Hamartia

[4][5] However, other critics point to the term's derivation and say that it refers only to a tragic but random accident or mistake, with devastating consequences but with no judgment implied as to the character.

In tragedy, hamartia is commonly understood to refer to the protagonist's error that leads to a chain of actions which culminate in a reversal of events from felicity to disaster.

[6]In his introduction to the S. H. Butcher translation of Poetics, Francis Fergusson describes hamartia as the inner quality that initiates, as in Dante's words, a "movement of spirit" within the protagonist to commit actions which drive the plot towards its tragic end, inspiring in the audience a build of pity and fear that leads to a purgation of those emotions, or catharsis.

[7][8] Jules Brody, however, argues that "it is the height of irony that the idea of the tragic flaw should have had its origin in the Aristotelian notion of hamartia.

Hamartia is a morally neutral non-normative term, derived from the verb hamartanein, meaning 'to miss the mark', 'to fall short of an objective'.

"[9] In a Greek tragedy, for a story to be "of adequate magnitude" it involves characters of high rank, prestige, or good fortune.

Poetic justice describes an obligation of the dramatic poet, along with philosophers and priests, to see that their work promotes moral behavior.

[16] Hyde calls upon another description from A.C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy of 1904 which she contends is misleading: ...the comparatively innocent hero still shows some marked imperfection or defect, irresolution, precipitancy, pride, credulousness, excessive simplicity, excessive susceptibility to sexual emotion and the like...his weakness or defect is so intertwined with everything that is admirable in him...[17]Hyde goes on to elucidate interpretive pitfalls of treating hamartia as tragic flaw by tracing the tragic flaw argument through several examples from well-known tragedies including Hamlet and Oedipus Rex.

Instead, to focus on his ignorance of the true identity of his parents as the foundation of his downfall takes into account all of his decisions that lead to the tragic end.

Mid-twentieth-century scholar Phillip W. Harsh sees hamartia as tragic flaw, observing that Oedipus assumes some moral ownership of his demise when he reacts excessively with rage and murder to the encounter at the crossroads.

[18] Van Braam, on the other hand, notes of Oedipus' hamartia, "no specific sin attaching to him as an individual, but the universally human one of blindly following the light of one's own intellect.

[18] Bremer observes that the Messenger in Oedipus Rex says, "He was raging - one of the dark powers pointing the way, ...someone, something leading him on - he hurled at the twin doors and bending the bolts back out of their sockets, crashed through the chamber,".

[22] Bremer cites Sophocles' mention of Oedipus being possessed by "dark powers" as evidence of guidance from either divine or daemonic force.