A tragic hero was defined by Aristotle as one who makes a error of judgement that eventually leads to their own destruction. Aristotle once had said that “A man doesn’t become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall.” In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth the protagonist Macbeth is a true example of a tragic hero. He holds an importance to his society; in the beginning a fearless nationalist, fighting for his country and then eventually he became king.
Macbeth did have some major character flaws such as, his great ambition and he had made many grave errors in judgement, one of them being the murder of the King of Scotland. For the duration of events in the plot Macbeth progressively become more and more miserable. There were outside forces which contributed to his corruption; the main force would be the three witches. A Shakespearean tragic hero contains all or most of the following qualities: providing a moral example to the audience, suffering public embarrassment, and meeting his doom with courage and dignity which Macbeth did all of. With it taken into consideration, Macbeth is most definitely a tragic hero.
