Dimmesdale

During his lifetime, Willy’s pride caused him to have an overinflated ego, a bizarre idealistic view on life, and a false value system. These negative traits eventually lead to his downfall in which he sacrifices himself, proving to be a modern tragic hero. Willy Loman is a common man brought down to his demise because of the one tragic flaw of pride that he possesses.

Antigone - Creon Defines the Tragic Hero Antigone, written by Sophocles is a tale of a tragic hero who suffers with the recognition and realization of his tragic flaw. Although this short story is titled after Antigone, Creon is the main character and he provides the moral significance in the play. First, Creon withholds the respect of his citizens but it is clear to them he is not perfect through his pride (tragic flaw). Secondly, his radical reversal of fortune is made clear after he struggles with the recognition of his fatal flaw. Thirdly and lastly, his pity and fear flowers into an understanding of his prideful and destructive nature leading to his redemption.

Through their fatal mis-steps, their pride and ego, predominately affect their familial lives, which in turn causes them to realize the truth that they are tragic heroes. The noble characters, Oedipus and Willy rely on things of substantial value in their lives, but then unfortunately fail, further deepening their harmatia. In Arthur Millers’ essay “Tragedy and the Common Man,” he does not believe that just nobility and power over others is inadequate to just judge a select few: Insistence upon the rank of the tragic hero, or the so-called nobility of his character, is re... ... middle of paper ... ...before something happens?” (Miller 133). Biff is getting frustrated with Willy because he is trying to turn his son into somebody that he does not want to be. Willy’s tragedy is due to the fact that the truth for him is far fetched, since he is always seeing life in a flashback, which leads to his demise.

He nearly fails in his quest to be a holy man, as the horrific deed that he committed nearly kills him through self-hate and illness of spirit. Eventually, however, he succeeds in conquering his fears of humiliation and stands triumphant, publicly repenting for his misdeeds and dying clean of soul. It is not known until well into The Scarlet Letter that Arthur Dimmesdale is Hester Prynne’s lover, but by this point, his conscience has already begun inflicting a woeful penalty on his spirit: "His form grew emaciated; his voice...had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed...to put his hand over his heart with...paleness, indicative of pain" (106). Although his reputation is flawless and his parishioners believe that through death, he is to be called to a higher plane of existence, Dimmesdale says with what is believed to be humility that his looming death is "because of his own unworthiness to perform his mission here on earth" (106). In retrospect, this marks the beginning of a critical and fatal duality of Dimmesdale’s character: the public believes he is a saint, while Dimmesdale knows himself the vilest sinner.

Then, after the reader stays with Procter while he confessed all of his horrible sins for the whole town to hear, he had was a massive downfall as the result. Coincidentally enough, that downfall came from his trying to do something about his errors and sticking up for himself and his beliefs. He did something great, which anyone with a heart would pity him for. Being a real and relatable character is another one of Aristotle’s tragic hero requirements and John Procter was most definitely one of those types of characters. The faults and imperfections of John Procter were clear.

Tragic hero: a literary character, usually of a high stature, who makes an error in judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on tragedy and enlightenment. Creon could not fit the definition any better. Not only does he commit errors in judgment, but the blind prophet Teiresias predicts his fate. Creon’s unwillingness to change his way of thinking in a timely manner, combined with his god like complex, become his fatal flaws that eventually lead to his tragic downfall. Antigone is simply the catalyst that launches Creon down his catastrophic path.

Dimmesdale is a victim of the most basic human weaknesses of sin. His fall from grace creates an inner struggle of guilt, and pride that propels him on a self- destructive path that ends in his salvation on the public scaffold. Arthur Dimmesdale is the co-sinner with Hester in the creation of the child Pearl. Arthur worried about reputation could not admit that he should be standing beside her, because he was too cowardly to admit his part because of his guilt and that guilt literally ate him alive. “His fame, though still on th...

Despite the tragic ending of Dimmesdale’s life, Hawthorne demonstrates his perspectives on repentance, that doing so yields a free and strong-minded character. Because Dimmesdale neglected to make amends for his sins, he deteriorated on the inside and outside. In his attempts to atone, he still did not truly achieve penitence in the right way and continued to become unstable and weak. Before Dimmesdale’s last breath, he finally repented in front of his society, liberating himself from the evils of Chillingworth and his own self destruction. Upon that scaffold in his last moment, Dimmesdale did the most difficult task he had ever done, incriminate himself with Hester Prynne, the public symbol of ignominy in the Puritan community.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter share remarkable parallels not only in their examination of early Puritan America, but also in the dilemma of the two main male characters, John Proctor and Arthur Dimmesdale. Both these men had sinful relations with another member of the town, and must deal with the adversity that resulted from their sin. Although both John Proctor and Reverend Dimmesdale become hypocrites in their society, Proctor overcomes his sin and is able to redeem himself, while Dimmesdale’s pride and untimely death prevent him from fully experiencing redemption. Perhaps the greatest link connecting both Dimmesdale and Proctor is their sin, and the guilt and self-loathing that follow. For Proctor, his whole life as an upstanding man of Salem is destroyed by his one moment of sinfulness and he later laments to his wife, “I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint.

The quote shows how keenly he feels the weight of Basil’s murder, and how he is too wicked and too far gone to forgive himself for his sins. The realization of his sins could offer him redemption, and yet Dorian further condemns himself by deciding to forget, rather than repent. Paradoxically, Dorian is trapped by his previous values despite having pursued new ones. Had he discarded the moral ideals he once shared with Basil entirely, he would’ve continued his life content; yet as he has kept the scraps of his morals, he has become a guilt-ridden victim. His weak justifications for his actions at the end of the quote show the same kind of hypocritical and