n level, but on a higher level the characters are doomed from the beginning because of forces greater than themselves. These forces include the long-running feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. The inevitable downfall of the hero in a tragedy derives as a rule from some character flaw over which the individual has no control. For Romeo and Juliet, the "flaw" is their love for one another, a love which is not allowed given the antagonisms that exist between their families. Their choices have been limited for them by their parents and their parents' parents. They have inherited a family situation and a social and political structure that does not allow them to make choices that are completely free.
The sense of this story being determined by fate is made manifest in the opening lines of the play, a Prologue spoken by a Chorus. The Chorus sets up the situation of the two opposing households in Verona, "From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,/ Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean" (4-5). The Chorus states clearly that these are "star-cross'd lovers," a term that refers to the foretelling of the future involved in astrology and to the idea that the course of the stars in the sky has already decided what will happen. The human beings only act out what the stars have already indicated will happen. However, human beings do not submit blindly to fate and fight against it, as Romeo and Juliet do. We know from the beginning that they will fail because the Chorus tells us so, stating that the lovers will commit suicide and so end the antagonisms between their parents.
Othello presents the title character as a tragic hero in a different way, pointing to the definition of the tragic hero by Aristotle. F.L. Lucas writes about the characters of tragedy as Aristotle has delineated them and notes that they must be "good" but not perfect, appropriate or true to type, and consistent or true to themselves. Lucas says th...