Is Hamlet a Tragic Hero?
In order to fully understand “Is Hamlet a Tragic Hero?” one must look at what is and what defines a Tragic Hero. A tragic Hero, as Aristotle put it, is character who makes a judgement error that inevitably leads to his own destruction. I believe that, in conjunction with Aristotle’s definition, Hamlet a tragic hero.
One major aspect of Aristotle's is the character having a or a lapse in judgement which results in a fatal error. He outlined that the character should have a flaw or error of judgement. This is perfect because Hamlet actually made a grave error in the beginning of the play. He failed to take into account the ghost’s credibility in Claudius actually committing his Father’s murder. What if the ghost was lying? This indecision led to Hamlet setting forth the plot of the play to avenge his father's ghost and resulting in his own death. This comes up again when he kills Polonius, mistaking him for Claudius. With this action, he inadvertently caused Ophelia’s death because she know other male figure to hang on to (this, of course, after Hamlet is sent to England). Hamlet, later on in the…show more content… Throughout the play, Hamlet often used complex wordplay to cleverly disguise his insults most notably whenever he addressed Polonius. Also it feeds into his indecisiveness, notably in his to be or not to be speech. This stems from his high intelligence, which comes as a disadvantage. He often dotes on his words and procrastinates on actually doing anything. An example is in his to be or not to be speech, where he illustrates his struggles between whether or not he should killing his uncle much like a struggle between good and evil. Through wordplay, he disguises the soliloquy since he knows he’s being watched and again dotes on whether not he should kill his uncle rather than acting upon