A man with outstanding quality, whose own destruction is for a greater cause or purpose is known as a tragic hero. According to Aristotle, the hero's misfortune is not wholly deserved. The punishment exceeds the crime. The fall [of the hero] is not pure loss; there is some increase in awareness, some gain of self-knowledge, some discovery on the part of the tragic hero.
In the American play, Death of a Salesman, the protagonist, Willy Loman can be seen as a tragic hero. He is clearly misunderstood and his own delusional flaws lead to his own demise. The Shakespearean play King Lear also has a tragic hero, the king himself. King Lear may not be misunderstood, only underhanded, but he is the cause of the plots against him. This is so because of his own delusions on flattery which he made his two elder daughters use against him. Lear in himself was not a bad person, only prone to harsh and passionate reasoning and conclusions. Both Willy and Lear were blinded by their flawed perspectives and became victimized by those flaws and the other characters around them.
Referring to the definition noted earlier, Willy left Biff a large sum of money which will end up helping his whole family for quite a long time. This could be an advantage of Willy's suicidal act. Nonetheless, does this act make him a hero to his son or even more of a fool? Lear is looked at as someone who has suffered greatly, moving from being kicked out and mistreated by his two elder daughters, to losing his sanity, to losing his beloved daughter and his life. He only looks like a tragic character because there is no one to reap from his great feat. All his daughters are dead and he has no heir, everything basically falls to one of his son in laws. However with Lear being who the story is about he is a tragic hero, even when he has done nothing heroic.
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