not arouse pity and fear but rather satisfaction. We would say justice has been done. It would make us happy, yet there is an exception to this rule also. Shakespeare's Richard 111, it is absolutely a bad man. It required his genious to do a bold thing like this. That is also just in one play. The reason is that this man is extraordinarily intelligent person. He impresses us and the artistic manner in which he carries out his plan is really admiring .When he falls, we feel pity fo him.
So this leaves the third possibility that the character must neither be absolutely good nor absolutely bad.He must to be on the whole good., a person that we respect him for his noble qualities ,for his courage and strength. But he must not be flawless.

2) Secondly the tragic hero must be greater than the average man.He must be a man in high position and a man of the upper class.He must be a man of pseen, and importance. He must be a king,prince, great general. Why ? There is a line in Julius Caesar:

When beggars die, there are no comets seen,
Then heavens themselves blaze for the death of princes.

The third interpretation is that Hamartia is error of judgment of"single act" .A single act done consciously but deliberately .something done in fit of anger or passion. This is also a 'moral act'.

The fourth interpretation is that Hamartia is not a single act ,it  is a tragic flaw in character, the permanent disposition of mind. It is a permanent flaw. It is this flaw that is responsible for tragedy .Then it is  a tragedy of character but not the tragedy of fate.
Examples , , Othelo is Shakespeare, Macbeth,  Oedipus Rex...........