There are two theories that have been used to
explain ancient and modern tragedy. Neither quite
explains the complexity of the tragic process or the
tragic hero, but each explains important elements
of tragedy, and, because their conclusions are
contradictory, they represent extreme views. The first
theory states that all tragedy exhibits the workings
of external fate. Of course, the overwhelming
majority of tragedies do leave us with a sense of the
supremacy of impersonal power and of the limitation
of human effort. But this theory of tragedy is an
oversimplification, primarily because it confuses
the tragic condition with the tragic process: the
theory does not acknowledge that fate, in a tragedy,
normally becomes external to the hero only after
the tragic process has been set in motion. Fate, as
conceived in ancient Greek tragedy, is the internal
balancing condition of life. It appears as external
only after it has been violated, just as justice is an
internal quality of an honest person, but the external
antagonist of the criminal. Secondarily, this theory
of tragedy does not distinguish tragedy from irony.
Irony does not need an exceptional central figure:
as a rule, the more ignoble the hero the sharper the
irony, when irony alone is the objective. It is heroism
that creates the splendor and exhilaration that is
unique to tragedy. The tragic hero normally has an
extraordinary, often a nearly divine, destiny almost
within grasp, and the glory of that original destiny
never quite fades out of the tragedy.
  The second theory of tragedy states that the
act that sets the tragic process in motion must be
primarily a violation of moral law, whether human
or divine; in short, that the tragic hero must have a
flaw that has an essential connection with sin. Again
it is true that the great majority of tragic heroes do
possess hubris, or a proud and passionate mind
that seems to make the hero's downfall morally
explicable. But such hubris is only the precipitating
agent of catastrophe, just as in comedy the cause
of the happy ending is usually some act of humility,
often performed by a noble character who is meanly
disguised.