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According to A.C. Bradley, a Shakespearean tragedy is a tale of exceptional sufferings and calamities leading to the death of a man in a high social position. In Shakespeare, a tragic hero is a man of high social position - a King or a Prince. The tragic hero falls from his lofty position and he has some tragic flaws. He arouses pity and fear in the minds of the audience. 

Traditionally, a tragic hero comes from a ghost society or a high position in life. Ours Hamlet comes from the royal family. He is the Prince Hamlet of Denmark. King Hamlet is his father. A tragic hero suffers from conflicts both external and internal. Similarly, in Hamlet, we find the internal conflict in the mind of the hero Hamlet. His conflict is obvious in the following soliloquy-- "To be or not be". 

The tragic hero is influenced by a supernatural agent. Supernatural elements play a very vital role in the life of the hero. In the tragedy Hamlet, Hamlet is influenced profusely by the Ghost. With the information about the Ghost, Hamlet wants to kill his father's murderer. The Ghost of Hamlet's father motivates the action of the play. Every tragic hero has some tragic flaw. Similarly, Hamlet has some tragic flaws. People have spoken about Hamlet's inability to seek revenge, his irresolute nature, his moral idealism, his mental suffering, and the conflict in his mind. Hamlet's most serious flaw is perhaps the genuinely loving and exquisitely beautiful Ophelia. 

Hamlet is a play about the suffering of its hero, the prince  Hamlet of Denmark. Thus he is a man of the estate just like King Lear, Macbeth and Othello are in other Shakespearean tragedies. We know that he dies in the end and leaves behind a trail of dead bodies. The tragic hero must arouse pity and fear in the mind of the audience. In the play Hamlet, the tragic hero Hamlet has obesity and fear in our minds. 

From the above discussion, we can say that almost all the characteristics of a tragic hero are present in Hamlet. So Hamlet is a successful tragic hero. But he is not traditional as Aristotle's terms. He is a modern tragic hero.

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