seen from United States
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from Pakistan
seen from Bangladesh
seen from China
seen from Ukraine
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Philippines
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Philippines
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Spain
Favorite Tragic Flaw for a character
Hubris/Pride (a classic)
Ambition
Jealousy
Greed/Selfishness
Superstition/Distrust
Impulsiveness/Emotionality
Indecision
Loyalty
Naivety/Innocence
Selflessness
Stubbornness
Laziness
I listed all the major ones I know of. If it's not listed here feel free to put it in a reblog or comment
"Wicked" poll: Elphaba's tragic flaw
Her impulsiveness
Her naïve idealism
Her refusal to compromise
Her desire for attention and love
None – society is to blame for her downfall, not her
I've seen people express different opinions about Elphaba's "tragic flaw," so I'd like to ask the Tumblr fandom: what is it?
The Philosophy of Shakespeare
The philosophy of Shakespeare refers to the exploration of philosophical themes, questions, and ideas within the works of William Shakespeare. While Shakespeare was not a philosopher in the traditional sense, his plays and sonnets are rich with philosophical insights that address issues related to human nature, ethics, politics, love, fate, identity, and the human condition. Scholars and readers alike have long examined how Shakespeare’s writings engage with philosophical concepts and how these concepts are dramatized through his characters and narratives.
Key Themes in the Philosophy of Shakespeare:
Human Nature and the Human Condition:
Complexity of the Human Psyche: Shakespeare's characters are known for their psychological depth and complexity. His works explore the multifaceted nature of human beings, including the tensions between reason and emotion, ambition and morality, and appearance and reality.
The Tragic Flaw (Hamartia): Many of Shakespeare’s tragedies revolve around the concept of a tragic flaw, a characteristic that leads to the downfall of the protagonist. This theme raises philosophical questions about free will, fate, and the moral consequences of human actions.
Ethics and Morality:
Good and Evil: Shakespeare’s works frequently grapple with the nature of good and evil, exploring the moral ambiguities of his characters' actions. Plays like Macbeth and Othello delve into the corrupting influence of power, jealousy, and ambition.
Justice and Revenge: The tension between justice and revenge is a recurring theme, particularly in plays like Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. These works examine the ethics of retribution, the consequences of revenge, and the pursuit of justice.
Fate and Free Will:
Destiny and Choice: Shakespeare often explores the tension between fate and free will, questioning the extent to which characters are in control of their own destinies. Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are notable examples where the characters' actions seem predestined, yet their choices play a crucial role in their outcomes.
Prophecy and Foreknowledge: The use of prophecy, as seen in Macbeth and Julius Caesar, raises philosophical questions about whether knowledge of the future alters the course of events or if it leads inevitably to the fulfillment of that future.
Identity and Self-Knowledge:
The Fluidity of Identity: In plays like Twelfth Night and As You Like It, Shakespeare explores the fluidity of identity, particularly through themes of disguise and mistaken identity. These themes challenge the fixed nature of identity and raise questions about self-knowledge and authenticity.
Self-Deception: Characters in Shakespeare’s plays often engage in self-deception, either out of pride, fear, or desire. This theme is particularly prominent in King Lear and Hamlet, where characters’ inability to see themselves or their situations clearly leads to tragedy.
Politics and Power:
The Nature of Authority: Shakespeare’s historical plays and tragedies frequently address the nature of political power and authority. Richard III, Henry V, and Julius Caesar explore the ethics of leadership, the legitimacy of rulership, and the corrupting influence of power.
The Body Politic: The metaphor of the body politic, where the state is likened to a human body, is a recurring theme. In plays like Coriolanus and Measure for Measure, Shakespeare examines the health of the state and the moral responsibilities of rulers.
Love and Relationships:
Romantic Love: Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies offer deep reflections on the nature of love, its joys, and its perils. Plays like Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing explore the idealization of romantic love, the pain of unrequited love, and the complexities of human relationships.
Friendship and Loyalty: Beyond romantic love, Shakespeare also delves into themes of friendship and loyalty, as seen in The Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar. These relationships often raise questions about the conflicts between personal loyalty and public duty.
Appearance vs. Reality:
Illusion and Truth: Many of Shakespeare’s plays involve themes of appearance versus reality, where characters and situations are not what they seem. Hamlet and Othello are prime examples of how deception and the search for truth drive the plot and philosophical inquiry.
Theatricality of Life: Shakespeare often blurs the line between reality and performance, as seen in As You Like It's famous "All the world's a stage" monologue. This raises philosophical questions about the nature of reality, the roles people play in life, and the construction of identity.
Mortality and the Meaning of Life:
Death and the Afterlife: Shakespeare’s works are deeply concerned with mortality, the fear of death, and the unknown aspects of the afterlife. Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy is one of the most famous meditations on existence and the fear of what comes after death.
The Transience of Life: The fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of death are recurrent themes, particularly in Shakespeare’s sonnets and tragedies. These reflections often lead to a broader contemplation of the meaning and value of life.
Philosophical Skepticism:
Doubt and Certainty: Shakespeare’s characters often grapple with doubt and uncertainty, questioning their beliefs, their perceptions, and the world around them. This skepticism is evident in Hamlet's introspection and in King Lear's descent into madness.
Relativism and Perspective: Shakespeare frequently presents multiple perspectives within his plays, allowing for a relativistic view of truth and morality. This multiplicity of viewpoints invites the audience to question the nature of truth and the reliability of perception.
The philosophy of Shakespeare is not a unified doctrine but rather a rich and varied exploration of fundamental human concerns. Through his characters and narratives, Shakespeare engages with philosophical questions about human nature, morality, power, love, identity, and existence. His works continue to inspire philosophical inquiry, offering insights that are as relevant today as they were in the Elizabethan era.
There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, and proud men in old age learn to be wise.
from Antigone by Sophocles
it's my existence itself that's my tragic flaw
just discovered your blog a few days ago, & I'm madly in love. I would like your opinion on something. a huge focus of my English lit professors is identifying the fatal flaw of Shakespeare characters and I find myself wondering why/how this concept started & why it's so stressed in Shakespeare characters. do you think he meant to write them with a flaw in mind. also, do you think the flaws have standard answers ( like Macbeth's is always ambition ) or it's whatever a reader interprets it to be?
Thank you @scvthian! Glad you like the blog.
The concept of the fatal flaw comes from the idea of hamartia theorised by Aristotle in his Poetics. It may have existed before then, but Aristotle is the earliest existing record of such an idea. But the concept has become a little bit diluted through the ages and in coming to be known as a ‘fatal flaw’. But for Aristotle, hamartia isn’t actually a negative term. It’s an error, but more like a misunderstanding, something the person couldn’t possibly have known would lead to such tragic circumstances. In its original form, it certainly doesn't mean a moral flaw of character or a vice. The protagonist of a tragedy, Aristotle says, should be noble, but not exceptionally good or evil, just a person who makes a mistake, sometimes fated, that leads to his tragic destiny. Aristotle’s chief example is always Oedipus Rex. Oedipus couldn’t possibly have known that the man he killed was his father, or the woman he married is his mother. The hamartia here is an error or failure of recognition that’s not because of a personality trait, though it is made worse by his hot-headedness, part of what makes him not entirely virtuous.
I explained once in this post here that I don’t think the concept of the tragic flaw or hamartia is actually very relevant to Shakespeare. I don’t know what Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote the plays, but if he did know Aristotle, he barely ever follows the conventions when writing tragedies, so there’s no reason to think he wrote with an idea of hamartia in mind either.
Still, you can certainly find a flaw if you’re looking for one, and there’s nothing wrong with looking for fatal flaws as a way into Shakespeare as long as you can go on to recognise that such an idea really simplifies the more complex issues Shakespeare depicts. It’s certainly a good classroom exercise, so I wouldn’t fault your professors for focusing on it either, particularly as it introduces a key literary concept (the tragic flaw). The key thing here is to recognise that concepts and categories are not clear cut or set. Sometimes they’re useful as ladders to get to your next stage of study, where you can discard it.
As for how to define a tragic flaw if you’re looking for one... Since we can never know what Shakespeare was thinking, whether he even had a tragic flaw in mind, or, (if he knew the concept) whether it was the same as the one people think of now, it’s certainly not a case of trying to work out a correct answer. But things aren’t completely up to the reader either, because you have to have reasons (preferably textual evidence) for believing what you do. For instance, you say that ambition is often given as Macbeth’s tragic flaw. What’s the evidence? Macbeth, who says ‘I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition’ (1.7.25-27). So if we believe Macbeth, then his vice is ambition. Another possibility is that he’s too easily influenced, and one might bring as evidence the fact that Lady Macbeth can encourage him to murder. Lady Macbeth is also ambitious, perhaps, but that’s not Macbeth’s own flaw. You could even say his inability to see through the weird sisters’ equivocation is what leads to his downfall, if you think they were responsible for sparking macbeth’s ambition to begin with. Macbeth himself identifies ‘these juggling fiends... keep the word of promise to our ear / And break it to our hope’ (5.7.49-52). You can raise anything that you can prove, basically.
But here’s the thing, the very fact that you could come up with several possibilities for what constitutes a tragic flaw suggests that one flaw isn’t enough to encompass what happens in this play. I’ve said this quite often before, but my own approach is to think about the essential questions. So maybe it’s all true: Macbeth’s ambitious, he trusts too readily in the supernatural and he’s a pushover. Why does Lady Macbeth try to influence her husband? What gives power to the weird sisters’ prophecies? What drives ambition? I would suggest that the more fundamental issue is that there is a hierarchy that means some people are above others, and that murder can be rewarded with more power. If Macbeth didn’t live in such a competitive world, then the weird sisters, his wife, and murder itself wouldn’t be such a temptation to begin with. Ambition wouldn’t be relevant. While it doesn’t make Macbeth’s crime any less hideous, where his flaws derive from is an important question, because he can be blamed for murder, but not as much for ambition itself.
Alexandros, Sacrifice, and Kingship
I realized I got so caught up in answering Anonymous’s question about Alexander and anger management issues, I forgot part of the question:
How do you think he felt about becoming king at such an early age? In the books, it honestly seems like he isn't completely comfortable with sacrificing and other roles of the king.
Flipping for a moment from the historic person to the character (which, for me, is an important distinction), Alexandros isn’t comfortable with a lot of the things he might have to do, as king. Even before becoming king, he senses it will change him, and not for the better. He doesn’t expect to be made king right then. (I don’t think the historic man had any hand in Philip’s murder, so I think it came as a surprise.) But Macedonian kings had a tendency to die with their boots on, so Alexander (the historic man as well as my character) was well aware he could be elevated to the kingship at any point...just not in the middle of a parade. ;)
Yet if he senses becoming king will change him, he still absolutely wants it.
Whether fictional or real, one of his driving needs is for KLEOS: fame. I think he really did believe he was destined for great things. He was born a prince of course, but his belief may also have been fueled by exceptional talent and intellect.
I realize there’s great debate among scholars (and others) about how much of Alexander’s success was pure luck and the ultimate head start, and how much owed to “genius.” I had about 5-6 paragraphs typed up about social reactions to genius and the raging debate regarding Philip vs. Alexander, but it was tangential--the topic for another post--so I deleted it. :-)
Suffice to say, I think Alexander may have been that very rare thing: a true polymath. And that’s how I portray Alexandros in the novel.
As I noted in my prior post, humility was NOT a virtue in his society. He’s royal, descended from heroes (and thus, ultimately, from gods), and is smarter than your average bear. Of course he’s destined for kleos, and kingship. In the second novel, Rise, when he’s exiled and thinks he might never achieve the throne, it throws him into serious depression. His whole world is unraveling.
Yet he is smart, and more sensitive than a lot of those around him. So in the novel (again, I stress this is my character), Alexandros realizes that being king will cost him some of his humanity--maybe all of it. He can’t articulate that quite as clearly, but Aristoteles tells him, at the end of Becoming, “Kings don’t get to be human.” (Or something to that effect, I’m going by memory of what I wrote.)
THAT’s the theme I want to play with in the series. Alexander’s tragic flaw. He wants kleos (and kingship) more than he wants anything else, even love.
Even his own humanity.
What Is Your Tragic Flaw?
Repost, NOT REBLOG
Tagging: @thievinggentleman @zxntetsuken @lil-miss-romano @ferieso @bloominghands @no4s @pyoniumyankee
Tagged: @ourtani and @bandit-detective-blackwood
You got: Cynicism When you encounter behavior that is selfless, you start searching for ulterior motives. Experience has shown you that everyone is looking out for number one, and you're not about to be the only fool who isn't. Sometimes you consider the possibility that the world isn't all bad, but fear stops you from believing it. Try living like an optimist for a time. See what happens. You might like it!
