Comparing Hamlet And Oedipus The King

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Hamlet and Oedipus There are five characteristics of a tragic hero! The first tragic hero characteristic is the hero has a flaw or an error of judgment. Then the hero bad judgment causes loss of fortune. After that, is the characteristic of the hero’s loss of fortune was because of their own actions. Next will be the hero’s excessive pride. Finally the fifth one is the fate of the hero. In this paper two characters, Hamlet and Oedipus both have all five of these characteristics. Although these two characters can relate to all five characteristics, the one that they can relate to the most will be the characteristic of having flaws and having errors of judgment. The character Oedipus shows he has this characteristic because of the choices he…show more content…
The characteristic they have that contrast is the one were the hero recognizes where they went wrong and realizes that the lost of what they may have or who they are is because of their own actions. The character that has this characteristic is Oedipus. Oedipus realizes his wrong judgment was the cause of all that was happening. Hamlet does not have this characteristic because his fate was to kill Claudius and avenge his father’s death. After Oedipus found out he was adopted and it was his fate to marry his mother and kill his father, his cut out his eyes for all the trouble he caused because of his fate and his own actions. “At the drama’s climax, convinced of his guilt Oedipus blinds himself” (Fosso 27) “But the hands which stabbed out my eyes was mine alone” (Johnston 1584-85). Even though Oedipus could relate to realizing his bad judgment and loss his fortunes because of them, Hamlets could not have done so because he did not do anything that could have lead up to his mistake. He only wanted to avenge his father’s death by killing Claudius as the ghost of his father asked him to do. “Hamlet is a revenge’s tragedy” (Sterling 4). Hamlet himself was never the cause or apart of the cause of his father’s
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