Laertes Tragic Hero

Is Hamlet truly the tragic hero in Shakespeare’s Hamlet? Tragic heroes were originally defined by Aristotle, and he created a list of traits that a tragic hero must have. These traits are hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and hubris. In Hamlet, Laertes fits all of these traits perfectly, even more so than Hamlet, making Laertes the true tragic hero. Hamartia is a hero’s flaw or error in judgement, and is the first of four traits required for a character to be categorized as a tragic hero. In Hamlet, Laertes has a couple of flaws that really demonstrate this, his quickness to act and his misjudging of Claudius’s character. Laertes’s quickness to act is first seen right after his father is killed by Hamlet, when he exclaims, “Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!” (Shakespeare 1171). In this quote, Laertes is banishing his
While Claudius is convincing Laertes to kill Hamlet, he does so by appealing to Laertes’s ego, telling him about how his rapier is “most especial” and that it would be a “sight indeed If one could match you.” (Shakespeare 1176) By playing off of Laertes’s pride in his swordsmanship, Laertes is lured into trying to kill Hamlet. Another time Laertes is seen with hubris is when he is assaulting Claudius about avenging his father saying that he will “husband [his means] so well They shall go far with little.” (Shakespeare 1171) Laertes believes he can singlehandedly kill the king for his own will. Overall, Hamlet meets a few of these requirements, but falls short on a few, namely anagnorisis and hubris, never recognizing it was his own fault for dying, and having so little pride that he could never act on anything. Laertes fits the definition of a tragic hero far better than Hamlet, by meeting all of the requirements Aristotle set in his original definition, hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and