According to Aristotle, any tragedy has a tragic hero who possesses a tragic flaw which ultimately causes their own downfall. Despite the tragic hero’s defeat, its purpose is to validate redeeming human qualities to the audience. Tonya Harding’s life and story is a real-life example of a Shakespearean hero. To begin, Tonya Harding was born to Al Harding and LaVona Fay Harding on November 12, 1970 in Portland, OR. (Perry and Tapes 1) Before she made her way to the top to be an Olympic figure skater and won the 1989 Skate America competition, her childhood was very rough. She was raised to very unfortunate standards. Despite her unhappy household, Harding found a way to bring herself up. (Urwin) She started skating at the age of three, and spent …show more content…
(Urwin 1) Her hamartia is that she wanted to be the best and was very jealous of her competitor Nancy Kerrigan and went to extreme measures to eliminate her from competing. Harding was born into an abusive household that was so far from wealthy. Stone 1: This had a very big effect on how she viewed herself. Perry and Tapes. Her mother was constantly bouncing from husband to husband and job to job. Her parents split when she was sixteen, which caused her to drop out of her sophomore year to focus on skating. (Stone 2) With what Harding felt was no support, she felt all she had was skating. All in all, Tonya Harding dealt with many mental difficulties and her lack of self-control led to her downfall. Harding’s downfall started in January 1994 when news that she planned an attack on her opponent Nancy Kerrigan went around. Harding claims to have not planned the attack but that she heard talk about it and failed to report it. Kerrigan recovered in time to compete in the 1994 Winter Olympics and placed second while Harding placed eighth. (Perry and Tapes 2) Harding was charged with conspiracy to hinder prosecution in March