1. Tragedies and Tragic Heroes from Aristotle

2. Tragedy v. Comedy  Comedy begins in chaos and ends in marriage.  Tragedy ends in death and the hero of the story brings it on himself.

3. Tragic vs Pathetic  Do not think of tragedy as something sad.  A family can get hit by a drunk driver and die instantly. It’s very sad, but it’s not tragic because they didn’t cause it themselves.  Aristotle would call that pathetic – sad and accidental.

4. Tragic Hero  Tragedies have tragic heroes.  The hero is a regular guy (meaning he’s mortal, needs to eat and sleep just like any real person),  But he’s socially or morally (maybe he’s a king, or a senator, or a prince).  But he’s somehow better socially or morally (maybe he’s a king, or a senator, or a prince).

5.  It is important that the hero not be too good.  The audience needs to identify with him.  We need to imagine that what happens to him could happen to us.

6.  The tragic hero falls from eminence (his high status) to misfortune (a bad state to be in).

7.  He falls because he has a tragic flaw that causes him to make a mistake (or several).  The most common flaw is hubris (too much pride).

8.  Once the tragic hero makes his mistake, he experiences a series of reversals of fortune (bad stuff starts happening).

9.  The tragic hero then realizes his mistake and accepts his fate with honor.  Then the hero experiences a final reversal (usually death), but he at least dies with honor knowing what he did wrong.  WE learn from his mistakes.

10.  When the audience watches a tragedy we feel pity (sorry for the hero) and fear (that something just as bad could happen to us).  We can only feel this if we could identify with the hero.

11.  The pity and fear are very strong, but we are purged of them by the time we leave the theater.  This experience is known as catharsis.  We are better people after watching a tragedy (according to Aristotle).