vitable events spiral is the wound of indignity, and its dominant force is indignation. Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a mans total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.In the sense of having been initiated by the hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been called his tragic flaw, a failing that is not peculiar to grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a weakness. The flaw, or crack in the character, is really nothing and need be nothing, but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status. Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are flawless. Most of us are in that category.But there are among us today, as there always have been, those who act against the scheme of things that degrades them, and in the process of action everything we have accepted out of fear or insensitivity or ignorance is shaken before us and examined, and from this total onslaught by an individual against the seemingly stable cosmos surrounding us from this total examination of the unchangeable environment comes the terror and the fear that is classically associated with tragedy....
