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r8 my essay on TFA
Tragic heroes are main characters in a story that endure suffering for the greater good of others despite manifesting major flaws. One example of a tragic hero from a past story is Oedipus from Oedipus Rex. Oedipus exemplifies this role because he suffers from the frequent tragic flaw of pride and tries to save the city he rules over. Oedipus shares many similarities to Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart, who also shows similar qualities for being a tragic hero. Okonkwo is a tragic hero because of the suffering he endures during the story, the fact that he is a respected leader in the tribe, and because of his eventual failure from trying to save his tribe.
Okonkwo is a tragic hero because he practically rules over his tribe and exhibits the tragic flaw of pride. It is explained many times in the story that Okonkwo is a respected ruler in Umuofia because of his masculinity and hard-working nature. The story exclaims, “He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and he had just married his third wife” (8). This well-respected nature of Okonkwo is supported by the fact that many past tragic heroes play important roles in the setting or society they live in. This position of power he is in leads to the tragic flaw he exhibits, which is pride. This is the most common flaw among tragic heroes, as pride sets up for a complete deconstruction of a character’s motives and ideals by the end of the story. For Okonkwo, an example of his pride being shown is when the story explains Okonkwo’s troubling start to his own farmland. The story says that it rained violent torrents, yet Okonkwo never gave up on his farm. As a result, he says”’Since I survived that year,’ he always said, ‘I shall survive anything’” (24). This major asset of his character is rooted deep in his desire to not end up as his father, which arguably might have happened in at the end of the novel. His pride as a result of
