A tragic hero has multiple definitions that vary by culture but they all have a basic requirement, the individual need to have a reversal of fortune brought on by a tragic flaw or a decision that leads to his or her downfall or demise. Many pieces of literature such as Antigone by Sophocles or A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams use the tragic heroes Antigone and Blanche to stress main points and themes in their work. Tragic heroes don’t only exist in literature there seen in everyday life, in magazine’s, on the news and the Internet. Lindsay Lohan’s is a prime example of one of these modern day tragic heroes, her tragic flaws brought upon her downfall similar to the characters Antigone and Balance.
Antigone is the perfect mold for a tragic hero; She has both flaws and actions that lead to her downfall. “An effective tragic hero, Aristotle says, is neither thoroughly good nor thoroughly evil. He or she suffers more misfortune than is deserved, but also nourishes a fatal flaw that animates the course of events. We pity the hero, but also fear for ourselves, feeling our own flaws vulnerable to a convergence of external forces - luck, circumstance, the gods, fate - that will get some tragic ball rolling.”(Solie 1). Antigone is the king’s daughter, blessed with good fortune she had everything people desired money, wealth and family in a time where most people were either very rich and powerful or poor and oppressed. This was all taken away when her mother and father killed themselves out of shame, her brothers killed each other for power and her power hungry uncle takes over the throne. These tragedies influence the reader to develop sympathy for Antigone and lead to a better understanding of Antigone’s belief and fatal flaw that she holds moral law above written law. “I shall be a criminal- but a religious one”(Antigone 84-85). This fatal flaw causes Antigone to bury her brother Polyneices go against the king, her uncle Creon even thought it would mean inevitable death. Antigone’s death is one of an extreme tragic hero; Antigone’s flaws and the situation didn’t only reverse her good fortune it resulted in her death.
As time goes on and changes so does literature. The mold of the perfect tragic hero changes based on influences in culture and conflicts in that time period. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams Blanche is a perfect example of how tragic hero’s circumstances change based on social problems in that time period. Blanch and Antigone may have lived hundreds of years apart but both tragic heroes had similar lives that led to their demises. They both faced the loss of power, family and wealth. Blanch was a wealthy southern bell born into money and power in her community. Everyone in her family except her sister Stella dies, she loses everything and she is haunted by the suicide of her husband that she feels she caused. Antigone was a daughter of a king born into the royal bloodline that comes with wealth and power. Antigone’s parents commit suicide because of her and her sibling’s conception; this suicide causes internal conflict in her family and leads to the death of everyone but her sister Ismene. They both lived in a time where were men were superior and they were abused because of their lack of power. Blanche is forced to live with Stella’s tyrant of a husband Stanley that abuses her mentally with the reminder of her flaws and physically by maliciously raping her. Antigone’s abusive power hungry uncle Creon takes control of the throne and puts in place laws she doesn’t agree with. In times of desperation, they turned to there the last family member they had left, their sister’s for help. Conflicted about what to do about being raped Blanche turns to the only person she has left and asked for the help of her sister Stella, that turns the cold shoulder on her and leads to her institutionalization and downfall. Antigone doesn’t know what to do about the forbidden burial of her brother except ask her sister Ismene for help. Ismene refuses to help her sister and causes Antigone to perform the actions that lead to her death and downfall. Even though Antigone and Blanche lived in different time eras they faced many of the same social conflicts that lead to their demises and allow for them to be considered tragic heroes.
Tragic heroes don’t exclusively exist in different forms of literature. In the modern day, there are living people that live similar lives to these tragic heroes we read about. Lindsay Lohan is one of theses modern day real life tragic heroes; she was a rich and wealthy actress with a promising future in film. “Her father - an impulsive and reckless figure given to fits of sudden rage -had been beset by legal troubles and was sent to prison for three years”(Chocano 1). Similar to Blanche Lindsay had multiple mental health problems brought on by traumatizing experiences in her life. One of those experiences was the absence of her father. Losing someone close to both Blanche and Lindsay, even for a short period of time in Lindsay’s case was traumatizing for both of them it leads to the abuse of drugs and alcohol and institutionalization. “There, she experiences a series of mysterious afflictions and is repeatedly institutionalized by patriarchal figures amid struggles to gain control over her estate and mental health. The excesses of her ancestors (cocaine abuse, alcoholism and D.U.I.'s) come back to haunt her”(Chocano 1). Like Blanch, Lindsay lost almost all of her wealth and is still struggling mentally to survive in her society. “They've willingly become the tragic heroes and doomed heroines in our collective tales of terror, abjection, and ridicule. And in the eternal return of the Internet, they come back to haunt us as they themselves are haunted, sometimes more than 30 times a day”(Chocano 1). Unlike Blanch, Unfortunately for Lindsay she lives in the modern technological day where her flaws and faults still haunt her this causes her to relive the life of a tragic hero.
Characters or tragic heroes like Antigone and Blanch live on in different types of literature for our entertainment, but there’s another type of tragic heroes that most people don’t know about. This other type of tragic hero is athletes, politicians and celebrities. People like Lindsay Lohan are more and more common cursed with being stuck in the spotlight of a modern technological world. These people have nowhere to hide with the Internet, television and social media monitoring their every move intensifying their conditions and making recovery harder. Although it is interesting and entertaining to follow these modern day tragic hero stories, people need to realize that tragic heroes like Lindsay Lohan are real people and not fantasy characters like Blanche and Antigone and we need to respect their privacy and treat them as such.
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