Aristotle’s Concept of Ideal Tragic Hero

Q.   Describe Aristotle’s Concept of the Ideal Tragic Hero.

No passage in the Poetics, with the exception of the Catharsis phrase, has attracted so great deal of critical attention as his concept of an ideal tragic hero. The function of a tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear in the spectators, and Aristotle deduces the qualities of his hero from this essential function. An ideal tragic hero should be good, but not too good or perfect, for the fall of a perfectly good man from prosperity to adversity, would be odious and repellent for the spectators. His fall will also not arouse the proper sentiment of pity, for he is not like us and his undeserved fall would only shock and disgust. Moreover, his martyrdom is a spiritual victory and the sense of moral triumph drowns the feeling of pity. The perfectly good man or the saint is self-effacing and unselfish, so he tends to be passive and inactive. Drama, on the other hand, requires for its effectiveness a militant and combative hero. However, in quite recent times, both Bernard Shaw and T.S. Eliot have achieved outstanding success with saints as their tragic heroes. Similarly, the spectacle of an utterly wicked person passing from prosperity to adversity may satisfy our moral sense, but lacks in arousing the proper tragic sentiments of pity and fear. Because such a person is not like us, and his fall seems to be well-deserved and in accordance with the requirement of 'justice', so it excites neither pity nor fear. Thus according to Aristotle, perfectly good, as well as utterly wicked persons are not at all suitable to be heroes of tragedies. However, Elizabethan tragedy has demonstrated that even villains, like Macbeth, can serve as proper tragic heroes and their fall can arouse the specific tragic emotion of pity. It needs, however, the genius of Shakespeare to evolve tragic villains of this type. His wickedness is on a grand level; it is intellectual and resolute, it arises the criminal above the commonplace and gives to him a sort of dignity. The fall of such a power evokes a certain tragic feelings in us, or at least a tragic sympathy. It is not the pity one feels for the unmerited sufferer. But it is a sense of loss and regret over the waste or misuse of such splendid gifts.

"Provided a person has some redeeming quality - courage, intellect, beauty, wit, passionate devotion".

 Here again, one might perhaps, offers a defence of Aristotle, as he has said that completely a depraved person is not fit to be a tragic hero. One could easily agree that Macbeth was not completely depraved, for he possessed inordinate courage.

In this connection, it would be pertinent to remember that Aristotle's conclusions are based on the Greek drama with which he was familiar, and secondly, that he lays down the qualifications of an ideal tragic hero, and here he discusses what is the best, not what is good. On the whole, his views are justified, for it requires the genius of a Shakespeare to arouse sympathy for an utter villain or a saint.

Having rejected perfection as well as utter depravity and villainy, Aristotle points out that the ideal tragic hero,

"must be an intermediate kind of person, a man not pre-eminently just and virtuous, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment."

In short, the ideal tragic hero is a man who stands midway between the two extremes. He is not eminently good or just, though he inclines to the side of goodness. He is like us, he has so much of common humanity to arouse our interest and sympathy, but he is an idealised one. Aristotle says that the tragic hero is not depraved or vicious, he is also not perfect at the same time, his misfortune is brought upon him by some fault of his own. In this connection the Greek word used here is "hamartia". The root meaning of Hamartia is "missing the mark". So the tragic hero falls not because of some vice or depravity, but because of "miscalculation" on his part. Hamartia is not a moral failing, but unfortunately it has been translated rather loosely as, "tragic flaw", by Bradley. Aristotle himself distinguishes hamartia from moral failing, and makes it quite clear that he means by it some error of judgment. Butcher, Bywater, and Rostangi, all these critics agree that 'Hamartia' is not a moral failing; but an error of judgment which a man commits unconsciously or innocently. However, Humphrey House tells that Aristotle neither does assert nor deny anything about the connection of hamartia with moral failings in the hero. He says: "It may be accompanied by moral imperfection, but it is not in itself a moral imperfection."

Thus Hamartia is an error of judgement or miscalculation, it may arise from any of the three ways: First, it may arise from "ignorance of some material fact or circumstance", or secondly, it may be an error arising from hasty or careless view of a given situation, or thirdly, it may be an error voluntary but not deliberate, as in the case of acts committed in anger or passion. In "King Lear", Lear commits such an error when he banishes Cordelia. And in the case of Oedipus all three errors are included. The defect of Oedipus lies in his proud self-assertion. All serious modern Aristotelian critics agree that Hamartia is not moral imperfection, though it may be allied with moral faults, yet it is an error of judgment, whether arising from ignorance or from some passion. It may even be a character trait, and he may commit not only one error, but also a series of errors. This conclusion is borne out by the play Oedipus Tyrannus to which Aristotle refers again and again, and which may be taken to be his ideal. In this play, the life of the hero is a chain of errors, the most fatal of all being his marriage with his mother. The tragic irony lies in the fact that hero may err innocently, unknowingly, without any evil intention at all, yet his doom is no less than those who sin consciously. According to Butcher,

"Othello in the modern drama, Oedipus in the ancient, are the two most conspicuous examples of ruin wrought by characters, noble indeed, but not without defects, acting in the dark and, as it seemed, for the best."

Aristotle lays down another qualification for the tragic hero. He says an ideal tragic hero must be “enjoyment great reputation and prosperity.” In other words, he must be a person who occupies a position of lofty eminence in society. He must be a highly placed and well-reputed individual. This is so because Greek tragedy, alone with which Aristotle was familiar, was written about a few distinguished royal families.

But Modern drama has demonstrated that even a common individual can serve as a tragic hero. They think that the rank and nobility of birth are now irrelevant. But the common man, who is selected as the tragic hero, should have uncommon qualities himself. He should have some sort of dignity so that his fall may arouse the sense of pity in the spectators.

However, Aristotle's dictum is quite justified on the principle that, "higher the state, the greater the fall that follows," or “heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes, while the death of a beggar passes unnoticed.” But it should be remembered that Aristotle nowhere says that the hero should be a king or at least royal descended, they were the Renaissance critics who distorted Aristotle and made the qualification more rigid and narrow.

On the whole, we can conclude that Aristotle's concept of the tragic hero is not unacceptable. Though, in some ways he had a limited vision. Tragedy is even possible with saints, as Shaw and Eliot have shown. It is also very much possible with a villainous character, remarkably shown by the Renaissance dramatists, especially Shakespeare. However, the chief limitation of Aristotle's concept is that it is based on only one section of world drama, i.e. Greek drama.

Points to Remember:

1. Introduction.

2.      Definition of ideal tragic hero.

3.      Concept of hamartia.

4.      Modern drama.

5.      Conclusion.

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