The Truest Tragic Hero In Ethan Frome, Oedipus The King

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The Truest Tragic Hero Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Hamlet by Shakespeare, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, and Oedipus the King by Sophocles, are all literature defined tragedies. Death of a Salesman is a story of a tragic hero named Willy Loman who gets wrapped up in his delusional world and causes internal explosion leading to his downfall. Hamlet is the play of a man in the search of truth that ends with the demise of him and others. Oedipus the King is known for his intellect and wisdom, but in the end finds himself blind to the truth of his life. Ethan Frome is the story of a man trying to escape the isolation of the Starkfield winter he calls his life. Willy Loman, Ethan Frome, Hamlet, and Oedipus are all tragic heroes, however …show more content…

A classic tragic hero must have noble stature and greatness about them. They are often admired for their outstanding qualities. Also, a tragic hero possesses a fatal flaw, often called Hamartia. Excessive pride, or Hubris, is a traditional tragic weakness often seen in a lot of tragedies. Hubris and Hamartia lead to Pathos, or tragic acts destructed to life. Pathos happens to tragic heros without them even knowing that they are happening because their ignorance and pride make them blind to their flaws. The suffering and consequence of Pathos leads to Anagnorisis, or the recognition of facts, but this understanding comes too late to avoid Peripeteia, or reversal of fortune, which brings about Catharsis. Catharsis is the suffering, death, and the purging of emotion. Tragic heros like Willy Loman, Ethan Frome, Hamlet, and Oedipus are all seen to follow this structure of being a tragic …show more content…

One tragic flaw of Ethan is the town of Starkfield. "I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.” (Wharton 13) The small town of Starkfield doesn’t let Ethan grow and slowly makes him more isolated. However unlike Willy, Ethan had choices and free will. Ethan could have made the decision to move out of the town of Starkfield, unlike Ethan who lost his job and grows old. Also Ethan lives in moral isolation and loneliness because of his wife Zeena. Edith Wharton writes "Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless creature who had lied at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence, and evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding" (Wharton 103). This passage is taken from a time when Ethan is looking at his wife Zeena and the audience sees how much pain Zeena caused Ethan. However the reader has no sympathy for Ethan because he could have changed this by moving away with Mattie, or getting away from Starkfield and Zeena all together. It is easy to see the pain and loneliness that Ethan is in

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