Sweeney Todd Tragic Hero

he tragedy genre originated in ancient Greece for the worship of Dionysus or Bacchus. There were many grand festivals that were held for the revealing of many dissimilar tragic plays. One of the most well-known authors of the tragic genre was Sophocles. Sophocles presented many tragedies such as Oedipus, Antigone, Electra, and Ajax. Tragedies always have a tragic hero and a tragic flaw, some tragedies also have other important elements such as hubris, or parity.

In this catastrophic musical movie, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street there are many reasons for why Sweeney Todd could be considered a tragedy. In the film, there are examples of a tragic hero, a catharsis, an epiphany, a tragic flaw, an exodus, a parity, and a hubris.

Sweeney Todd fits the tragic hero archetype, due to him living a twisted life with a grim attitude, but a woman by the name of Mrs. Lovett always thought of him as a superior man, and treated him sympathetically, proven by the song she sings, “But a seaside wedding could be devised, Me rumpled bedding legitimized, Me eyelids I’ll flutter, I'll turn into butter, The moment I mutter I do.” This lyrics set came from the song “By The Sea,” where Mrs. Lovett sings about her dream life with her love Sweeney Todd. These lyrics show that she puts him on a pedestal even when he is a terrible man. In order for Sweeney Todd to be considered a tragic hero, he must also be someone of a high place. Sweeney Todd matches that description, because in the song "The Contest" it shows Sweeney Todd beating a shaving contest against one of the best barbers in the world, who shaves kings and lords from all over. This ends up gaining him new customers of high social positions, making him a high-class

Epiphany is shown in this musical movie in two different cases. First in the song “Epiphany” you can see that he realizes that he missed one of his only chances to avenge his supposed death of his wife, shown by the lyric: “had swear I had him! His throat was there and now he'll never come again.” This is when he decides to become spiteful and murder dozens of citizens. Another case that could be considered an epiphany is when he understands that he ended up killing his wife, letting his daughter escape, trust a jealous lunatic, and that he ended up killed dozens of innocent people. He has this moment of epiphany when Mrs. Lovett opens up the oven, creating a light that shined on his old love’s face, which he murdered. He immediately realizes what he had done. Then he asked Mrs. Lovett for the truth. She doesn’t deny it by saying “I was only thinking of