Tragic protagonists are characters in stories who have an unhappy ending, often due to a tragic flaw. They are the main characters in tragedies and are drawn into events they cannot control. Examples include Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Aristotle believed tragic protagonists must have nobility, hamartia, peripetia, and anagnorisis. Examples can be found in works by Shakespeare, Aeschylus, and Sophocles.
A tragic protagonist is a character destined for an unhappy ending. They are the main characters in drama, novel, film or music and are sometimes known as the tragic hero. The stories in which they appear are called tragedies and are, in the classical Greek sense of drama, the opposite of comedies because the tragic protagonist does not have a good ending. Examples include Hamlet, Orestes and Romeo and Juliet.
A protagonist is a character who forms the main part of a story. The main plot of the story revolves around this character and he or she has the greatest effect on the outcome of the story. The protagonists are drawn into events that they cannot control or contribute directly to their destiny. Protagonists are the main characters in any story, from a novel to a comic, from a Shakespearean play to an opera. The protagonist’s main adversary is the antagonist; the role of the latter is to create obstacles for the protagonist.
Greek thinkers like Aristotle believed there were only two kinds of history: comedy and tragedy. The comedy had a happy ending and the tragedy a sad one. Deciding whether a story is one or the other depends on the outcome of the protagonist and not all the others combined. This probably explains why the term tragedy was used, because it means “song of the goat” in ancient Greek, and the result for the goat was rarely good.
The end result for the tragic protagonist doesn’t have to be as creepy as that of the goat. However, it often is. Death is the ultimate tragedy along with the loss of status, wealth, freedom and dignity. A tragic protagonist may also be tragic for wasting her talents and resources or for leaving a sense of what might have been had he reached her potential. For Aristotle, the tragic protagonist and his tragedy must be presented as a drama or play and not as a narrative as found in a novel.
Aristotle listed four Greek characteristics for the tragic protagonist: nobility, hamartia, peripetia and anagnorisis. First, a character must have a certain amount of nobility and wisdom, though these don’t save him. The second is the hamartia, the tragic flaw or fault of character which leads to his downfall. Third is peripetia, the reversal of fortune brought about by hamartia. The fourth is the anagnorisis, the discovery or illumination regarding the fate of the person and the role of the protagonist’s defects.
Key examples of the tragic protagonist are found in classical and medieval dramatic works. These include the works of William Shakespeare such as ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Othello’. Examples are also found in Aeschylus’ “Oresteia” and in Sophocles’ “Antigone”.
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