Hamlet As An Aristotelian Tragedy Essay -- essays research papers

According to the Aristotelian view of catastrophe, a tragic hero must fall through his or her thread error. This is typically called the "tragic flaw", and can be applied to every characteristic that causes the downfall the hero. Shakespeares small town, Prince of Denmark can be seen as an Aristotelian tragedy and Hamlet as its tragic hero. Hamlets flaw, which in accordance with Aristotles principles of tragedy causes his demise, is his inability to act. This defect of Hamlets character is displayed throughout the play.In the opening scenes of the play, the Ghost of emeritus Hamlet reveals the truth about his death to his son, and tells Hamlet to avenge the murder. Hamlets start response is one that sounds of speedy action, saying "Haste me to knowt that I with winds as swift May sweep to my revenge." (p. 34 lines 29-31) Unfortunately, Hamlets inability to act on his fathers extortion has him reluctant to kill King Claudius by the end of that very scene, when he says, "This time is out of joint, O cursed spite, that I was ever natural to set it right." (p. 41 lines 190-191)As the play goes on, Hamlet still has but to act on his murderous task. In act II, scene 2, Hamlet decides that, before he can avenge his fathers death, he must make sure that the Ghost was telling the truth. This simply gives Hamlet more salvage to procrastinate-he gets to put off killing Claudius until after the "play within a play", Mousetrap, is preformed. Not surprisin...