Aristotle's
concept of Hamartia?
OR
What tragic flaw in Aristotle's views?
HAMARTIA: TRAGIC FLAW
(i)
Definition:
Aristotle
defines tragedy as an imitation of a human action, which is serious and not
comic in nature. The serious action concentrates on the sufferings, pains, and
pangs of the tragic hero who is, generally speaking, a good person but
possesses a minor tragic flaw. The word which Aristotle used in poetics for the tragic flaw is Hamartia.
(ii)
The Word “Hamartia":
The
word Hamartia is borrowed from the art of archery. It is used for a miss short.
Aristotle takes its metaphorical sense and applies it to the hero's error of
judgment. A tragic hero, according to Aristotle, is necessarily a man of noble
birth, towering personality, and extraordinary qualities but possesses one
minor moved weakness that causes his fall. The hero, when passing through an
extremely critical phase of his life, is caught up in such an irritating
situation that he has to take an important decision in his mind, collecting all
the good things that would happen, but what happens, later on, proves quite
opposite to his expectations. Owing to his error of judgment, the tragic hero
faces a reversal of fortune (and this reversal of fortune is the same thing
that Aristotle calls in his poetics by the frame of 'peripeteia').