Is Agamemnon A Tragic Hero

Sophocles’ play Antigone continues the calamitous story of the Theban royal family, recounting the conflict between Creon’s authority as king and Antigone’s sense of justice. While many of the events of the play are certainly tragic, whether or not Antigone and its characters should be considered tragic is less definite. Aristotle’s theory of a tragic hero calls for a basically good character who experiences a fall due to some flaw or error, experiencing a transformative realization and catharsis as a result. When considered together, the traits of both Antigone and Creon come together to fulfill all of the requirements for the play to be a tragedy, but neither character can be considered an Aristotelian tragic hero standing alone.

First of all, King Agamemnon is arrogant because of his selfishness also the arrogance caused him become more greedy in a way. The narrator introduces a conflict involving Chryses and Agamemnon by linking it to a plague that Apollo sent after Agamemnon deprived the daughter of him. When Chryseis is captured in a Greek siege, the priest, Chryses comes to their camp bringing the glorious ransom to exchange for her release. However, Agamemnon sent him rudely off and laid on him a harsh command: “Let me not find you, old man, beside

Both Clytemnestra and Antigone are driven by their passionate transgressions and desires due to conflicts within their families, and they are incapable of bearing the consequences they bring upon their nations and societies. There are times when personal sacrifices are necessary to the greater social progress, and the death of Iphigenia is an example in which case her death contributes to the victory of the Greek army. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, decides to sacrifice the life of his own daughter in exchange of the wind that carries the Greek army to the land of Troy, which eventually leads to a glorious victory. However, Clytemnestra is overwhelmed by the death of her daughter, and she is not capable of perceiving the death of Iphigenia as a sacrifice to secure the Greeks’ victory with help from the Gods. Her husband Agamemnon, who lies to Iphigenia and sends her

Antigone, a Greek a tragedy, is the third of the Three Theban Plays by Sophocles. Throughout the play, readers are introduced to few, but intriguing characters, one being the protagonist of the play, Antigone. Antigone is the tragic hero of Antigone; she presents recognition of the gods, exemplifies good virtues, and possess a fatal flaw, or hamartia. A tragic hero is a great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat.

Everyone is going to die. This is no secret to the audience of the Greek play Agamemnon. Rather than surprising us with the murders that befall at the hands of vengeance, the Greek playwright uses this common story to display the underlying theme that one must first suffer before they can reach the truth. To understand the significance behind the story of Agamemnon, one must understand the passions and how they relate to the human person, Zeus’s law of suffering into truth, and Aeschylus’s motives for writing Agamemnon and how he reflects Catholic teaching.

The tragic hero according to Aristotle is a man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change of misfortune or leads to his or her own downfall or destruction through their journey as the characters analyze their “judgment error”. In the play Antigone, Antigone is a tragic heroine who stands up and fights for her moral duties to do what is morally right instead of being loyal to the state even if cost her her life.

What does it take to be a tragic hero? Dying is a tragedy, but dying as a hero isn’t so bad. Respect, staying true to her word, and bravery is what makes Antigone a tragic hero.

One day, in Mt. Olympus, Ares was walking through the hallway when he noticed that someone had just stolen his sword. Ares looked back. He saw that Jeff was holding his magical sword. “Give me my sword back” Ares demanded.

Antigone, The Tragic Hero. Antigone was the daughter of King Oedipus of Thebes and Jocasta. Oedipus married a beautiful woman and had kids with her but little does he know, she married her own mother, Jacosta. Antigone was the daughter and the sister of Oedipus. A Tragic Hero is Responsible for his/her own fate, endowed with tragic flaw, doomed to make a serious mistake in judgment, they are born from a wealthy family, and they would die with honor. Antigone is the tragic hero because she falls into every criteria in Aristotle's definition in a clear fashion. Antigone hits all the characteristics required.

Like the other two texts, the play of Agamemnon includes a character who was of higher standing and inherently good fortune but faces a plot reversal, which leads to suffering and death.

When Agamemnon is away at war, Clytemnestra takes over and is in charge. Everyone tends to show her respect and she gains great power. When Agamemnon kills their daughter, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra seeks revenge and kills both Agamemnon and his lover, Cassandra, with an axe. Agamemnon was seen as king, someone who was very strong and victorious. When Clytemnestra takes over and kills him, it leaves everyone to wonder where such a powerful woman should be placed in society.

The chorus knows that Clytemnestra has been plotting her revenge against the king, noting that Agamemnon will have to “pay for the blood of those before, / and by his death to ordain vengeance for the dead in other deaths” (lines 1338-1339). When Clytemnestra and Aegisthus kill Agamemnon and Cassandra, the chorus comes to realize that the homicides are a fundamental violation of their most idealized notions of justice. Clytemnestra interprets her killing of Agamemnon as a just form of vengeance against her husband for his sacrifice of Iphigenia, lamenting that “he sacrificed his own daughter, the darling of my womb, as a spell against Thracian winds” (1417-1418). On the other hand, the elders refuse to accept the act as the proper meting out of justice, and they respond by telling Clytemnestra that she will have to atone for her sins: “Payment in return you still have to make, and you shall be / deprived of your friends; / a blow is to pay for a blow” (lines 1428-1430). Here it seems that they still cling to their preconceived understanding of justice by vendetta, yet they are troubled by the consequences of these revenge killings.

Throughout history people have fought for what they believed in, so much that they grow to be legends. These historical figures are not unlike figures found in mythology with such tales as Sophocles’ Antigone.They do what they believe is beneficial or right despite the adversity they will meet. Sometimes their fight results in their death. This is true not only of Antigone, but also of Abraham Lincoln. While Abraham Lincoln may not be considered a tragic hero he is similar to Antigone because both were fulfilling a divine order.

In the opening stages of the Agamemnon the chorus describes Agamemnon as a great and courageous warrior, one who