Where is hamartia in aristotle poetics

Rather, it might be a fateful mistake as simple as leaving the window open, or even an apparently positive quality, such as loving too intensely. For instance, in the film Moulin Rouge! Artistic passion is usually a quality to admire, but here it steered her fate in a tragic direction.

Even though the word is over two thousand years old, debate about the true meaning of hamartia is alive and well. The main disagreement between scholars today is over whether the term refers to a tragic flaw or a tragic error. Some scholars maintain that equating hamartia with "tragic error" is most faithful to Aristotle's original definition, and to the etymological root of the word, which means "missing the mark.

This debate about the nature of hamartia is about as old as literature itself, so there's no easy answer to it. All you need to know is that there are these several slightly different definitions of hamartia, and some people adhere to one over the other. Hamartia is not just the major flaw of a protagonist. Rather, the term can only be used in the context of tragedies, or stories with tragic heroes in which the protagonist incites his or her own downfall. Some characters may be deeply flawed, but do not have hamartia if their flaws don't ultimately lead to their downfall.

In Bond films, for instance, secret agent James Bond runs around the world breaking rules, destroying things, killing people, and objectifying women. Oftentimes one of Bond's many flaws gets him into trouble, but he always wins in the end, so his flaws are not examples of hamartia. Examples of hamartia exist in all forms of narrative, from plays to novels to film.

Further, it is found in stories from the time of the ancient Greeks to the most modern narratives. Hamartia is used in tragic literature to propel the plot, deepen character, and make thought-provoking stories. In the classic novel Frankenstein , the protagonist Dr. Victor Frankenstein succeeds in engineering a new form of intelligent life, usurping the role of God and nature.

Frankenstein's own creation rebels against him, however, after Frankenstein fails in his role as creator by rejecting and abandoning the monster. Hamartia in Frankenstein can be interpreted in a few related ways:. In The Great Gatsby , the self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby's misguided priorities and dreams drive him toward a violent death. When Gatsby chooses to protect the love of his life, Daisy, after she kills a woman one night in a hit-and-run, it is his devotion to Daisy which leads directly to his own death at the hands of the woman's husband.

It can be argued that Gatsby's hamartia consists of several qualities, all of which play a role in guiding Gatsby to his tragic end. Here are some:. As in literature, hamartia frequently appears in film, working to complicate characters and drive plots. In the musical Moulin Rouge! The film tells the story of a cabaret performer, Satine, whose talent and ambition to succeed as an actress are so all-consuming that she neglects to seek treatment for the illness that eventually kills her: tuberculosis.

So the tragic flaw that blinds her and leads to her death is the very thing that made her a great performer: her intense drive , her desire for fame , and her passion for performance. In the Mexican-Spanish film Biutiful , the protagonist Uxbal is a layered hero, sympathetic despite some ugly behavior. Uxbal is a criminal; he arranges work in a sweatshop for a large group of undocumented Chinese immigrants. The workers sleep on the floor of a cold warehouse, so the good-hearted Uxbal decides to buy them gas heaters, opting for cheap ones since he has little money.

When the heaters malfunction and cause a gas leak, most of the workers die overnight. The fatalities are discovered by the police, leading to a raid on Uxbal's operation and the deportation of one of his vendors, Ekweme. Ekweme's deportation leaves his wife and child destitute, obligating Uxbal to provide for them. It could be argued that the tragic error was Uxbal's ignorance about the malfunctioning gas heaters, or that his frugality when buying the heaters is what leads to the lethal gas leak.

It might also be interpreted that it was Uxbal's concern for others , despite his moral failures, that brought about the tragic turn, in which case the "flaw" is in fact a positive quality. In any case, the repercussions are disproportionately larger than the flaw or error. In literature, drama, and film, hamartia is what creates tragic heroes. Further, it can lead to a critical discovery on the hero's part, and works to create complicated and relatable characters. Hamartia is the ingredient that makes tragic heroes tragic.

When defining tragedy in Poetics , Aristotle claimed that tragedy involves a reversal of fortune—specifically, misfortune brought about not by external causes, but by the protagonist's own flaw or error. The protagonists in such texts are tragic heroes , and hamartia is the flaw or error that sets into motion the actions or plot developments that ultimately lead to the hero's demise. This scenario is not tragic because of the absence of suffering, and it is odious besides.

Still, Aristotle acknowledges that it has been used to good effect, as with the case of Haemon and Creon in Antigone. The Greek word hamartia translates pretty directly as "error" or "shortcoming" without any necessary overtones of guilt or moral failure. Our modern conception of tragedy and the "tragic flaw" of the hero usually involves the concept of hubris, or overweening pride, that leads to disaster. Macbeth, for instance, has the arrogance to think he can overstep the laws of God and state and ultimately pays dearly for this arrogance.

Macbeth is a tragic hero with a clear tragic flaw: his downfall results from a moral failing and can be seen as divine retribution proportional to his guilt.

But Macbeth also contains heavy Christian overtones that would of course be found nowhere in Greek tragedy. An understanding of Aristotle's concept of hamartia —and indeed an understanding of Greek tragedy in general—relies on an understanding of the ethics and cosmology of the ancient Greeks.

The ethics the modern Western world has inherited from Christianity is an ethics of obligation. In this system, there are certain moral laws, and we are obligated to obey them. A failure to obey these laws represents an unwillingness on our part. If we go against the moral law, we are guilty of breaking that law. This conception of guilt draws on an ethical system wherein morality is something that can be disobeyed or resisted.

Greek ethics are based more on the notion of virtue than obligation. The Greek conception of reality is closely tied up to the concepts of goodness and harmony.

This idea is clearly expressed in Plato's theory of Forms: the real world is made up of perfect, unchanging Forms, and it is our duty to approximate this reality as best we can. Virtue, for the Greeks, is a matter of attaining our real nature and of finding our true form. Thus, moral failure is not a matter of guilty recalcitrance, but simply a matter of error, of shortcoming, or of being unable for whatever reason to attain our true nature.

Hamartia, then, represents the Greek, and not the Christian, conception of moral failure. Greek heroes are not bad people—Aristotle explicitly states that they cannot be bad people—but are simply good people who fall short in some important respect.

Tragedy is less a matter of showing how bad people are punished for their crimes, and is more a matter of showing how ignorance and error can have disastrous effects. The action is tragic precisely because we are all ignorant to some degree, all flawed, and we may all suffer deeply for these errors.

The tragic hero in Shakespearean tragedy is brought to ruin or even death by a tragic flaw. Many of the most interesting fictional characters in popular culture possess or are victims of hamartia. This allows the audience to witness the flaw or error in judgment that brings about tragedy for these protagonists. Hamartia also allows characters in popular culture to be fully developed, with complexities and intricacies that humanize them so that the audience can identify with and appreciate their struggles.

Here are some famous examples of hamartia in popular culture:. Hamartia, as a literary device, can be interpreted in two ways. It can be an internal weakness or trait in a character such as greed, passion, hubris, etc. Hamartia is derived from the word hamartanein which takes place when an archer misses a target.

However, this error often originates from a personal or tragic flaw within the character, allowing them to determine crucial judgments that result in mistaken actions and lead to eventual downfall. The flaw may be an internal character trait that is tragic and leads to wrongdoing. The error may be one of misjudgment or ignorance in terms of information or other story elements. Hamartia is an important literary device, dating back to Aristotle and Greek tragedy. With hamartia, protagonists become complex characters that possess flaws and frailties, make mistakes, and are influenced by outside circumstances.

Though these characters experience a reversal of fortune due to their hamartia, it also allows the reader a chance to reflect, understand, and possibly learn from their plight.