Examples Of Heroism In The Great Gatsby

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A tragic hero is a character that makes an error that eventually leads to the characters destruction. Traits of a tragic hero consist of hamartia which is the fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero, peripetia that is the sudden reversal of fate, and catharsis being the emotion of the characters toward the tragic hero. Gatsby in The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an example of a tragic hero. Certain events that occur in The Great Gatsby, prove that Gatsby is indeed a tragic hero. Hamartia, peripetia, and catharsis are tragic hero traits that Gatsby has that eventually leads to his unfortunate death.
Gatsby is understood to have hamartia because he is such a naive person, meaning that he cannot see the selfishness
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Miss Baker’s a great sportswomen, you know, and she’d never do anything that wasn’t all right” (71). This proves how naive Gatsby was because in reality Jordan was a very dishonest sportswomen and she did numerous things that were not …show more content…
Gatsby was living the American Dream to the fullest but there was one piece that was missing and that piece was Daisy. Gatsby’s fate was to take Daisy away from Tom and win her heart back but instead he ends up being murdered by George Wilson which ends his dream of being together with Daisy. Gatsby’s fate is completely reversed when Nick describes walking up to the bodies of both Gatsby and George saying, “It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete” (162). Instead of Gatsby’s dream coming true everything ends in a murder suicide which is the complete opposite of what Gatsby ever dreamed of. Peripetia is also shown with how Daisy does not live up to Gatsby’s dreams yet Gatsby still clings on to her. This can be shown through many examples with how Gatsby moved to West Egg directly across from Daisy in East Egg in hopes that she would stumble into one of his parties, and how Gatsby expected Daisy to abandon Tom after being together for five years to be with him. Gatsby had all these ideas and expectations for his life yet some of the things he yearned for never happened that can be shown when Nick says, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams, not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion”