Tragic Heroism

Traditionally the term “hero” simply referred to the play’s protagonist or central character, so Oedipus is a “tragic hero” simply because the play centers around him.  But that definition doesn’t do us much good, and we’re much more interested in what the audience, what we, can learn from the hero’s experience and in how this deepens our sense of “heroism” or heroic behavior.

Aristotle defined the tragic hero in terms that both we and Shakespeare adopted.  The tragic hero:

a) Is a character of noble stature and has greatness.  This is often translated into meaning he or she is a king or queen, and certainly classical and Shakespearean tragic heroes are “nobility”, but I think we’re better concentrating on the characters great intelligence or goodness, rather than simply his or her social status.

b) Experiences an ironic reversal through which he falls from this “great height”, from having it all to having nothing at all, which usually means being dead.

What Makes the Tragic Hero Heroic?

 As the Chorus tells us in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, "Justice turns the balance scales, sees that we suffer and we suffer and we learn.  And we will know the future when it comes."  And this suffering, I believe, is what leads our characters toward a kind of heroism; they glimpse (what Greeks believed to be) fundamental truths about the nature of existence and the human experience.  So while the epic hero's heroism is mainly rooted in heroic deeds, the tragic hero's is rooted in knowledge or wisdom gained through suffering, which in turn gives him the courage to meet his fate with dignity and, well, heroism. 

The tragic hero's experience:

a) Shows him that we all are tied to a fate larger than ourselves and our own choices, and try as we may, we cannot escape this fate.  For the ancients this fate is divinely ordered (see below), but for the Classical Greeks it may also be Hamartia.

b) Gives him a glimpse of the divine order of the universe.  This order is often ironic and defies logic but is deeply tied to cause and effect, but these causes are beyond our control and are often rooted in choices others have made.  You could say that tragedy is a glimpse of God, or the gods. (Note: in more contemporary, modern tragedies, the "divine order" is likely replaced with other elements of hamartia: how our fates are sealed by cultural and experiential forces.)

c) Thereby gives his suffering a kind of meaning or eternal significance – although the universe crushes the hero, he also sees that he therefore is deeply connected to it; he sees himself as connected to the will of the gods or as an integral element of what Plato will call “The One”, the Ideal.  This is of course an inherently religious lesson, but Greek tragedy is inherently religious.

d) By showing him these immense, divine truths, he gains the strength to rise up to meet, to accept, this fate.  Now connected to the cosmos, he can embrace his fate even as it destroys him.  From a Platonic perspective, you could say the entire tragedy prepares the hero to return to the One, the Ideal: to separate his soul from his body and to thereby let go of the fallen body.

Clytemnestra knows that murdering Agamemnon spells her own certain death, and yet she embraces that this is her given destiny.  Orestes sees that he is trapped in a double bind with no good choices, and yet he acts, anyway, instead of simply running away. Oedipus realizes who he truly is only by embracing that he is damned and, perhaps more significantly, he proves himself the ultimate just ruler by punishing himself for his own crimes; he was fated to be both a criminal and a great king, and he maintains his status as a truly great king by punishing his own criminal behavior…when, really, he could have simply run away, again.

Also see: Tragedy, Fate and Hamartia