Do you think first responders rushing to the scene of a tragedy to help victims? Maybe you’re reading this before lunch, and the first thing you think of is a hero sandwich.

While both of these are legitimate types of heroes, they aren’t today’s focus. This article focuses on tragic heroes.

Specifically, we’re going to look at the difference between your average, run-of-the-mill hero and a tragic hero. And because you’re probably here because you need to write an essay about a tragic hero, we’re going to cover that too.

Without further ado, here’s (almost) everything you need to know about tragic heroes.

What Is a Tragic Hero?

Of course, in order to be a tragic hero, one must first be a hero.

A hero is generally a courageous warrior type who is admired by many and who is ready to rush into harm’s way to save individuals (or the entire planet).

So what makes a tragic hero tragic?

The one-sentence definition: Tragic heroes are literary characters (often the protagonist) who make a crucial judgment error that ultimately leads to their downfall.

Of course, there’s more to a tragic hero than a hero who makes a mistake.

Tragic heroes generally possess the following characteristics:

• Tragic heroes are imperfect. The audience sees the character as flawed, and they can relate to and empathize with the hero.
• Tragic heroes are prideful and often suffer more than necessary.
• Tragic heroes are generally someone of high status who experiences a drastic change in fortune (from good to bad).
• The downfall of a tragic hero is evident from the start, but the hero can do nothing to stop it.
• Tragic heroes discover their impending fate and accept it.
• Tragic heroes are harmed (emotionally and/or physically) throughout their lives.
• While tragic heroes learn from their mistakes, they are powerless to control their ultimate fate.
• Tragic heroes must face an important decision. It is often an error in judgment regarding the decision that causes their downfall.

NOTE: While the classic tragic hero was a male from a wealthy and/or powerful family, modern tragic heroes may be any gender and from any background.

How to Write About a Tragic Hero

Writing about a tragic hero is like writing about any other topic in the sense that there are a ton of ways to approach the subject. But unless your assignment specifically states that your essay should list and/or describe a handful of tragic heroes in literature, your essay should do more than merely list examples.

You need to find a focus, and you need to analyze.

Before you do anything, though, you need to decide who you want to write about.

Choose your hero

One of the first steps in writing about a tragic hero is to consider which hero (or heroes) you’ll focus on. This may already be dictated by your assignment, but if you have a choice, consider which heroes speak to you.

Do you want to write about classic Shakespearean tragic heroes like Hamlet or Romeo (from Romeo and Juliet), or will you focus on a more modern tragic hero like Severus Snape from Harry Potter?

If you’re still not sure which hero to select, check out 6 Tragic Hero Examples for a Heroic Essay for inspiration.

Decide your approach

Once you’ve selected your hero(es), decide what type of essay you’ll write.

Not sure how to approach your essay? Here are three ideas.

Character analysis essay

You may choose to develop a character analysis within another type of essay, or you may want to write an entire essay that analyzes your hero’s character.

In this case, the focus of the literary analysis is often to explain how and why your hero fits the definition of a tragic hero.

For instance, let’s say you’re writing about Batman.

Batman fits the classic definition of a tragic hero for the reasons below:

• He’s an educated, intelligent man who comes from a wealthy, powerful family.
• He suffers because his parents were tragically murdered.
• His life becomes more difficult after the death of his parents as he chooses to avenge their deaths and fight crime.
• He is a (relatively) normal person who the audience can relate to and empathize with.
• He possesses a character flaw in that he vows not to kill others. While some may, of course, not see this as an actual flaw, it is what causes Batman to experience more hardships as he does not kill villains when given the chance (which leads to even more crime, hardship, and destruction).

Once you’ve hit the key points to highlight how and why the character fits the definition of a tragic hero, use specific examples from the story to fill in the details and support your claims.

Check out how one student handled a character analysis in Macbeth: A Nihilistic, Self-Loathing Tragic Hero.

Alternatively, your character analysis might conclude that a character is not a tragic hero. To see an example of this strategy in action, read Why Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart Is Not a Tragic Hero.

Compare and contrast essay

If you’re comparing and contrasting two (or more) tragic heroes, don’t simply write a list of similarities and differences. While creating this type of list is a great prewriting strategy, your compare and contrast essay needs to do more than simply identify character traits.

The essay needs a focus. Think about the point you’re trying to make by comparing and contrasting the tragic heroes.

Here’s what I mean.

Imagine you’re writing a compare and contrast essay about the tragic heroes of Shakespeare.

Your paper wouldn’t simply list tragic heroes and identify character traits that are the same or different.

Instead, you would need to develop a clear thesis to let your readers know what exactly you’ll be discussing about Shakespeare’s tragic heroes.

For example, when developing your thesis, you might consider the following questions:

• Does Shakespeare use the same types of tragic heroes in a number of plays? Do Romeo, Hamlet, and Macbeth share more than the basic elements that define a traditional tragic hero?
• Or does Shakespeare mix it up and develop unique characters that portray a tragic hero differently in each play?

Another approach is to compare and contrast two tragic heroes who, on the surface, don’t seem to have much in common but who are ultimately more alike than many would imagine.

Take, for example, Macbeth and Willy Loman (from Death of a Salesman). On the surface, Loman, a salesman trying to provide for his family, and Macbeth, a general who wants nothing more than to be king, seem to have little in common.

Both, however, share a common fatal flaw: ambition. Both men want more out of life and want to move beyond their current stations in life.

Want more ideas of tragic heroes to compare? Check out these essay examples for inspiration:

• Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and Breaking Bad’s Walter White
• Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman and Nora Helmer from A Doll’s House
• Oedipus and Hamlet

Persuasive essay

The goal of a persuasive essay is to convince your audience. One common tragic hero essay assignment is to convince your reader that the real tragic hero in a work is someone aside from the obvious choice.

Here are a few examples

• Creon instead of Antigone
• Brutus instead of Julius Caesar
• Jason instead of Medea

If your professor allows you to be a little more creative in your approach, you might try to convince your readers why you should be considered a tragic hero.

Remember, modern tragic heroes don’t need to be nobility or male, so consider how you might fit the definition of a tragic hero (aside from that whole part about your tragic flaw leading to your demise, of course).

Perhaps your character flaw is lack of self-control, pride, or ambition. Perhaps you’ve suffered in some way because of this flaw, and it has caused hardships in your life.

You might even include some elements of comparison and contrast to illustrate how you compare to a tragic hero on film or in classic literature.

Ready to Write?

Now that you have a better understanding of tragic heroes and are ready to begin writing, take a look at these resources to help you get started:

• 7 Essay Outline Templates to Get Your Essay Going
• How to Write a Thesis Statement in 5 Simple Steps
• 12 Examples of Good Topic Sentences (and Why They Work)

Not sure your paper is the best it can be? Don’t let a poorly written essay be your tragic flaw. Let the editors at Kibin help you improve your writing.

You don’t have to watch an HBO series to get this reaction—characters in books can lead to the same feelings. Whether on screen or in text, many of these characters are what’s known as tragic heroes.

Tragic heroes are the types of characters you really bond with and that you see making mistakes that lead to their death, loneliness, despair, or some other kind of undoing.

Don’t worry if it isn’t all completely clear right now … I’ll explain in more detail what makes a character “tragic” and give you some tragic hero examples you can use as inspiration in your own essay.

What Is a Tragic Hero?

Okay, so you might be wondering what a tragic hero is exactly. The name is a pretty good clue—a hero or protagonist that is, in some way, tragic. But there’s a lot more to it than that.

A tragic hero is a character, usually the main character, who makes a mistake in judgment that ultimately leads to his or her undoing.

Aristotle had a lot to say on the subject of tragic heroes, including certain characteristics their stories possess. Some of these characteristics include some scary-looking Greek words (thanks, Aristotle), but here’s a basic breakdown of what they mean.

• Hamartia: The tragic flaw that leads to the hero’s demise or downfall.
• Hubris: When the hero disrespects the natural order because of his or her own pride.
• Peripeteia: When the hero experiences a reversal of fate.
• Anagnorisis: When the hero makes an important discovery.
• Nemesis: An unavoidable situation the hero is in, typically related to hubris.
• Catharsis: The pity, sadness, or fear the audience feels toward the hero after his or her downfall.

The main two qualities about tragic heroes, though, is that they are just like you and me and that they suffer more than they deserve to.

This is critical to the response writers want to evoke from readers. By making tragic heroes generally neutral on the moral scale, it makes them more relatable, which makes readers upset when they finally die or suffer some other tragic fate.

Furthermore, they must suffer more than they should. This really gets the pity party going in the audience.

Lastly, tragic heroes are undone by their own actions or flaws. They understand this by the end of the play or novel. What’s more, they couldn’t have helped what had happened because their flaw—pride, love, etc.—isn’t something they could control.

How to Choose Your Own Tragic Hero Examples

Now that you’re feeling a little more sure about what a tragic hero is, it’s time to start looking for tragic heroes in the literature you’re reading.

Probably the easiest place you’re going to find a tragic hero (but maybe not the easiest to read about) are from William Shakespeare. He’s kind of the king of tragic heroes.

Pretty much any tragedy he wrote has one, and the tragic hero is typically a title character—Romeo, King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth … the list goes on. (I’ll give more details about a couple of these later.)

But Shakespeare wasn’t the first, last, or only author to use this type of character in literature. So how do you find tragic hero examples of your own?

First, pick a tragedy. Now, it doesn’t necessarily have to be labeled as a tragedy. You can choose from epic poems, young adult novels, and even children’s books. The point is that something tragic happens to one of the characters. They don’t have to die—they just have to suffer.

To be a tragic hero, characters don’t have to die—they just have to suffer.
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Secondly, as you are reading, pay attention to your connection to the character.

• Can you relate to him or her?
• Does he or she have human flaws?
• Do you feel bad about his or her downfall?

Answering yes to all of these questions is a pretty clear sign you have a tragic hero on your hands.

Lastly, think about the reason for the character’s downfall. Even if it’s technically by the hand of someone else, if it can be traced back to the flaw of the hero, it makes the situation tragic.

• Uncle Ben from Spiderman, for example, is not a tragic hero. He died in a random act of violence, not because of any flaw he possessed.

• Cinna from The Hunger Games, on the other hand, was killed by the Capitol, but because of his own pride and rebellious nature. And all the readers felt awful about it. He’s not a main character, but I’d argue that he’s a tragic hero.

6 Tragic Hero Examples for a Heroic Essay

Want a little bit of help getting started? Here are a few tragic hero examples I was able to find. First, let’s address two from the king of tragic heroes himself—Mister Bill Shakespeare.

1. Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his indecisiveness and obsession. He’s a smart guy, but he gets stuck in his head a lot. How does his indecisiveness and obsession lead to his downfall?

Well … he has to avenge the death of his father but doesn’t act quickly. Instead, he remains indecisive about whether his uncle, Claudius, was the murderer.

Even after he discovers his uncle killed his father, he can’t decide on how to enact his revenge and obsesses over it. Because he wastes all of his time trying to decide what to do, his uncle is able to poison Hamlet’s drink.

Hamlet’s mother drinks it by mistake and dies, after which Hamlet overcomes his flaw, kills Claudius, and promptly dies.

2. Romeo from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Romeo is undone by his heads-over-heels, hyper-emotional love for Juliet. While love itself is not a tragic flaw, a love so fast and heavy is.

Romeo’s obsessive love is what causes him to kill himself at the thought of Juliet being dead (if he had held out another hour or two, he would’ve been fine). And inadvertently, it’s Romeo’s suicide that causes Juliet’s death.

I could write a whole post about Shakespearean tragic heroes, but how about tragic hero examples from some different authors?

3. Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jay Gatsby is a tragic hero because he dies chasing an ideal that will never come true.

Unlike Romeo, Gatsby is completely idealistic in his love for Daisy—he’ll do anything for her, but she wouldn’t do the same for him. It’s not her fault, though. Gatsby is so busy reaching for an ideal that he’s never satisfied.

He surrounds himself with money and parties even though he doesn’t take any real pleasure from them. In fact, he says it’s all for Daisy.

When he finally gets the girl, he still isn’t satisfied. But he takes the blame for Daisy hitting Myrtle with a car and gets shot because of it.

Tragic.

4. Severus Snape from the Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Severus Snape, I have to admit, is a tragic hero according to many readers, but others might not think so. That’s the point of your essay though, right? To prove a character is a tragic hero.

So it doesn’t matter if some people say Snape isn’t, as long as you can back your writing up with evidence that he is.

Spoiler alert: If you aren’t up to speed on this series, you might want to skip the next paragraph.

Snape’s flaw is his undying love for Lily—even after she’s long gone. He watches after Harry even though he really doesn’t like him and serves as a double agent for Dumbledore against Voldemort (who killed Lily).

It’s this last relationship that is his undoing. He dies trying to protect Lily’s only son while working against her murderer.

5. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Peter Pan as a Disney character is a happy-go-lucky kind of kid. But literarily speaking, he’s a tragic hero. His flaw is his fear of growing up or getting old.

It’s because of this flaw that he ends up alone—everyone grew up and moved on except for him. He forgets everything within a very short time, which, honestly, makes the whole story even sadder.

6. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

The Giving Tree is maybe the first tragic hero example many of us ever read. The Tree’s flaw is that it loves the boy more than itself. It gives and gives and gives different parts of itself over the years until there’s nothing left but a stump in the ground.

The Tree’s love and giving nature literally whittles it down to almost nothing.

Need some more inspiration, check out these tragic hero essay examples:

• Willy Loman as the Tragic Hero in the Play, Death of a Salesman
• Describing the Tragic Hero in the Epic Poem, Paradise Lost
• The Tragic Hero of Dick Diver in the Novel Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Different Approaches You Can Take With Your Essay

There are lots of ways you can approach your essay, but before you get too creative, check out the assignment instructions first. If your instructor wants you to write a five-paragraph essay, that’s what you need to do.

However, if you have more creative leeway, try thinking outside the box a little bit. You could write an alternate history. Think and write about what would have happened if the character had overcome a tragic flaw sooner.

Another option is writing your essay like a mock interview with the character explaining his or her actions, the reason for taking those actions, whether he or she would’ve done anything differently.

There are a number of different angles you could take with your essay, so use your imagination. If you’re having second thoughts about your approach, you can have the Kibin editors look it over. They’ll make sure your essay doesn’t end up as a tragedy.

Heroes can be, and usually are, real people. And that’s exactly what we’re going to focus on when writing a hero essay–who your real-life hero is and why.

What Is a Hero Essay?

Before we get started on how to make your hero essay awesome, we first must answer the question what is a hero essay?

Put simply, a hero essay is one in which you describe someone you look up to or admire. This could be a family member, teacher, community leader, friend, celebrity, or even a random stranger who did a kind deed.

When writing about whoever you end up choosing, keep in mind that the hero essay is not just describing what the person is like. You need to expand on certain qualities that you admire in the person, and why you admire those qualities. Unlike Professor X, your reader can’t read your mind, so you have to make those connections in your writing. To bring your hero to life on the page, it also helps to have examples or anecdotes of those qualities.

Now let’s get into the technical side of writing a hero essay. For the purposes of my examples, I’m going to use one of the heroes I mentioned above–Batman!

Steps for Writing a Hero Essay

The first thing you want to do is choose your hero. Obviously, for me, it’s Batman. For you, choose someone who you can write a whole essay on. You don’t want to wind up halfway through your essay with nothing left to say–which brings me to the next step.

To ensure that you have a fully fleshed out essay, it’s best to make an outline. This way you’ll know in which order to write your details, and you’ll know that your essay will be fully developed by the time you’re done writing it.

Every essay–and, thus, every essay outline–should have at least three things: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Hero essays are no different.

Introduction

Your hero essay introduction should include three main components:

• A hook: The hook is the first sentence or two of your introduction and is what grabs your reader’s attention. Whether this is a quote, anecdote or statistic, be sure your hook draws readers in and leaves them wanting more.
• A little bit of background: Your hero essay will probably be about someone you know (though it doesn’t have to be). Therefore, your reader probably won’t know who the person is–and even if they do, include some background information anyway. This could mean a brief description of your relationship to the person, or any details–such as their occupation, hobbies, etc.–that are relevant to setting up your essay.
• Your thesis statement: The thesis statement is where the introduction all comes together. It’s what explains exactly what you’re writing about and provides a brief preview of your essay to the reader.

My introduction might look something like this:

The city of Gotham is one of the most crime-ridden places in the country, not because of  petty crimes, but because of  true criminal masterminds. But one man has dedicated his life to ridding the streets of evildoers, making the city safe for its citizens–Batman. Batman is a hero to not just me, but to an entire city because of his timeliness in responding to danger, his unwavering sense of justice, and his awesome gadgets.

Body

You probably noticed that I included three different qualities in my thesis statement (timeliness, justice and awesome gadgets), which would make my hero essay a 5-paragraph essay. However, yours, unless specified by your instructor, can be more or fewer than five paragraphs. The key is to write a complete story that clearly depicts your hero.

No matter how many paragraphs are in the body sections of your hero essay, each paragraph should have at least three elements:

• A topic sentence: Your topic sentence lets the reader know what the main idea of the paragraph is.
• Support for the topic sentence: For a hero essay, your support will usually come in the form of one or more anecdotes. These serve as examples to back up your point.
• A good transition to the next paragraph: Transitions are important because they make your writing flow. Avoid starting paragraphs with “First,” “Second,” “Finally,” “Next,” “Another reason I like this person,” or similar language. Phrases like these make your writing sound immature and clunky. Putting a good transition at the end of your paragraphs enables you to go right into the next paragraph and avoid all those useless words.

I’m only going to show you my first body paragraph, but I think you’ll get the point.

Batman may cut it close sometimes, but he manages to save most people just in time. When the Joker threw Batman’s love interest, Rachel, off of a building, Batman jumped after her and protected her as they fell, which saved her life. Batman also saved Commissioner Gordon who was attacked by gangster Alberto Holliday while escorting Holliday’s rival, Sal Maroni, to jail. Of course Batman can’t possibly save everyone on time–he’s just one man. But because of  his clear sense of justice, he tries to save as many people as possible.

Conclusion

At last we come to the conclusion. This does not have to be as long as your body paragraphs. It needs only two important things:

• A brief summary of what you wrote about: Don’t simply restate your thesis statement. You’ve gone into a fair amount of detail since then, and you want the summary to reflect that.
• A closing statement: This should give your hero essay a sense of closure. Think about why your hero is important and why you or other people want to emulate this person.

Here’s what my conclusion would look like:

Batman has saved countless lives–including Rachel, Commissioner Gordon, and many citizens of Gotham–and in many cases just in time. Because of his commitment to justice, he refuses to kill or harm anyone, including his nemeses, and commits acts of selflessness without pay or other incentives. In addition to his incredible personal qualities, he also has amazing gadgets, like boomerangs, the Batmobile, and smoke bombs, to help him achieve justice on the streets of Gotham. Perhaps if more people were this moral and selfless (and had the right tools for the job), the whole world could stop evildoers in their tracks, just like Batman.

Tips to Make Your Hero Essay Super

Now that you have the basics down, it’s time for a couple helpful hints on how to go from an okay hero essay to a great one.

1. Pick a person people might not expect. Your instructor has probably read a dozen or more hero essays by the time he or she gets to yours. One way to make yours stand out is to choose to write about someone unexpected. This could be a younger sibling that has overcome adversity or the homeless man who helped push cars up a hill in a snowstorm.
2. On the same note, pick qualities that people might not expect. If you don’t have any unexpected people to write about, or you just simply don’t want to, another option is writing about unexpected qualities. Most people can look up to someone for their kindness, generosity, intelligence, or even fame. But writing about someone’s creativity, courage, determined spirit, or optimism in extreme misfortune can be a fresh take on a common essay theme.

These are just two ways to make your hero essay more nuanced. A little bit of complexity and out-of-the-box thinking in your writing will take it to the next level. Just think about it this way, it’s better to have a Dark Knight essay (nuanced and complex) than an Adam West Batman essay (simple and a little corny).

It’s better to have a Dark Knight essay (nuanced) than an Adam West Batman essay (corny).
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Remember this:

Not this:

I hope that I’ve given you enough to get those creative juices flowing. If you finish your hero essay and you still don’t think it’s up to par, send it over to one of the Kibin editors. They’ll help you make it great.

Happy writing!