All the tragic heroes in Shakespeare’s plays are strong characters and one of their attributes causes their rise and the excess of the same attribute causes their downfall. Some of the attributes of Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes are:
a) Hamartia – This represents a fatal flaw that the hero has that causes his downfall.
b) Pathos – This represents that particular action, whose consequences will be fatal.
c) Hubris – Excessive Pride
d) Narcissus – Being in love with himself. This is a curse.
e) Peripetia – Reversal in context, but the hero doesn’t realize that and continues to do what whatever he was doing.
f) Anagnorosis – Point of recognition.
g) Angulimaal Point – Point of no return. Non-reversible.
h) Nemesis – A justly deserved penalty, retribution.
i) Catharsis – Purification, Purgation. Sense of pity and fear will have catharsis effect on people reading Shakespeare because of secondary experience and it has emotional cleansing impact.
A tragic hero follows a graph, where on Y axis is the growth due to the attributes and on x-axis is the time. Initially there is a meteoric rise of the hero because of his attribute, e.g. say Hamartia. However, a threshold point 1 (T1) is reached at which the growth becomes stagnant and infact the downfall starts. This point is called Peripetia. Though, a constant growth path can still be charted out, the Hero doesn’t realize that because of Hubris. If the hero realizes that, he can still go back, however, as time passes it becomes increasingly difficult, until it reaches the Threshold point 2 (T2), called Metamoia. As you approach this point, the transition becomes Herculean task and the hero avoids it. By having no corrective actions between T1 and T2, the fall of the hero accelerates beyond T2, until it reaches point T3, called Angulimaal Point. This is the point of no return. The path to go back from here is almost impossible. The hero even if he realizes, would not go back and would rather undergo the consequences. He has to undergo the consequences irrespective. Further fall brings to the point of Anagnorosis where the Hero realizes but it is too late. From here follows death, decay, oblivion, derailment and shame.
On the x-axis as time progresses, there is also an increasing masculinity (assertiveness, desire for material goods) and that squeezes femininity. This hastens the fall. The learning for we future leaders is how to prevent ourselves from reaching Peripetia and even if we reach Peripetia, we can guard ourselves by having mentors, confidants and having a feedback mechanism in place. However, the time duration between T1 and T2 is very short and coming back on track from here becomes increasingly difficult as times passes.
To avoid reaching Peripetia, it is important to have strong Emotional Intelligence which comprises of Self Awareness (Introspection, feedback and Psychometric), Self Regulation (assertiveness), Maslow Hierarchy, Empathy (listening) and Social Skills (Networking – driven by commonality of interest).
