Shakespearean Tragedies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Shakespearean Tragedies - Essay Example However, in the plays of Shakespeare, the tragic hero is always a noble man who enjoys some status and prosperity in society but possesses some moral weakness or flaw which leads to his downfall. External circumstances such as fate also play a part in the heros fall. Evil agents often act upon the hero and the forces of good, causing the hero to make wrong decisions. Innocent people always feel the fall in tragedies, as well. Shakespeares tragedies are, for the most part, stories of one person, the "hero," or at most two, to include the "heroine." Only the Love Tragedies (Romeo and Juliet; Antony and Cleopatra) are exceptions to this pattern. In these plays, the heroine is as much at the center of action as the hero. The rest of the tragedies, including Macbeth, have single stars, so the tragic story is concerned primarily with one person. The tragic heros nature is exceptional, and generally raises him in some respect much above the average level of humanity. Shakespeares tragic heroes are made of the stuff we find in ourselves and within the persons who surround him. But, by an intensification of the life which they share with others, they are raised above them; and the greatest are raised so far that, if we fully realize all that is implied in their words and actions, we become conscious that in real life we have scarcely known anyone resembling them. They have a fatal gift that carries with it a touch of greatness (fierce determination, fixed ideas); and when nobility of mind, or genius, or immense force are joined to it, we realize the full power and reach of the soul, and the conflict in which it engages acquires that magnitude which stirs not only sympathy and pity, but admiration, terror, and awe. Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career: one of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, and he followed it a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. However, his most admired tragedies