The Crucible Symbolism in & Similarities to McCarthyism

McCarthyism: In the 1940s and 1950s Americans feared the encroachment of Communism. The Soviet Union was growing in power and the threat of a nuclear holocaust was on the forefront of American minds. Eastern Europe had become a conglomerate of Communist satellite nations. Throw in China and Americans began to feel they were surrounded by a Communist threat. Paranoia ensued.

The Crucible: Salem established itself as a religious community in the midst of evil. Salemites considered the forest the domain of the devil. Salem was surrounded by forest. Paranoia ensued.

McCarthyism: Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator, made unsubstantiated claims that more than 200 "card carrying" members of the Communist party had infiltrated the United States government. He had no proof.

The Crucible: Delusional girls make unsubstantiated claims about the existence of witches in Salem. They have no proof.

McCarthyism: McCarthy's unsubstantiated claims ruined lives and led to increased hostility.

The Crucible: The girls unsubstantiated claims ruin lives and lead to increased hostility in Salem.

McCarthyism: Those who were accused were assumed guilty, put on trial, and expected to divulge the names of other Communist sympathizers. Failure to do so led to sanctions.

The Crucible: Those who are accused are assumed guilty, put on trial, expected to confess, and expected to accuse others of being witches. Failure to do so leads to death.

McCarthyism: The media were not willing to stand up to Senator McCarthy for fear of being accused of being a Communist.

The Crucible: Townspeople are not willing to stand up to the court for fear of being accused of being a witch.

McCarthyism: Arthur Miller was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and subsequently blacklisted.

The Crucible: Arthur Miller wrote it.

Other Significant Symbols

The Doll: The doll found on Elizabeth Proctor's shelf is a traditional symbol of voodoo and witchcraft. In The Crucible, the doll (as well as Rebecca Nurse) symbolizes the transformation of good to evil: dolls, in a normal society, represent childhood innocence and bring happiness. In Salem, dolls represent evil. This extends to the Puritan government and church, both being entrusted to protect its citizens, yet both doing the opposite.

The Stones: Giles Corey refuses to make an official plea in court. In order to persuade him to make a plea, officials of the court stack concrete stones on him and eventually crush him. The stones symbolize the weight of Salem's sins that are crushing the good in its society.

Elizabeth Proctor's Pregnancy: Elizabeth's execution is stalled on account of her pregnancy. This represents hope that the future may be different.

The Boiling Cauldron: The controversy begins with Salem girls running wild through the forest around a cauldron of boiling water. This cauldron symbolizes the wildness of the girls, or more specifically, their repressed sexual desire bubbling over.

The Witch Trials: In addition to the similarities between McCarthyism and The Crucible already discussed, the trials symbolize the effect of intolerance, extremism, and hatred.

The Forest: Puritans believed that the forest was the devil's dominion. They failed to recognize, however, that Salem's evil and destruction came from within. The forest, therefore symbolizes the evil present in all humans.

Arthur Miller's Narrative Technique in The Crucible

Each stage production of The Crucible differs from every other in two areas. First, directors stage the play according to their own styles, using various props and costumes while suggesting numerous interpretations of characters. Secondly, individual actors read the lines differently, using diverse voice inflections, gestures, and body language to give each interpretation its own style. Miller also provides yet another opportunity for variety, not just for the director and actors, but also for the audience and reader. Lengthy exposition pieces that are not glossed as stage directions periodically appear in the written play. For example, at the beginning of Act I, Miller provides stage directions for the set, props, and position of Parris and Betty on stage. However, Miller also includes an extensive psychological profile of Parris prior to beginning the action of the play. Before Parris speaks, a narrator says that "in history he cut a villainous path, and there is very little good to be said for him." Later, the narrator interrupts the action in Scene 1 to include background information on Putnam, and the narrator does the same for Proctor in Scene 3, Rebecca in Scene 4, and Hale and Giles in Scene 5. In addition to historical background on significant characters, the interruptions also include social commentary within the exposition.

The question arises whether or not a director should include these narrative sections, some of which are four pages long, within the play itself. At first glance, it appears that they are to be included within the actual production. If so, then a narrator character must read the narrative sections to the audience. If this is done, however, the continual interruptions in the play's action make engaging the audience in the play difficult. Therefore, the narrative sections should clearly serve only as a tool to provide directors and actors with background information.

The explicative passages allow directors and actors to focus on character motivation, providing them a better understanding of the characters and the historical period. Characters are more engaging because a genuine basis for tension between them exists. For example, obvious tension exists between Thomas Putnam and several other characters in the play, especially Francis Nurse. An actor playing Thomas Putnam must create a persona driven by greed. If the actor knows the passage that states that Putnam was "a deeply embittered man" who attempted to challenged his father's will because his father left the largest portion of money to his stepbrother, then the actor can internalize this quality of Putnam. These background passages result in a more effective portrayal of greed and a more believable character.

Individuals reading the play will have a different experience than the traditional audience because they will read the background information, which will inevitably affect their interpretation of the characters and the play's events. Within the exposition sections Miller addresses the reader directly, in the comfortable, reliable voice of a trusted narrator. As a result, the reader internalizes the information and responds to the characters and their actions based upon it. For example, a reader will discover the same information as a potential actor in regard to Putnam — that Putnam's father left the largest amount of money to Putnam's stepbrother. The reader will also benefit from the narrator's commentary. The narrator tells the reader that the real Putnam accused a large number of people during the trials, often as a method of retaliation or personal gain. After revealing Putnam's historical background, the narrator begins to suggest that Putnam's character will falsely accuse someone within the play. Although the narrator does not finish the suggestion — he only says, "especially when" — the reader automatically expects Putnam to falsely accuse someone in the play. As a result, the reader projects the narrator's commentary onto Putnam's character and anticipates Putnam's false accusations against rival landowners.

The Crucible: Arthur Miller's Style

Arthur Miller had a reputation for being pedantic. He maintained, and his estate continues to maintain artistic control over his plays. Miller never ever let anyone else have more creative input than himself. He was a visually descriptive playwright both in his stage directions and settings. Miller’s plays, including The Crucible include pages of detailed information addressing the concerns of both the actors and the audience.

In preparation for writing The Crucible, he studied pages and pages of court transcripts of the Salem witch hunts in order to develop ideas and to create an authentic dialect. He took small ideas from the testimonies given in the courts and fleshed them out into stories. In fact, the basis for John Proctor’s and Abigail Williams’ affair was based on the tension he discovered that the two of them shared throughout the actual court proceedings.

'This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian. Dramatic purposes have sometimes required many characters to be fused into one; the number of girls involved in the 'crying out' has been reduced; Abigail's age has been raised; while there were several judges of almost equal authority, I have symbolized them all in Hathorne and Danforth. However, I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history. The fate of each character is exactly that of his historical model, and there is no one in the drama who did not play a similar-and in some cases exactly the same-role in history.

As for the characters of the persons, little is known about most of them except what may be surmised from a few letters, the trial record, certain broadsides written at the time, and references to their conduct in sources of varying reliability. They may therefore be taken as creations of my own, drawn to the best of my ability in conformity with their known behaviour, except as indicated in the commentary I have written for this text.'

Plays can be classified in two major varieties: plays of episodic action and plays of continuous action. Shakespeare's plays are episodic. No one scene is very long, and the action jumps from place to place, sometimes skipping over years in between. On the other hand, Greek tragedies like Oedipus Rex and some modern plays such as Eugene O'Neil's Long Day's Journey into Night, follow what are called the three unities: of time-the action usually takes place within a 24-hour period; of place- there is only one location,, and of action-there is no break in the action from beginning to end.

The Crucible falls somewhere in between. The time span is about three-and-a-half months; the action occurs in four different places, although it never leaves Salem; and there is a gap of at least a week between each act (between Acts III and IV almost three months elapse). But within each act the action is continuous from curtain to curtain.

One advantage of the continuous-action method is that it allows the author to build tension or suspense gradually. It also can be less confusing for an audience, because we don't have to stop and figure out where we are every few minutes. And, finally, it allows us to get to know the main characters very well, by letting us watch them for a long time at a stretch. This is especially important in The Crucible, where we come to understand what happened in Salem in 1692 through the experience of one man, John Proctor.

The Crucible was written in an historical style, marking a shift in Miller's preferred writing style from the "naturalistic dialogue of the American middle class" in his first three plays, to a formal, New-England-Puritan style. Miller "makes exemplary use of this new style, its biblical echoes, its metaphorical richness, and its ethical basis". The Crucible concerns the dilemma of "making moral choices in the face of community pressure and about the irrational basis of that pressure". The similarity between the Communist and Puritan witch-hunts allows Miller to formulate an explanation for their inception, along with the destructive effect that speculations can have on individuals when brought before an unsympathetic, judgmental and irrational public. The public's trepidation toward the subject matter of The Crucible was due to the play's remarkable similarity to the political pulse at the time, causing critics to give it "polite, lukewarm reviews", and closed after only a few months. Ironically, The Crucible was successful in an off-Broadway production five years later and was given ample praise by the same critics who previously rejected it. This performance ran over six hundred shows, establishing it as Miller's second most popular play.

Miller’s style is very simple. He uses simple sentences and sentence structure with a simple vocabulary. While using the simple style, Miller does not take away from the suspense in he plot. The dialogues of his characters are like actual speech. His words are used effectively and does not include anything not necessary to convey the idea. He makes the plot and idea interesting by foreshadowing future events.

In The Crucible, the characters do not speak in fragments, and some do occasionally string together phrases. Also, they do form their thoughts carefully before speaking. The sentences are simple and the structure does not vary too much.

In the first passage spoken by Reverend Parris, the speech is more formal that speeches spoken by other characters. This displays that Reverend Parris is more educated than the others. It has a somewhat fatherly, yet commanding tone.

The second passage spoken by Abigail is markedly different from the first passage. The sentences are less thought out and more fragmented. She repeats the phrase “I know you” several times. This shows less education but more deep emotion than the first passage. The tone for this line is moving, but when compiled with Abigail's character, becomes deceiving.

The third passage spoken by Elizabeth shows a clearly though out idea. It shows that while Elizabeth may not be as educated as someone like Parris, this is a subject that she has thought about a long time. This gives a tone of something like a bottom line or an ultimatum. While Elizabeth does not give a specific choice to Proctor, it is obvious that he must make a decision on what to do.

Miller does not rely too much on imagery. There are few cases of imagery in this play. One remarkably memorable one is the statement by Abigail about the way John Proctor “sweated like a stallion.” While this statement is also a simile, it provides an unforgettable image in the minds of the audience.

The most memorable case of simile is the line, “I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I came near!” This statement compares Proctor with a stallion.

Miller rarely uses metaphors or personification in this work. His people generally referred to as people and items as items. Occasionally he alludes to some portion or person in the Bible, but rarely to anything else. For example, while John Proctor is speaking with Rebecca in prison, she alludes to the martyred apostles. Rebecca says, “Let you fear nothing! Another judgment waits us all.” This is an allusion to idea from the Bible that man is judged by God in heaven.

Miller has few cases of verbal irony. He uses it in act 3 while Elizabeth tell she court that Proctor did not sleep with Abigail she knows that he did.

All parts with the girls lying about witches and ghosts are cases of dramatic irony since, while the audience knows that the girls are lying, most of the characters do not. For example, in court, Abigail and the other girls pretend to be attacked by spirits and the people in court fear them to be in danger. However, the audience knows that they are faking it.

Miller’s attitude towards witchcraft is satirical. The tone is serious, cynical, and formal. He achieves this tone by the terrible tragedy of the innocent people executed, and the mental struggles of John Proctor. Miller shows the irony and the unjustness of the witch trials, and thereby the irony and the unjustness of the McCarthy trials.

Hemingway's Code Hero

The major characters in Hemingway’s novels and short stories are divided into two groups. There are certain round characters who find themselves at cross-ends with the world around them and they are tying to come to some convincing terms with their environment but do not know the way out. They learn with the passage of time and evolve a new set of values, which make their survival possible. There are certain other characters that do not need any education because when they appear before us they are perfect in themselves. These characters appear with different names in different novels. But they share so many characteristics in common that critics identify them collectively as the Code Hero or in Earl Rovit’s terms “the Tutor”.

Hemingway’s code hero is usually an older man, tremendously courageous and blindly confident who has realized his potentialities and know his area of operations. He is perfectly skilled and experienced in his art and executes his jobs full-boldly. He is usually a bullfighter, a fisherman, a veteran soldier or a prized fighter who is dead sure of his success and acknowledgement in his particular department.

Hemingway’s code hero is an incarnation of those values, which make for the void of life caused by the First World War. The code hero is fully aware of the fact that if a man wishes to live most intensely only in confrontation and death by showing his coolness, endurance, grace and discipline he can assert his moral integrity and manliness.

Wilson, Pedro Romero, Santiago etc. are different examples of the code hero. Santiago fights the battle with courage and dignity to defend his prize against the sharks in the big sea especially when the Marlin is bleeding but as to give is unmanly. So he sustains his stature in the face of heavy and even insurmountable odds. He proves that:

“Though the field is lost everything is not lost.”

And

“A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Romero, the code hero, in “The Sun Also Rises” is presented as the“Messiah” who has come to save not only full fighting from decadence but also“The Lost Generation”. He demonstrates to them through his actions how one can live with dignity and grace while facing death. Jake Barnes is greatly impressed by Romero when the former says:

“After Romero has kill his first bull “Montoya”, caught my eye and nodded his head. This was a real one. There had not

been a real one for a long time. He knows everything when he started. The other cannot learn what he was born with.”

The encounter of Robert Cohn and Pedro Romero, the encounter of the code hero and the romantic hero present the difference between physical and moral victory between chivalric stubbornness and real self respect. Thus Pedro fights to repair an affront to his dignity and though he is badly beaten yet his spirit is untouched by disappointment, whereas Cohn’s spirit is completely smashed. Though the next day Romero’s eyes were discolored, lips and face were swollen yet he beats Belmote in particularly every sphere of the sport. Cohn had based his skill at boxing or upon a women’s love, so he fails when neither love nor skill supports him but Romero’s manhood is a thing independent of women. Even in his courtship of Brett Ashley there is no loss of his pride and self respect.

He appears for a brief span of time but he has taught Jake Barnes to face the realities of life with stoic endurance and made Brett say:

“You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch.”

And

“It is sort of what we have instead of God.”

Brett’s declaration is a prove that Romero indeed had the greatness within the bullring and outside of it.

Hemingway's Hero

Barnes, Nick Adam, Frederic Henry, Robert Jordan etc. are all Hemingway’s typical heroes who remain continuously under great stress because they are living in absolutely unsatisfactory conditions. Hemingway’s hero is always in some war or war like conditions but the notable point is that he enters war without any social, political or ideological obligation. That is why he is basically a disinterested spectator of war instead of a vehement participant. Romantic ideals and abstractions like sacred, glory, bravery etc. do not fascinate him and we cannot help wondering why he offers himself to serve in war.

Hemingway’s hero leads a private life as an isolated individual because during war he very closely observes the nothingness of life, cruelty of man against man, temporality, emptiness and meaninglessness in human relationship and extremely realizes that looking for permanence in human relations is to meet utter disappointment. However, we should not assume that he is a misanthrope but he has a great ability to recognize another member of his breed and establishes an immediate understanding with him.

Although, he is a tough man and loves outdoor activities, yet he is equally sensitive and his wounds add fuel to fire to his sensitiveness. Secondly, he suffers from Nada which always keeps him restless and the darkness at night intensifies the feeling of nothingness in life. That is why he keeps on thinking and cannot sleep at night and even if he sleeps, he is disturbed by nightmares. However, it is worth mentioning that a typical Hemingway’s hero is not volunteer thinker or philosopher rather he wants to avoid these troublesome haunts. He takes pleasure in spending most of his time in going on for hunting or fishing trips, reaming about different restaurants and enjoying free sex or drinking. The restlessness of the typical Hemingway’s Hero continues until he searches out a solution of present agony. At last, he succeeds in formulation a code which may work effectively as a bolster for the dome of his life.

Jake Barnes is the typical Hemingway’s hero who leaves his own country America and lives in Paris and he works as a journalist in an American Newspaper. He voluntarily takes part in the First World War and, like other Hemingway’s heroes, is wounded. However, the nature of Barnes’ injury is quite different and unique because he is injured in such a way that he can feel sexual desire but consummation of this desire is not possible. To aggravate the situation, an English volunteer nurse Brett Ashley falls in love with him and ironically enough, she is near nymphomaniac. Jake is fully aware of the irony of fate and remains restless day and night. Brett Ashley moves from one man to another in pursuit of her physical satisfaction and Jake is a silent spectator.

He nervously moves from one hotel to another, one dancing club to another but to no avail. He cannot overcome his grief because it penetrates to the depth of his soul. In Hotel Monty at Pamplona in Spain he meets Pedro Romero, the greatest bullfighter who is born with great qualities of tolerance and patience. Romero is severely beaten by the boxing champion Robert Cohn, but his soul remains untouched and he des not loose his integrity and performs his duty in the ring stoically. In his fiesta in Pamplona Jake looses his sweetheart Brett Ashley and his friend Montoya, but he learns the greatest lesson of his life that a great amount of patience and tolerance is required to lead life and it is possible only through manly encounter with death. This is the lesson which enables him to receive a telegram from his disloyal beloved and respond to her stoically and patiently.

Aristotle's concept of catharsis

Aristotle writes that the function of tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear, and to affect the Katharsis of these emotions. Aristotle has used the term Katharsis only once, but no phrase has been handled so frequently by critics, and poets. Aristotle has not explained what exactly he meant by the word, nor do we get any help from the Poetics. For this reason, help and guidance has to be taken from his other works. Further, Katharsis has three meaning. It means ‘purgation’, ‘purification’, and ‘clarification’, and each critic has used the word in one or the other senses. All agree that Tragedy arouses fear and pity, but there are sharp differences as to the process, the way by which the rousing of these emotions gives pleasure.

Katharsis has been taken as a medical metaphor, ‘purgation’, denoting a pathological effect on the soul similar to the effect of medicine on the body. This view is borne out by a passage in the Politics where Aristotle refers to religious frenzy being cured by certain tunes which excite religious frenzy. In Tragedy:

“…pity and fear, artificially stirred the latent pity and fear which we bring with us from real life.”

In the Neo-Classical era, Catharsis was taken to be an allopathic treatment with the unlike curing unlike. The arousing of pity and fear was supposed to bring about the purgation or ‘evacuation’ of other emotions, like anger, pride etc. As Thomas Taylor holds:

“We learn from the terrible fates of evil men to avoid the vices they manifest.”

F. L. Lucas rejects the idea that Katharsis is a medical metaphor, and says that:

“The theatre is not a hospital.”

Both Lucas and Herbert Reed regard it as a kind of safety valve. Pity and fear are aroused, we give free play to these emotions which is followed by emotional relief. I. A. Richards’ approach to the process is also psychological. Fear is the impulse to withdraw and pity is the impulse to approach. Both these impulses are harmonized and blended in tragedy and this balance brings relief and repose.

The ethical interpretation is that the tragic process is a kind of lustration of the soul, an inner illumination resulting in a more balanced attitude to life and its suffering. Thus John Gassner says that a clear understanding of what was involved in the struggle, of cause and effect, a judgment on what we have witnessed, can result in a state of mental equilibrium and rest, and can ensure complete aesthetic pleasure. Tragedy makes us realize that divine law operates in the universe, shaping everything for the best.

During the Renaissance, another set of critics suggested that Tragedy helped to harden or ‘temper’ the emotions. Spectators are hardened to the pitiable and fearful events of life by witnessing them in tragedies.

Humphrey House rejects the idea of ‘purgation’ and forcefully advocates the ‘purification’ theory which involves moral instruction and learning. It is a kind of ‘moral conditioning’. He points out that, ‘purgation means cleansing’.

According to ‘the purification’ theory, Katharsis implies that our emotions are purified of excess and defect, are reduced to intermediate state, trained and directed towards the right objects at the right time. The spectator learns the proper use of pity, fear and similar emotions by witnessing tragedy. Butcher writes:

“The tragic Katharsis involves not only the idea of emotional relief, but the further idea of purifying the emotions so relieved.”

The basic defect of ‘purgation’ theory and ‘purification’ theory is that they are too much occupied with the psychology of the audience. Aristotle was writing a treatise not on psychology but on the art of poetry. He relates ‘Catharsis’ not to the emotions of the spectators but to the incidents which form the plot of the tragedy. And the result is the “clarification” theory.

The paradox of pleasure being aroused by the ugly and the repellent is also the paradox involved in tragedy. Tragic incidents are pitiable and fearful.

They include horrible events as a man blinding himself, a wife murdering her husband or a mother slaying her children and instead of repelling us produce pleasure. Aristotle clearly tells us that we should not seek for every pleasure from tragedy, “but only the pleasure proper to it”. ‘Catharsis’ refers to the tragic variety of pleasure. The Catharsis clause is thus a definition of the function of tragedy, and not of its emotional effects on the audience.

Imitation does not produce pleasure in general, but only the pleasure that comes from learning, and so also the peculiar pleasure of tragedy. Learning comes from discovering the relation between the action and the universal elements embodied in it. The poet might take his material from history or tradition, but he selects and orders it in terms of probability and necessity, and represents what, “might be”. He rises from the particular to the general and so is more universal and more philosophical. The events are presented free of chance and accidents which obscure their real meaning. Tragedy enhances understanding and leaves the spectator ‘face to face with the universal law’.

Thus according to this interpretation, ‘Catharsis’ means clarification of the essential and universal significance of the incidents depicted, leading to an enhanced understanding of the universal law which governs human life and destiny, and such an understating leads to pleasure of tragedy. In this view, Catharsis is neither a medical, nor a religious or moral term, but an intellectual term. The term refers to the incidents depicted in the tragedy and the way in which the poet reveals their universal significance.

The clarification theory has many merits. Firstly, it is a technique of the tragedy and not to the psychology of the audience. Secondly, the theory is based on what Aristotle says in the Poetics, and needs no help and support of what Aristotle has said in Politics and Ethics. Thirdly, it relates Catharsis both to the theory of imitation and to the discussion of probability and necessity. Fourthly, the theory is perfectly in accord with current aesthetic theories.

According to Aristotle the basic tragic emotions are pity and fear and are painful. If tragedy is to give pleasure, the pity and fear must somehow be eliminated. Fear is aroused when we see someone suffering and think that similar fate might befall us. Pity is a feeling of pain caused by the sight of underserved suffering of others. The spectator sees that it is the tragic error or Hamartia of the hero which results in suffering and so he learns something about the universal relation between character and destiny.

To conclude, Aristotle's conception of Catharsis is mainly intellectual. It is neither didactic nor theoretical, though it may have a residual theological element. Aristotle's Catharsis is not a moral doctrine requiring the tragic poet to show that bad men come to bad ends, nor a kind of theological relief arising from discovery that God’s laws operate invisibly to make all things work out for the best.

Aristotle's concept of ideal tragic hero: Hamartia

No passage in “The Poetics” with the exception of the Catharsis phrase has attracted so much critical attention as his ideal of the tragic hero.

The function of a tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear and Aristotle deduces the qualities of his hero from this function. He should be good, but not perfect, for the fall of a perfect man from happiness into misery, would be unfair and repellent and will not arouse pity. Similarly, an utterly wicked person passing from happiness to misery may satisfy our moral sense, but will lack proper tragic qualities. His fall will be well-deserved and according to ‘justice’. It excites neither pity nor fear. Thus entirely good and utterly wicked persons are not suitable to be tragic heroes.

Similarly, according to Aristotelian law, a saint would be unsuitable as a tragic hero. He is on the side of the moral order and hence his fall shocks and repels. Besides, his martyrdom is a spiritual victory which drowns the feeling of pity. Drama, on the other hand, requires for its effectiveness a militant and combative hero. It would be important to remember that Aristotle’s conclusions are based on the Greek drama and he is lying down the qualifications of an ideal tragic hero. He is here discussing what is the very best and not what is good. Overall, his views are justified, for it requires the genius of a Shakespeare to arouse sympathy for an utter villain, and saints as successful tragic heroes have been extremely rare.

Having rejected perfection as well as utter depravity and villainy, Aristotle points out that:

“The ideal tragic hero … must be an intermediate kind of person, a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment.”

The ideal tragic hero is a man who stands midway between the two extremes. He is not eminently good or just, though he inclines to the side of goodness. He is like us, but raised above the ordinary level by a deeper vein of feeling or heightened powers of intellect or will. He is idealized, but still he has so much of common humanity as to enlist our interest and sympathy.

The tragic hero is not evil or vicious, but he is also not perfect and his disaster is brought upon him by his own fault. The Greek word used here is “Hamartia” meaning “missing the mark”. He falls not because of the act of outside agency or evil but because of Hamartia or “miscalculation” on his part. Hamartia is not a moral failing and it is unfortunate that it was translated as “tragic flaw” by Bradley. Aristotle himself distinguishes Hamartia from moral failing. He means by it some error or judgment. He writes that the cause of the hero’s fall must lie “not in depravity, but in some error or Hamartia on his part”. He does not assert or deny anything about the connection of Hamartia with hero’s moral failings.

“It may be accompanied by moral imperfection, but it is not itself a moral imperfection, and in the purest tragic situation the suffering hero is not morally to blame.”

Thus Hamartia is an error or miscalculation, but the error may arise from any of the three ways: It may arise from “ignorance of some fact or circumstance”, or secondly, it may arise from hasty or careless view of the special case, or thirdly, it may be an error voluntary, but not deliberate, as acts committed in anger. Else and Martian Ostwald interpret Hamartia and say that the hero has a tendency to err created by lack of knowledge and he may commit a series of errors. This tendency to err characterizes the hero from the beginning and at the crisis of the play it is complemented by the recognition scene, which is a sudden change “from ignorance to knowledge”.

In fact, Hamartia is a word with various shades of meaning and has been interpreted by different critics. Still, all serious modern Aristotelian scholarship agreed that Hamartia is not moral imperfection. It is an error of judgment, whether arising from ignorance of some material circumstance or from rashness of temper or from some passion. It may even be a character, for the hero may have a tendency to commit errors of judgment and may commit series of errors. This last conclusion is borne out by the play Oedipus Tyrannus to which Aristotle refers time and again and which may be taken to be his ideal. In this play, hero’s life is a chain or errors, the most fatal of all being his marriage with his mother. If King Oedipus is Aristotle’s ideal hero, we can say with Butcher that:

“His conception of Hamartia includes all the three meanings mentioned above, which in English cannot be covered by a single term.”

Hamartia is an error, or a series of errors, “whether morally culpable or not,” committed by an otherwise noble person, and these errors derive him to his doom. The tragic irony lies in the fact that hero may err mistakenly without any evil intention, yet he is doomed no less than immorals who sin consciously. He has Hamartia and as a result his very virtues hurry him to his ruin. Says Butcher:

“Othello in the modern drama, Oedipus in the ancient, are the two most conspicuous examples of ruin wrought by character, noble indeed, but not without defects, acting in the dark and, as it seemed, for the best.”

Aristotle lays down another qualification for the tragic hero. He must be, “of the number of those in the enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity.” He must be a well-reputed individual occupying a position of lofty eminence in society. This is so because Greed tragedy, with which alone Aristotle was familiar, was written about a few distinguished royal families. Aristotle considers eminence as essential for the tragic hero. But Modern drama demonstrates that the meanest individual can also serve as a tragic hero, and that tragedies of Sophoclean grandeur can be enacted even in remote country solitudes.

However, Aristotle’s dictum is quite justified on the principle that, “higher the state, the greater the fall that follows,” or because heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes, while the death of a beggar passes unnoticed. But it should be remembered that Aristotle nowhere says that the hero should be a king or at least royally descended. They were the Renaissance critics who distorted Aristotle and made the qualification more rigid and narrow.