Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Eden's Tragic Hero
During the past few weeks, we've encountered several characters who might qualify as a tragic hero in One Foot in Eden. Today, we divided those characters up by groups. Make the case that the character you were assigned is the tragic hero of this novel. Some of your answers might overlap, but the best way to avoid overlap is to write from your own perspective as much as possible. Please respond in AT LEAST TEN THOUGHTFUL AND THOROUGH SENTENCES.
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I think that the tragic hero or figure in One Foot in Eden is Billy Holcomb. Although he kills Holland, he is still treated sympathetically by the reader because of his inability to have children, the fact that his wife cheated on him because of that inability, and his illness at an early age. Another reason why the reader likes Billy is because even though he was crippled, he became the first person in his family to own land. He is not completely good or completely bad; he kills Holland, but he tries to do the right thing by caring for Isaac. He also shown to be better than real life by forgiving Amy and raising Isaac. His flaw is his jealousy of Holland which ends up causing him to shoot Holland. He realizes this at the end of the story and ends up paying the price. He "goes down fighting" after winning a "moral victory", the moral victory being the fact that he tells Isaac the truth and shows him where Holland is buried. Soon after that, he is swept away by the river, and dies which matches Aristotle's view on how a tragic hero's story should end disastrously (with pain, wounds, suffering, death).
ReplyDeleteI consider Amy to be the tragic hero. I say this because she seems to be the character with the most realization of what she has done to cause the bad in her situation. As we talked about in class, this is an important factor that a tragic hero should have. An example of her realization is on page 111, she says, "they would rise to the surface ever so often... I have never a doubt there'd come a time I'd pay for all that happened and the cost would be a lot more than a piece of gold." This quote shows her realization of the impact the affair could have on her life. We do know from finishing the book, that in some ways, this is true. Her realization links to her downfall.
ReplyDeleteAnother important factor about Amy is that in this case, most people shouldn't like her. She had an affair to cope to her own selfish needs. But we do like Amy. I feel bad for her that she was put into this situation. I don't feel like she deserves punishment for it though I wouldn't support her decision in this situation. This is another important factor of being a tragic hero, as we discussed in class.
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ReplyDeleteThe sheriff is the tragic hero in Eden not really by directly affecting issues throughout the book, but by his previous incidents before the conflicts. By definition, tragic heroes were at once in a position of power, the sheriff used to be a college football player, a pretty important role in some communities, being a sheriff also has some power behind the role too. They also suffer a downfall, for the sheriff, that when he took football to the ankle, and his ankle couldn't take it. So then he gets drafted for WWII, and this is his chance for him to come back a war hero. But he doesn't, and instead he comes back with terrible memories that haunt him. To wrap his downfall all up, his wife can't have kids, so no mini sheriff for him, unless he does something with another woman and makes a mini sheriff come out of "thin air", he ought to have fun explaining that to his wife. HIs wife also acts as if that it's his fault that they can't have kids. The sheriff is basically a doomed man, in the sense he can't do much more with his life, except protect others and make those peoples' lives secure. Talk about a truly good man.
ReplyDeleteThe tragic hero in this story was Amy. She never changes scenery, and is always shown at her farm or at Mrs. Winchesters farm. In the beginning when we see Amy, she is shown as a pretty, innocent wife. She is true to life because he is just a normal wife who wants a child, but she is very beautiful which makes her idealized. She is a very good person, but has the fatal flaw of being too caught up with having a child and ignoring the voice in her head telling her it's a bad idea. She has a good intention of just wanting to be a mother, but she obsesses over if so much that when Billy can't provide her with a child he has an affair with Holland, even though she knows it's wrong. In the end of the story, Amy dies. She could have not gone with Isaac and Billy to find Hollands bones, but she goes down fighting and decides to first find them, and then dive after Billy when she sees he's stuck. Amy's flaw of obsessing over having her own child brought her to this point, because it led to Billy killing holland and her having Hollands child. It can be argued that even though it was sad Amy died, it wasn't completely undeserved. Her life ended in the most tragic way possible, her and her husband dying because of her flaw of obsessing over having a child. But in spite of the fact that Amy has this flaw, the reader knows she is a good person. Her intentions were good the whole story, although she went about having a child the wrong way. She is also a very loving mother, and wife too even though she has an affair. Even though she has done bad things, I like Amy and her dying seemed sad and extreme, like the punishments in tragedies.
ReplyDeleteSheriff Alexander is the tragic hero in One Foot in Eden. He is a respectable figure whose job it is to be virtuous, yet in his personal time we see he isn't always as idyllic as he seems. Despite his struggles with his wife, father and brother, we still root for him because we understand why he acts in the way he does. Almost everything good that happened to him was taken away right as he least expected it, not because of him, but because of bad luck. His tragic flaw is that he fills his life with others' problems instead of facing his own; he is almost too noble. He goes through moral dilemmas every day and in this story we see that he tragically can't absolve all of them. His job allows him to escape the horrible state that his own life is in, giving him the chance to be virtuous and perhaps make up for what some would call his "sins". Throughout the story you can tell he has been emotionally beat down and now chooses to ignore it. His story is one of a tragic hero, however, the novel only gives you a window into part of it. His tragedy carries on after the end of the book, allowing us to only speculate what happens between him and his wife, and him and his father.
ReplyDeleteAmy Holcombe fits Aristotle’s theory of a tragic hero perfectly. Her spur-of-the-moment affair with Holland is an example of a moral struggle that ends badly when Billy takes Holland’s life. Her choice to go down fighting is quite literally shown when she jumps after Billy in the river, drowning in the process. Her love for Billy ultimately overcomes the ghosts of her past, resulting in a moral victory for Amy. She appears to be a well-respected person in her community, as we do not see people talking bad about her as we do with Janice. She also goes through all four stages of a tragic hero’s lifespan. The good in her life begins to slide when she takes Widow Glendower’s advice and “lays down” with Holland, and she realizes her role in the tragedy when Billy shoots him. Her scene of suffering occurs once again at the river. Amy is a very human character, and is essentially a good person who makes bad decisions.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious tragic "hero" in the novel "One Foot in Eden" is Billy Holcombe. The tragic hero has a fatal flaw that ends up killing him. In the story, one can mistake Billy's fatal flaw for jealousy. His real flaw is actually the feeling that makes him go back to try to get Holland's remains back. When he goes back, he is killed in the river. These events follow the storyline of a tragedy. The character is doing well, something about their personality leads them to do something stupid (go through the river) and they are either killed or suffer some kind of pain. He goes down fighting and with pride when he "does the right thing" and tells the truth to Isaac. That moment in the story is the stereotypical "good bad guy" moment, where the bad guy admits he does something wrong and this can make the reader feel sympathy for the "bad guy". In the end, the reader can feel a sense of "karma" when Billy is killed because his actions earlier in the book led to his demise. Although the reader understands why Billy died, he or she still feels bad for him because of the tough life he had.
ReplyDeleteI think that Isaac is the tragic character or tragic hero in this book for many reasons. First off he has one major flaw and that is the fact that he is holland's child. He stays fairly consistent through his entire chapter and doesn't have much of an extraordinary life. He isn't hard to hate either. He is pretty relatable and I could definitely imagine a person like him in real life. When he finally accepts that he is Holland's child and all of the pieces come together, he decides that he must see his father's remains. This results in the tragedy of his parents drowning while crossing the river and his suicide attempt. Overall he undergoes a significant moral struggle, is realistic, consistent, likable, and has at least one major flaw.
ReplyDeleteAmy Holcombe is the tragic hero of One Foot In Eden, because of her obvious fatal flaws, epiphany moments and her preparation to go down fighting. Amy, throughout the book, always has good intentions. The flaw in this, and what finally leads to her downfall, is the fact that she doesn't always share these intentions with others around her. The most prevalent example of this is her affair with Holland. Her intentions, from the beginning, were to have a child for Billy. But, the fact that she didn't tell Billy before she did it eventually caused the death of Holland and the downward spiral of not only her, but also Billy. Another example of why Amy is the tragic Hero is her epiphany when Holland is about to be shot. When Billy and Holland are fighting, and Amy is watching from the porch, she realizes that she has gotten to this ultimate low because of her actions. She realizes that if she had thought about the consequences of her actions before she did them, she might have prevented this from happening. Finally, Amy is prepared to die with the shame of causing the death of Holland. And when her son realizes what happened, she begins suffering and finally gives into death when she dives in after Billy.
ReplyDeleteI most definitely think that Billy is the tragic hero. He meets the requirements of doing things that we might not like or agree with, killing Holland, but he also does things that make us like him. For one, even though he has a disability from childhood polio, he is the first person in his family to actually own land, and he keeps and loves Isaac even though he is not biologically his son. That is actually an example of him being better than life because honestly, how many men are going to not only keep their wife's illegitimate child with another man, and how many of those men are going to love that child like their own? Also in Aristotle's outline of the tragic hero, he needs to go down fighting, and get a moral victory, but suffer and physical loss, which he does. He admits to his son that he killed the biological father, and dies in the river after trying to right a past wrong by telling the truth. It obviously ends disastrously, with his and Amy's death, and their sin almost dying, same with the sheriff. He does have a flaw, and that is jealousy of Holland, but also fear. He is often portrayed with fear going through him, either fear of his wife's possible affair or of having to kill a man, or fear that God or the state will punish him in this life or the next. He also gets some sympathy for his disability in both his leg and the ability to have children, and he gets sympathy for having his wife cheat on him. If you look at all of these facts, Billy pretty much lines up with every aspect, and he' salsa a very real person with a real dilemma. Billy is obviously the tragic hero.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the true tragic hero of the story is Isaac Holcombe. He fits many of the criteria layed out by Aristotle. He has a semi-respected position in the community, he is going off to Clemson which is impressive considering his poor upbringing. He has several examples of definite hamartia. His caring about Mrs. Winchester could have potentially meant bad things for him, it could have also killed him. When Mrs. Winchester lit her house on fire, he attempted to talk her out of it/save her. It ended up with him getting a moderately bad burn, but if he took it further, he could have been killed. This leads into another characteristic that he has; valor. He shows valor in some places, but this is also the ending point for his mother. He freaked out and came up short in the river, which could have also been due to yet another tragic event in life, the uncertainty for him about who his real parents are. Ultimately, I think that the audience liked him a lot, but he has both some good and bad in him.
ReplyDeleteIn my perspective Billy is the tragic hero. At the beginning of his childhood he had to deal with polio. During that time he had to deal with other people who would treat him as a freak and a cripple. He would have to live with other people ignoring and treating him differently; he isn't ignorant, so he is vulnerable to getting hurt. Another moral struggle he had to face was whether or not he should kill Holland but in turn his wife and her newborn would be safe. When he chose to kill Holland it ended up being disastrous. He may have saved his wife and son from being hurt, but he ended up killing a man and committing a sin and crime. He had to kill him and go through tough moral decisions because his wife had an affair which was something he couldn't control. Afterwards he saved his non biological son which to him was a reminder of Holland because of Isaac's eyes looked like Holland's. Aristotle's defined a tragic hero "as a person who is treated sympathetically (we like him in spite of what he does)" and "his destiny or choice is down to fighting rather than submission". Many people in our class still felt sympathy for Billy after he killed Holland because he had no control over other people's actions, and he had to kill Holland otherwise they would be harassed and assaulted forever. When he tried to have a child with Amy they found out that Billy was not fertile. Later he figured out this private information was leaked out by Amy to everybody else, and he had to deal with the ignominy. He had to live with with the tragedy of loving Amy, but he couldn't give her a baby. In the end he was not too good and not too bad. He was in the middle, balanced between good and bad which was another definition of Aristotle's Tragic Hero.
ReplyDeleteAmy Holcombe is the obvious tragic hero in this story. At the beginning we see Amy as very beautiful, which is what makes her higher or above ourselves. Before she realizes she can’t have children all of the women in the town respect her. Even after it is discovered the Billy can’t get her pregnant she isn’t completely shunned and is still seen as beautiful. Even though she does make bad decisions, such as sleeping with Holland, we don’t view her as this wretched awful cheating woman. She is still like and respected and Billy still ends up loving her. We can also see one of her epiphany moments on page 95 when she is comparing her reaction to Holland’s death to her mother’s reaction to her uncle’s death. She says, “Momma did no wrong to profit that kind of misery but I did plenty to bring about mine”. This shows her realizing that it is her own fault that Holland was killed.
ReplyDeleteOf Amy, Billy, the Sheriff and Isaac, the Sheriff is certainly the tragic hero of One Foot in Eden. First of all, he does undergo a struggle that does not end well. He goes on a search to find evidence that Billy killed Holland, but in the end he fails and has no evidence that Billy killed Holland. He also is a superior figure overall because he is a sheriff, an occupation that comes with a large amount of power and superiority. He is presented in the story as having many struggles, such as that his brother, Travis, dislikes him and he and wife have a disconnected relationship. He also cannot figure out where Billy put Holland's corpse. These and a few other minor things cause the reader to have sympathy for Sheriff Alexander. He also is not completely good or bad, meaning he's human. He is good in that he tries to find Holland's body, is a pretty good detective and has some good personality features. He is bad however in the way that he is not very determined to solve the murder mystery or any problems in his personal life that appear to be bringing him down. He as well has a high, superior position (as previously stated) that in the end leads to unhappiness as to that he cannot solve this murder and that he is shown as miserable in his personal life. He also has fitness in character in that he shows many characteristics that would belong to a character with a a sheriff-like occupation. On the other hand, he also has problems that are relatable and the fact that he does not want to deal with them is relatable as well. The fact that he can't handle all the problems in his personal life so instead choose to ignore them instead of approaching them is something very common among a typical human. He also shows consistency in his character in that he always shows the same, undetermined approach to issues he has to deal with, whether as a person or as a sheriff. He never majorly changes how he does something or deals with an issue.
ReplyDeleteIsaac Holcombe is the archetypal tragic hero in "One Foot in Eden". Although he doesn't have every single attribute of a tragic hero, he has a decent amount. From the start, it is clear Isaac is not perfect. His habit of breaking the rules and visiting Mrs. Winchester is one thing that makes him more relatable to the reader. Isaac also has a turning point in which things make a turn for the worse (peripeteia) . When he goes to farm the cabbage, he discovers Mrs. Winchester would like to talk to him one last time, which triggers Isaac's tragedy, his parents' death. Isaac's downfall is also somewhat his fault. His "hamartia" is his curiosity to see his true father, despite the dangerous circumstances. One could argue that Isaac was born with a different hamartia, being the son of Holland. Clearly, being the son sparks the creativity, which therefore causes the tragedy. Walking across the river to find Holland's death results in Isaac's tragedy, the death of the people who raised him.
ReplyDeleteSheriff Will Alexander is the tragic hero in this story. He was ambitious and went to Clemson, wanting a better education and life for himelf. He chose to work in town for a steady paycheck rather than depend on the unreliable land. These decisions made life easier for him, but separated him from his family. His recognition of this comes when he decides not to run for sheriff again, so that he can spend time being an uncle, a brother, and a son. However, it is already too late, and his father is in the hospital, dying. He has an argument with Travis and his kids, then leaves, separating himself from his family even further. Over all, he is unhappy despite his power and comfort of living. He lacks friends, with the closest thing to a friend of his being his deputy. He feels separated from his wife after being unable to interact due to all the college work, and ultimately her miscarriage. He is unable to connect with his family, who feel he has left them behind.
ReplyDeleteIn 1 foot in Eden the sheriff is definitely the tragic hero. He isn't revered but he still embodies aspects of humanity that we choose to idealize like intelligence strength and morality. And although he doesn't come from a position of power he is in one being the sherif. So us as the audience like him and identify with him but overall he has a hamartia or a tragic flaw in his case it is his ambition. If he didn't leave the farm to go to Clemson he wouldn't have had his knee broken. If he didn't marry out of his class he might have had kids and finally If he didn't go to war seeking to be a hero he wouldn't have been scarred by the things he saw and he wouldn't have gotten the job as the sheriff. If he wasn't the sherif his marriage might be better he wouldn't be burdens with others problems and he defiantly wouldn't have been fighting till the end and getting physical harm with the Holcombs at the river. He confronts and realizes that it is his fault. In the end though he is not dead he is in a bad state and it is his own unavoidable faults that get him there.
ReplyDeleteI belive that Isaac is the tragic hero in the novel. He has grown up not knowing the truth about his dad, which has caused many issues throughout his life. Since he was a child he has had a connection with Mrs. Winchester and he continues this connection till the moment she dies. He does try to save her by going into the burning house, but does get a fairly bad burn. While he goes to visit her, he is breaking the rules of his household, but also spending time with his biological grandmother. This can be used as an example of "not all good and not all bad." Because he is finding ways to push boundaries but also helping someone. Throughout his chapter we are mostly stationed in the valley. Although it's not styled around the traditional 24 hour plot, we do see his story through many years, but everything comes together in the end.
ReplyDeleteI think that Isaac is the tragic hero in this novel. In the beginning of Isaac's chapter, One could see that he is not a perfect human being. In the first part of the chapter, Isaac is portrayed as a little kid. He is seen disobeying his parents by going to Mrs. Winchester's house when his parents told him not to. This shows how is not all good. When I was reading this chapter, I was rooting for Isaac no matter what he did, which shows another characteristic of a tragic hero. When he is older, he learns of something horrible that his real father was killed. He is very consistent in finding out who did it and where his father died. He fights to the very end, and almost dies trying to figure out the mystery. In the end, he is faced with a morally horrible defeat when his parents die.
ReplyDeleteOut of all the characters, Will, the Sheriff, is the most tragic. There are many examples that can be found using Aristotle's rules. When the sheriff was in college, he was in a relatively high position. Like Aristotle says, a tragic hero will be in a high position until brought down by an injury or unhappiness. In Will's case, his knee injury brought him down from power. Now, he is in a high, respected position of power again and his family issues are causing him unhappiness which is making him not run for office again. Also, Aristotle says that a tragic hero must be "good or fine". The sheriff represents the law of the town which is basically the legal good. Also, he went to war. At war, he served his country which was very good, but he also felt remorseful for everyone that he killed. These are just some of the many traits that make Will the tragic hero of One Foot in Eden.
ReplyDeleteIn the book One Foot in Eden the person I would say is the tragic hero is Billy. I saw Billy as the tragic hero because he was a person who was always fighting from a young child hood to his Adult hood. Billy was a character who fought for himself, fought for things and the people in his life that he love and wanted to protect. Billy in my eyes was a fighter who was fighting the disease the he had in his early childhood, Billy was also a fighter would kill holland to protect his wife Amy and baby that she was going to have. Others might see Billy as a fighter who just fought because he was scared but I saw Billy as a fighter who didn't tolerate any thing from anybody.
ReplyDeleteThe Sheriff Alexander is the tragic hero of One Foot in Eden. He fits many of the characteristics listed by Aristotle. First of all, he has a high, respected position. Being a sheriff is obviously a respectable occupation. Secondly, he faces many struggles throughout his life, all ending in tragedy. None of these are especially morally significant, but the fact that all of his struggles end in tragedy is impossible to ignore. He struggles with his marriage, which ends in a miscarriage, at which point he and his wife somewhat stop loving each other. He struggles with his family, which ends with his father dying. He struggles with the murder mystery, which eventually leads to the death of Billy and Amy. His final quality of a tragic hero is his Hamartia. His Hamartia is that he cannot apply himself to his own problems; he prefers to focus on other people's. This leads to his continually bad marriage and relationship with his father and brother. These characteristics are reasoning for Sheriff Alexander being the tragic hero.
ReplyDeleteAristotle outlined multiple points that a character would grow through to be classified as a tragic hero. Isaac, the son of Amy and Billy, goes through these points, therefore classifying him as a tragic hero. One chasteristic is that the character must go through a significant struggle. Issac goes through multiple difficult trials, from experiencing the death of his grandmother Mrs. Winchester and his parents, to finding out his dad wasn't really his Biological father. Tragic characters must also have a Hamattia (a flaw) that leads to bad situations. In this case, curiosity (the desire to know who is his real father is and where he lay), is Isaac's flaw, and ultimately leads to multiple peoples demise. Tragic heros are also described as being better than the average human, or "as the ought to be." Isaac, someone who works hard on the farm and made into a top college (Clemson) despite the environment he grew up in, is definitely an idolized human. Finally, Isaac is not "all good" neither is he "all bad." He lies to his parents (bad), but lies to them about something that may be regarded as ethically right. He makes a not so good decision of staying long at his biological fathers grave, but it wasn't wrong to want to see his father in the first place. ~~~Jaliwa Albright
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