Playing the Part of the Hero The tragic story of Hamlet is based on one of the oldest stories in the world. The character of Hamlet is cursed with the characteristics that create a tragic hero. These characteristics include his one tragic flaw and how he suffers from it, his nobility in life and in admitting his flaw, and finally his salvation and how he realizes why he must keep a good soul.All tragic heroes possess one characteristic, or flaw, that causes suffering in their personal lives. Hamlet's tragic flaw is his indecisiveness, which stems from his fear of being sent to hell for his sins on Earth. Hamlet expresses this fear, after the players perform: "Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wanned, Tears in his eyes...And all for nothing! For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba...Yet I... Can say nothing, not for a king Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. (II.ii.538-59)This fear prevents Hamlet from feeling the many joys of life including loyalty to his family and ambition. Hamlet attempts to show loyalty to his mother by obeying everything she asks and nothing that Claudius asks. However, after the players perform, Hamlet loses his loyalty when his mother refers to Claudius as Hamlet's father. She declares, "Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended." To this reference Hamlet responds, "Mother, you have my father much offended" (III.iv.9-10). Hamlet suggests that by calling Claudius his father, Gertrude is offending his true father, King Hamlet Also, because of his fear of hell, Hamlet lacks ambition. This ambition, if he possessed it, would allow him to kill Claudius in revenge for his own father's murder and allow him to admit his love for Ophelia. In fact, as Hamlet scolds Ophelia for no longer being a beautiful virgin, he states, "...for virtue c...
