Comparative Essay
As John F Kennedy one said, “The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.” Tragedy can be defined as a negative outcome of decisions or events that occur in a person’s life. With tragedy comes the need to purge oneself of the guilt of causing the catastrophe around them. Whether it is in a literary piece of work or reality, tragedy can found all around us. The Scarlet Letter and Macbeth are representations of tragedy as their tragic heroes experience catastrophe through Aristotle’s elements of tragedy.
Within the very beginning of these novels the guilt and remorse felt by the protagonist for their actions and decisions is created. In both cases hubris and hamartia is identified by the tragic hero themselves, as in an internal monologue they foreshadow that their flaws are what will bring them to ruin. In Macbeths case it is his ambition “I have no spur/ to prick the sides of my intent, but only/ vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself/ and falls on the other” (Act 1 Scene 7), this in turn aids Macbeth in his quest to become and remain king. Similarly Arthur Dimmesdale does this as well but only after a sufficient amount of negative events force him to realize that he will not be free of his guilty conscience unless he reveals himself as Hester’s fellow sinner “He took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to Roger Chillingworth, disregarded the lesson that he should have drawn from them, and did his best to root them out” (Page 145). Although both protagonists realize that they have a flaw that will hinder them from relieving themselves their problems, they choose to disregard it. By doing this they believe that they will overcome their flaws and prosper in the future but instead it brings them destruction and catastrophe as they are unable to overcome this fatal weakness, which will cause them tremendous guilt and...