Fate

Victim

Characters within tragedies often suffer and there is discussion about whether this is a consequence of the actions of other characters or whether it could be fate. There are many examples of fate within tragedy in classic literature such as in Oedipus the King. In Tess of the D’Urbervilles Tess suffers from twists of fate that turn her life to tragedy. An example of this is when she meets Alec when he has tried to reform. This means he again pursues her and it could be argued that this contributes to the final action of the novel. Tess herself talks about being on a fated star. In other tragedies it can be argued that it is the characters themselves that cause their own downfall and not fate. In Death of a Salesman Willy’s failure to face his own failings leads to his tragedy.