Achilles: The Tragic Hero Essay

THESIS STATEMENT Euripides’ Achilles is seen as the first tragic hero because he has all the criteria of a tragic hero - high social position, undergoes reversal of fortune, and a tragic flaw - but he does not have a tragic downfall. PURPOSE STATEMENT Through critical essays, research, and reading The Iliad, it can be perceived that Achilles is the first tragic hero in dramatic history. INTRODUCTION Throughout The Iliad, it is debated whether Achilles is the tragic hero or Hector. Looking at the

the last year of the Trojan War, but also the tale of the hero Achilles. In the Iliad, Achilles is a very complex hero who, known for his rage, determines both his own destiny and the fate of a nation and its people. Achilles may be remembered for his anger, but that doesn’t define who he is as a character. Achilles has both good reasons and good intentions as to why he chooses to react in anger. The speaker only elaborates about how Achilles reacts in response to his rage to entertain listeners. Since

regarded to as a sympathetic character and that is exactly what Achilles is. Achilles is the immortal main character in The Iliad who fought with the Greeks in the Trojan war. Although Achilles is immortal, he does suffer from a tragic flaw, his pride. Achilles also struggles with being able to control his emotions. In book 22 of the Iliad, Achilles goal is to get revenge on Hector for killing his beloved comrade, Patroclus. At the time, Achilles had not been fighting with the Greek army because he felt

Achilles as Tragic Hero In his classic work "Poetics" Aristotle provided a model of the tragic hero. According to Aristotle, the tragic hero is more admirable than the average person. This results in the tragic hero being admired by the audience. For the audience to accept a tragic ending as just, it is crucial that the tragic hero be responsible for their undoing. At the same time though, they must remain admired and respected. This is achieved by the tragic hero having a fatal flaw

Achilles can be described as a Tragic Hero in many ways. He was brave and had great strength but, he was also prideful and lacked control with his emotions, and in all the label of a tragic hero fits him. A Tragic hero is “a literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy” (“Tragic Hero”). To many men Achilles was god-like, and immortal, the epitome of a hero to the Greeks, he was strong, brave in the face of

parts of the tragic anthology, Iliad, the author Homer allows the reader to distinguish the various types of heroes presented and the characters that each one of them shares. He succeeds in implementing stages of Aristotle’s poetic definitions of tragedy while shifting his characters to his own Epic Tragedy. The author also prepares the reader in comprehending the differences between his and Aristotle’s definition of the Tragic Hero. In this paper, principles in Aristotle and Homer’s Tragic Heroes will

War. It is important to note that the poem is a tragic story of wrath, war, bloodshed, and dishonor. The story follows demigod and warrior, Achilles, as he is stripped of his hard-earned honor with the usurp of his love, Brieseis, and how drastically it affects the war. Achilles’ extreme pride, or hubris, and obsession with having his honor restored causes the divine intervention of gods and destruction of both the Greeks and Trojans. With Achilles choosing not to fight, he is falling to that pride

decreed. Achilles and Hector were both controlled by the powerful force as well as the outcome of the war. Through out the poem the fate of these individuals are learned and made clearer. There was nothing either could have done to overcome or change their fate. Both men were fated to die in the poem. When it came to the fate of both men Achilles had the upper hand because his mother was Thetis who was a god and knew the will of Achilles fate before his birth. Therefore she informed Achilles of his

Song of Achilles and the Hero’s Journey The Hero’s Journey, or the monomyth, has existed as long as humans have told stories, the basic structure of every story created. Joseph Campbell puts this into words in his 1949 publication of The Hero With a Thousand Faces, providing a clear cycle and defining each step of it. Successful stories follow the Hero’s Journey, it makes storytelling easy, giving a barebones outline that can be used for any book written. Madeleine Miller’s The Song of Achilles is no

Aristotle and the Tragic Hero The traditional hero stresses courage and nobility as essential traits of heroism. He lived by a code of honor and valued certain things as more important than others, so that he is willing to take risks and endure hardships for their sake. He is often a leader and protector of a community. The fact that the hero not only performs great deeds but performs them out of worthy principles renders his deed even more admirable. On the other hand, the Greek tragic hero is best defined