Shakespeare's tragic heroes don't die because the world is simply cruel to them. Each one is undone by a specific personal quality — a hamartia, or tragic flaw, a concept dramatists trace back to Aristotle's writing on tragedy — that would function as a strength or at least a neutral trait in a different situation, and becomes the exact mechanism of their downfall in this one. The flaw isn't a moral defect layered on top of an otherwise perfect character; it's inseparable from what makes the character compelling in the first place.
Ambition, jealousy, and paralysis — three flaws, three different failures
Macbeth's downfall runs through unchecked ambition: the same drive that makes him an effective, celebrated soldier at the play's opening is exactly what makes him susceptible to the witches' prophecy and Lady Macbeth's persuasion, pushing him toward murder to seize a crown he might, some critics argue, have eventually gained through more legitimate means. Othello's downfall runs through jealousy, weaponised against him by Iago, who understands precisely which insecurity to exploit in a man whose position as an outsider in Venetian society already primed him to doubt his own standing. Hamlet's downfall, by contrast, comes from the opposite direction entirely — not impulsive action but paralysing indecision, an intellectual habit of examining every angle of a problem that serves him well as a thinker and repeatedly costs him the moment to act.
Why the flaw has to be inseparable from the strength
What makes Shakespearean tragedy function as tragedy, rather than simply as a story where bad things happen to a good person, is that the flaw isn't external or arbitrary — it's the same trait, in the same character, that made them worth watching in the first place. A tragedy where the hero's downfall came from a completely unrelated random accident wouldn't carry the same weight; the audience's sense of inevitability and waste depends specifically on watching a character's own defining quality turn against them under pressure. This is also why these plays resist simple moral readings where the hero is simply "punished" for a vice — Macbeth's ambition, Othello's passionate love and honour, Hamlet's intellectual depth are all genuinely admirable qualities the play doesn't ask the audience to condemn outright, even as it stages their catastrophic cost.
What we're still unsure about
Whether "hamartia" in Aristotle's original Greek usage meant a moral character flaw at all, or something closer to a simple error of judgment or a mistake made through ignorance rather than defective character, is a genuinely disputed point in classical scholarship, and how directly Shakespeare was consciously applying Aristotelian theory versus working from his own independent dramatic instincts is not something historical evidence settles definitively. Literary critics also continue to debate how much weight to give a single defining "flaw" versus a wider web of circumstance, other characters' manipulation, and simple bad luck in explaining any specific character's downfall — readings that emphasise Iago's manipulation over Othello's jealousy, for instance, shift the tragedy's centre of gravity in ways scholars still actively argue over.
This sits inside Shakespearean Tragedy & Comedy, one of seven topics in Drama, one of five domains in Literature, one of seventeen subjects the app can quiz you on.