A term you'll meet in tragedy and Aristotelian theory.
A tragic hero is the central figure of a tragedy: a person of significant stature, fundamentally admirable, whose downfall is brought about not by simple villainy but by a flaw, an error, or the collision of their own nature with fate. Their fall is meant to move us to pity and fear.
In the Poetics, Aristotle sketched the ideal tragic hero: a person better than average and of high standing, neither perfectly virtuous nor truly wicked, who falls through hamartia — a fatal error or flaw — rather than through vice. We must be able to identify with them; their ruin has to feel like something that could befall a good person, not a punishment a monster deserves.
The downfall usually turns on hamartia (a tragic error or weakness) and often on hubris (destructive overconfidence or pride that defies the gods or the limits of human power). Oedipus's relentless pursuit of truth, and Macbeth's ambition, are the flaws that drive each toward catastrophe.
The tragic hero typically experiences a peripeteia (a reversal of fortune) and an anagnorisis (a moment of recognition, when they finally see their error and its consequences). That terrible clarity, arriving too late, is the heart of the form's emotional power.
Watching a worthy person fall through a flaw we can recognise in ourselves arouses pity and fear — and, Aristotle argued, a catharsis, a purging release of those emotions. The tragic hero matters because their ruin makes us feel the precariousness and dignity of being human.
Lexio is a free Chrome extension and web app that reads a word's actual context and tells you what it means in this sentence, not from a generic dictionary.
Try Lexio — free →
Read deeper. Understand everything.
© 2026 Lexio · Privacy · Credits