In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan, one of the main characters in the story, exhibits all the qualities of a tragic hero.

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Aristotle’s tragic hero has certain characteristics which can be applied to Oedipus the King and Milton’s Satan. Aristotle states that a tragic hero can be classified as a person that falls from the state of being happy to one of misery because of his own mistake. This can be seen in both Oedipus and Satan, since they are miserable as a result of their own doing. According to Aristotle, the  hero must fall through his or her own error, or hamartia. This term is also interpreted as "tragic flaw", usually applied to overwhelming pride, or hubris, which causes fatal error. Satan and Oedipus show that they have hubris and this is probably one of the main contributing factors for their fall. Although, the main characteristic of the tragic hero, as stated by Aristotle, is their ability to make the reader or audience to empathize with them, he wants there to be a sense of fear and mistrust because of their devious nature.

        In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan, one of the main characters in the story, exhibits all the qualities of a tragic hero. He has fallen, literally and figuratively, from grace. Once one of God’s more powerful angels in heaven, Satan questions God’s power and forms an alliance to overthrow Him. Satan’s army fights diligently only to have God “…cast him out from Heaven, With all his host of rebel angels…” (Paradise Lost, Book1, Line 37). Book One of Paradise Lost describes Satan being cast out of Heaven and down to Hell. This is consistent with Aristotle’s criteria for the tragic hero, “… suffering a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of a mistaken act…”

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Satan also possesses hubris; pride or overwhelming self-confidence.

“Here we may reign secure, and in my choice;

To reign is to worth ambition, though in Hell;

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” (line 261)

Here, Satan has so much pride that he would rather rule in Hell than serve God in Heaven. This shows that Satan possesses hubris, which is, as described by Aristotle, “…pride or overwhelming self-confidence”.

Satan’s character as a tragic hero emerges further in later books. Book Four of Paradise Lost is a good example. It begins with Satan’s only soliloquy of the ...

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