How Can Romeo And Juliet Be Considered A Tragic Hero

According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is someone who is an important figure, has a tragic flaw, causes his or her own downfall, recognizes their tragic flaw at some point, cannot be all good or bad, and must give the reader a feeling of pity and fear. In the book Romeo and Juliet, Romeo can be considered a tragic hero. Romeo’s tragic flaw is his lack of thinking before acting, such as when he kills Tybalt, setting off the events for the tragedy and his down. This is also where Romeo momentarily recognizes this flaw. Romeo is part of an important family in the town, the Montagues. Romeo is also not all good or all bad, and he gives the reader a mixture of pity for what happens to him in the play and fear for turning out like him in the end.

Some examples of this are when he kills Tybalt, poisoning himself without realizing Juliet may still be alive, and “falling in love” with Juliet only a day after he was in love with Rosaline. Romeo realizes for a moment his tragic flaw after he kills Tybalt, when he exclaims, “O, I am fortune's fool!” (3.1.142). Romeo says that his fate is very misfortunate. This also shows that Romeo did not take credit for his actions, calling it fate for what he did to Tybalt. Eventually, Romeo causes his own downfall in the fifth act, where instead of thinking that it may be peculiar that Juliet’s face still looks very much alive, he says that Death has taken her as bride, and proceeds to poison himself, just before Romeo wakes