Tragic flaw
A
tragic flaw, in
literature is the one problem an otherwise perfect
protagonist (often called the
tragic hero) has, that eventually brings him down in the end. The concept was created in ancient Greek tragedy. More often than not, the tragic flaw is
hubris, such as in the works
Antigone and
Oedipus Rex. Another famous
tragic hero is
Shakespeare's
King Lear. An example of a protagonist with a tragic flaw in modern literature would be Willy Loman in
Death of a Salesman.
See: tragic hero