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Heroes and Blame in Greek Literature

 

            Blame is defined as assigning the responsibility for a fault or wrong. In most literary tragedies, the hero is to blame for the tragic fall he or she undergoes. The responsibility for downfall is clear through analysis of a hero's free-willed actions, state of ignorance, and tragic nature. Aristotle assigns the blame of a downfall in a tragedy to the hero based on a mistake he or she makes while exercising free will. Aristotle's description of this tragic error, commonly referred to as Hamartia, supports the belief that the tragic change in fortune a hero undergoes is not due to "any moral defect or depravity"" (Poetics, 21) given by an author, but to a mistake he makes at a pivotal point in a story. For example, a hero commits a crime not because his character was given an inability to tell right from wrong, but because he freely chooses to do so. Interpreters such as Heath back up Aristotle's view on hamartia, stating that while influencing aspects of a story controlled by an author, such as personality, may make the tragic error "understandable ", because the error itself has "no moral content at all", it is still blameworthy"" (Poetics, xxxii). .
             Prior to the change in fortune of a hero, an author reveals information that can potentially prevent downfall, and the hero's ability to either act upon or reject this new information constitutes blame for their fall. In Jean Anouilh's Antigone, Creon makes a final plea to convince Antigone that dying for her brother Polynices is foolish, making sure she is aware of the "squalid story " she is about to put her "little bloodstained name to"" (41). Once it is revealed that she would be dying for a traitor, Antigone still refuses to be saved, proclaiming "I've chosen death"" (48), proving that her previous ignorance of the situation was not the cause of her downfall and execution, it was a choice of her own. Similarly, in Oedipus the King, Oedipus is given the chance to learn the truth about his real parents when the blind prophet Tiresias accuses him of being "all unknowing,"" and shouts "you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood"" (Sophocles, 183).


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