Julius Caesar Tragic Hero Essay

QUESTION 2
This is a perplexing question to which there is no simple answer. In the same way that Shakespeare titled a play The Merchant of Venice, when the merchant, Antonio, is not the primary character in the play; in Julius Caesar, Caesar is not primary to the action that continues throughout the play. In both of these plays, however, the title character (in this case, Caesar) serves as the catalyst for action that is central to the play.As for Brutus, the term "hero" can be misleading. We tend to think of a hero as someone who swoops in and saves the day, someone we would like to emulate. A super-hero is a good example of this sort of hero. However, if you consider the definition of tragic hero as it was described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in hisPoetics, then we have a very different definition of "hero."As defined by Enotes, a tragic hero is the main character in a tragedy. The modern use of the term usually involves the notion that such an hero makes an error in his actions that leads to his or her downfall.. . .Aristotle . . is quite clear in his pronouncement that the hero's misfortune is not brought about "by vice and depravity but by some error of judgment." In fact, in Aristotle's Poetics it is
All My Sons is the story of the Kellers, so we do not see much of Ann's reaction to the realization that her father was largely innocent after all. She functions in this act as a catalyst, a femme fatale in the literal sense, the woman who brings destruction to the false calm of the Kellers' life by churning up a past that some of the family, in some ways, has tried to ignore. She and George have their own family drama, but Miller keeps a tight focus, so Ann's and George's story is not the subject of this play except inasmuch as their disgust for their father heightens the tension between another son and a father who might be