Tragic Flaws # 1

So there’s this likeable character, a protagonist if you please, in a narrative but she’s got this one major flaw: a tragic flaw, a character fissure, a crack in her personality that will eventually split open, wider and wider until she’s forced to commit a blunder serious enough to force circumstances around her to collapse and the story to end on a tragic note. This is what Aristotle defined as the essence of a tragedy, and this is what Shakespeare apparently used in most of his famous tragedies. I’m discovering that though my personality and character are not worth analysing except occassionally on my own blog, I also have terrible character flaws that God forbid might lead to my collapse, my self-destruction, my life ending in tragedy. (I said God forbid.)

1. I do not know the art of keeping in touch, maintaining contact with people, even people I absolutely admire and adore, even people I love.

2. I do not have the ability of being blunt, of blurting things out as they are, of taking a strong personal stand – and fast.

3. I’m inherently lazy, and I very rarely and only on certain occasions have the ability to get on my feet and do something.

4. I do not have the ability to take major decisions that steer the course of my life in a different direction. All the radical changes – if any – in my life are happening, verrrryyyyyyy, verrrrrryyyyy slowwwwwwlyyyyy.

So why’s this post titled # 1? Because now that I have already found 4 tragic flaws (Four! Tragic indeed.), I’m sure I will find more as I sit and ponder over my character. Then it’ll be time for another post – titled, appropriately enough, ‘Tragic Flaws # 2’. And I really, really, really hope to the heavens that it would be the last ‘tragic flaws’ post.