The Tragic Flaw: Is It a Tragic Error?

Author(s): Isabel Hyde

Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul., 1963), pp. 321-325
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
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JULY 1963 VOLUME LVIII NUMBER 3

THE TRAGIC FLAW: IS IT A TRAGIC ERROR?

Aristotle, as writer of the Poetics, has had many a lusty infant, begot by some other
critic, left howling upon his doorstep; and of all these (which include the bastards
Unity-of-Time and Unity-of-Place) not one is more trouble to those who go to take
it up than the foundling 'Tragic Flaw'. Humphrey House, in his lectures,1 delivered
in 1952-3, commented upon this tiresome phrase:
The'phrase 'tragic flaw' should be treated with suspicion. I do not know when it was
first used, or by whom. It is not an Aristotelian metaphor at all, and though it might be
adopted as an accepted technical translation of 'hamartia' in the strict and properly
limited sense, the fact is that it has not been so adopted, and it is far more commonly used
for a characteristic moral failing in an otherwise predominantly good man. Thus, it may
be said by some writers to be the 'tragic flaw' of Oedipus that he was hasty in temper; of
Samson that he was sensually uxorious; of Macbeth that he was ambitious; of Othello
that he was proud and jealous-and so on.... but these things do not constitute the
'hamartiai' of those characters in Aristotle's sense.
House goes on to urge that 'all serious modern Aristotelian scholarship agrees...
that "hamartia" means an error which is derived from ignorance of some material
fact or circumstance', and he refers to Bywater and Rostagni in support of his view.
But although 'all serious modern scholarship' may have agreed on this point in
1952-3, in 1960 the good news has not yet reached the recesses of the land and many
young students of literature are still apparently instructed in the theory of the
'tragic flaw'; a theory which appears at first sight to be a most convenient device
for analysing tragedy but which leads the unfortunate user of it into a quicksand of
absurdities in which he rapidly sinks, dragging the tragedies down with him.2
What then are the history and pedigree and the crimes committed in the name of
this phrase? It is, as Humphrey House wrote, difficult to assign to any single
progenitor. But it is most frequently found in company with references to the
Aristotelian 'hamartia' and seems to have arisen as a misreading of this theory. In
his edition of Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Oxford, 1909), Ingram Bywater refers to
such a misreading, though without using the term 'tragic flaw':
aa1
ciuape'av nvad:al6 d
!aaapriav teyaA7r)v? daprna in the Aristotelian sense of the term is
a mistake or error of judgement (errorin Lat.), and the deed done in consequence of it
is an a'daprprtia(erratum). In the Ethics an addpraprlais said to originate not in vice or
depravity but in ignorance of some material fact or circumstance.... This ignorance, we
are told in another passage, takes the deed out of the class of voluntary acts, and enables
one to forgive or even pity the doer.... In thus making the tragic story turn on an

1 Aristotle's
Poetics, ed. Colin Hardie (London, 1956), p. 94.
2
If it is argued that in any case Aristotle's findings have no bearing on, and ought not to be
applied to, post-classical tragedy one can only disagree. It is true that Romeo and Juliet, The
Duchess of Malfi and Ghosts, for example, do not fit the Aristotelian pattern of the most funda-
mentally tragic drama; but Aristotle also recognized other forms of tragedy and was familiar
with them in the works of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles himself. His pattern play,
Oedipus Tyrannus, and the tragic principles which he deduces from it provide not dogma but a
fruitful approach to the study of the most fully tragic but diverse dramas such as Hamlet,
Macbeth, Faustus, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder, and even to tragic novels such as The
Mayor of Casterbridge. And the theory of 'hamartia' or the 'tragic error', rightly interpreted, is
so obviously fundamental that it is essential to evict the feeble but persistent usurper, vi
'the
MLR
tragic flaw'.
2121 M L.R. LVIII

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322 The Tragic Flaw: is it a Tragic Error?
(a{apTia Aristotle is probably thinking more immediately of the Oedipus Tyrannus
(comp. 14, 1453b 29). It is strange that the daapTlaor ajiaplna jyeyaArlof which Aristotle is
speaking, should have been taken by Tumlirz (l.c. p. 25) and others to mean not an error
of judgement, but some ethical fault or infirmity of character, like those indicated in 15,
1454b 12. The Sophoclean Oedipus is a man of hasty temper (comp. O.T. 807), but his
ajLapitawas not in that, but in the 'great mistake' he made, when he became unwittingly
the slayer of his own father (p. 215).
But we shall find the 'tragic flaw' theory and translation being defended if we enter
another camp, with the followers of an equally eminent classical scholar, S. H.
Butcher. Butcher's translation of the Poetics appeared in 1894 and has been re-
edited and reissued several times since then. If we consult a readily available re-
issue of the 1911 reprint of the 1907 fourth edition,1 we find Butcher's view clearly
expressed:
Distinct from this, but still limited in its reference to a single act, is the moral djIaprla
proper, a fault or error where the act is conscious and intentional, but not deliberate.
Such are acts committed in anger or passion.
Lastly the word may denote a defect of character, distinct on the one hand from an
isolated error or fault, and, on the other, from the vice which has its seat in a depraved
will. This use, though rarer, is still Aristotelian. Under this head would be included any
human frailty or moral weakness, a flaw of character that is not tainted by a vicious
purpose.2
Though Butcher himself is aware of a textual difficulty, as he remarks in a footnote
'It must be owned, however, that jLEya)v7is not a natural adjective to apply to a
mental quality or a flaw in conduct.'
It seems likely that Butcher's translation and commentary fostered the 'tragic
flaw' theory but it was also propagated, perhaps unwittingly, by A. C. Bradley, in
his Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), a work which has more sound sense in it than the
careless misapplications of Bradleyean precepts would lead one to believe. Bradley
himself does not, so far as I am aware, use the phrase 'tragic flaw' but he certainly
implies it in such passages as these:
... the comparatively innocent hero still shows some marked imperfection or defect,
irresolution, precipitancy, pride, credulousness, excessive simplicity, excessive suscepti-
bility to sexual emotion and the like (pp. 35-6).
... his tragic trait, which is also his greatness, is fatal to him (p. 21).
.. one sidedness.. .the fundamental tragic trait (p. 20).
...fatal imperfection or error... (p. 22).
.. his weakness or defect is so intertwined with everything that is admirable in him...
(p. 29).
These lines laid down by Butcher and Bradley appear to have been adopted
unquestioningly by other writers whom the young student is likely to consult, so
that, as we may see from the following quotations, the heresy of the 'tragic flaw' as
the motivation of all and every tragedy is still potent even today :3
...daap-ia (hamartia) is the tragic flaw of Aristotle's theory (H. D. F. Kitto, Greek
Tragedy (1939), p. viii).
1 Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art with a Critical Text of The Poetics,
by S. H.
Butcher, with a Prefatory Essay by John Gassner (New York and London, 1951).
2
Op. cit. pp. 318-19, and note 3.
3 In spite of the vast body of dramatic criticism, particularly of Shakespeare, which has
turned away from the study of character and nearly disembodied the dramatis personae alto-
gether, presenting them as symbols or principles of disorder.

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 ISABEL HYDE 323
Is it an Aristotelian tragedy of character; and if so, what is the &aapTla, the 'tragic flaw'
in Antigone? Or is the central figure not Antigone but Creon? (H. D. F. Kitto, Form
and Meaning in Drama (1956), p. 138.)
The Flaw. Aristotle has eliminated the non-tragic cases: it remains to consider what
he means by error or frailty.
Macneile Dixon is typically frank: 'Whether it means a moral or intellectual error, of
the heart or head, no one has yet discovered....'
As a short answer I suggest that it may be in different tragedies, either; or both com-
bined. Consider first some of the explanations....
(d) A defect of character proper; the joint in the harness, the vulnerable spot in the
body; the flaw which is not in itself vicious, and which will only become vulnerable and
destructive through the 'unfortunate' setting of the tragedy (T. R. Henn, The Harvest
of Tragedy (1956), pp. 24-5).
The fate of even St Joan... is very different from that of Hedda Gabler or Rebecca.
The reason why Rosmersholmis a tragedy and St Joan is not has to do with the necessity
of the tragic flaw (Anthony Hartley, 'The Month', Twentieth Century,no. 996 (February
1960), p. 170).

It is noticeable that, in all these passages, T. R. Henn alone indicates that the
'tragic flaw' is a difficult and complex concept.
Classical scholars are still arguing among themselves as to the interpretation to
be placed upon Aristotle's a'tap-ca and in view of the state of the text it seems un-
likely that any ultimate and definitive pronouncement can be made. Whether or not
Aristotle propounded even in a limited sense a theory of the 'tragic flaw' as a
'mainspring' of tragedy is, however, a matter about which we may have opinions,
ranging ourselves with Bywater and Humphrey House or with Butcher and Kitto
according to our preference for one or another interpretation of the text. But the
student and devotee of the art of tragedy, in the study and in the theatre, may
benefit from a warning: if the so-called doctrine of the 'tragic flaw', in any but the
most limited sense, is made to serve as the mainspring of tragedy it leads to a
narrowing of scope and significance which is stultifying and crippling. On the other
hand, if it is given a very wide significance, it ceases to have any meaning at all.
Let us then consider these facts in relation to specific tragedies, ancient and
modern, bearing in mind the fact that though Aristotle's doctrine of adapi-a was
never intended by him to be applied blindly to all tragedies he does say 'The
theoretically best tragedy, then, has a plot of this description, that is a plot with a
single issue in which the change in the hero's fortunes is from happiness to misery,
not through any depravity but because of' some great error on his part'. We should
notice too that Aristotle distinguishes 'four distinct species of Tragedy' in accord-
ance with the constituents of the plot. He was also conversant with 'a tragic situa-
tion that arouses the human feeling in one, like the clever villain (e.g. Sisyphus)
deceived, or the brave wrong-doer worsted'.l But his conception of the perfect
tragedy inevitably requires the element of aJdap-ra and if this term is translated as
'error' we can trace it in the most fully tragic plays of various periods.
To begin with Aristotle's pattern play, the Oedipus Tyrannus, it is evident that
the 'hamartia' of Oedipus is, as Bywater had indicated, an 'error' which consisted
of Oedipus' ignorance of his true parentage. His strength and weakness of character,
namely his courage and intelligence and his hastiness, then cause him to act in a

Bywater, op. cit. pp. 50, 51, 64, 65.

21-2

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324 The Tragic Flaw: is it a Tragic Error?
particular, and fatal, way but it is the acting in blindness to his own harm1which is
the mainspring of the tragedy, providing the particular tragic irony which is
associated with Sophocles' tragic vision.
Similarly in Hamlet, King Lear, Dr Faustus and Macbeth,to take a range of plays
in which the tragic heroes can, if we wish, be graded in degrees of culpability, the
'mainspring' of the tragedy is not a 'tragic flaw' (thinking too much, vanity,
intellectual arrogance,ambition) but, again, an 'error' of judgement, arising indeed
from the personality and moral calibre of the tragic hero but not based upon any-
thing so limited as a tragic 'flaw', an almost imperceptible if far reachingimperfec-
tion. To say, as young students do annually, that Hamlet's 'tragic flaw' was indeci-
sion, or 'thinking too much', is ridiculous and leaves out of account his many swift,
and indeed often brutal, actions. Moreover it implies that had he killed Claudius
without more ado tragedy would have been avoided, a dangerous and unproven
statement.
Instead of searching for 'tragic flaws' in both the heroes of tragedies and the
supporting characters (Hamlet and Ophelia, Creon and Antigone, Othello and
Desdemona for instance) it is far more fruitful to translate 'hamartia' as 'error' and
interpret it as the precipitating action, or erroneousstep, taken in ignorance (inno-
cent ignorance as with Oedipus or wilful and culpable ignorance as with Macbeth)
which leads eventually to the tragic catastrophe. This is the mainspring of all and
every tragedy in which there is a tragic hero and it is a concept which can be applied
to the most and the least Aristotelian of plays, to OedipusTyrannus, to Macbethor
to Rosmersholm. Moreover, unlike the doctrine of the 'tragic flaw', it opens up a
vast field for discussion of all that combines in any one play to bring about the
'error'. In Hamletand Oedipusit is the very desire of the protagonists to avoid evil,
together with all the strong and weak points in their characterstaken in conjunction
with a particular set of circumstances with 'fate' and 'chance' participating. In
Macbeththe 'error' is both intellectual and moral, as it is in Dr Faustus, the pro-
tagonists imagining that happiness lies only in obtaining a certain power though it
means signing away the soul to obtain it. Faustus deceives himself, without any
external pressure (for the Evil Angel is simply his own worser self) while the evil in
Macbeth calls out to the evil in the Universe and in his own wife. The 'error' which
each makes, however, is the same and the 'realization' is in identical terms:
Faustus: There is no chief but only Belzebub;
To whom Faustus doth dedicate himself.
This word 'damnation' terrifiesnot him,
For he confoundshell in Elysium:
His ghost be with the old philosophers!
But, leaving these vain trifles of men's souls...
Had I as many souls as there be stars,
I'd give them all for Mephistophilis.
By him I'll be great emp'ror of the world. (I, iii)
Macbeth: If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if th' assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. (I, vii)
1 See F. L. Lucas, Tragedyin Relationto Aristotle'sPoetics (1928), pp. 97-105.

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 ISABEL HYDE 325
Faustus: ... for vain pleasure of twenty-four years hath
Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. (v, ii)
Macbeth: If't be so,
For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd;
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace,
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common Enemy of man,
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! (III, i)
The 'error' here is the same, a decision taken in a state of tragic spiritual blind-
ness, and though in these two tragedies it differs from the 'errors' of Hamlet and
Oedipus, nevertheless it is a part of the tragic construction which can be compared
in all these plays whereas the so-called 'tragic flaws' of indecision, ambition, hasti-
ness of temper and intellectual arrogance make very feeble and inefficient main-
springs even if proven.
And what of such a play as Rosmersholm 21 Is it really 'the necessity of the tragic
flaw' that makes it fully tragic in comparison with St Joan ? Mr Hartley2 does not
tell us what Rebecca West's 'tragic flaw' was but it is a waste of time to speculate.
If, however, we ask what was her tragic 'error' and how was it reinforced by cir-
cumstances we can view the play as a tragedy comparable to the great classical and
Elizabethan plays which we have discussed. Rebecca West hoped to achieve free-
dom and happiness and a passionate union for herself and for Rosmer and in her
'free thinking' was prepared to sacrifice the happiness, sanity and life of Rosmer's
wife to obtain her desires. When Beata has killed herself, Rebecca realizes that she
cannot free Rosmer from a sense of guilt until she confesses what she has done and
her confession destroys his trust so that he demands that she kill herself too, to
prove that she loves him as much as Beata did. They go to their death together but
the dead wife and the spirit of Rosmersholm triumph. This is a tragic 'error' of the
kind that Macbeth makes and Rebecca, if she is indeed a tragic heroine, is not one of
those who may be said to be 'more sinned against than sinning'.
If, however, we adopt the rendering of' error' rather than 'flaw' for the Aristotel-
ian 'hamartia' we shall also, as F. L. Lucas indicated,3 be absolved from drawing up
a spiritual balance sheet of debits and credits as the primary significance of any
particular tragedy. The question of conscious intention and responsibility must
concern us and we shall undoubtedly place Hamlet at one end and Macbeth and
Rebecca West at the other end of the scale but we shall be more fruitfully con-
cerned with seeing how they came to act in blindness in the framework of their
dramas than we should ever be in acting as psychiatrists to these characters. We
may at any rate conclude that whatever theory we adopt to account for the precipi-
tation of the tragic catastrophe, it is time that the ghost and the heresy of the
'tragic flaw' were laid finally to rest.
ISABELHYDE
ENGLEFIELD GREEN

1 Some critics would deny that Ibsen intended to produce a tragedy. See an account of the
discussion in Ibsen's Dramatic Method, by J. R. Northam (1953), pp. 126-9.
2 See above, p. 323. 3 Op. cit. p. 99.

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