GORDON BROWN AS TRAGIC HERO

In the early hours of the morning, I scoured the Sunday papers and decided I could not be bothered blogging any more about who's leaked what, to whom and why. The dying days of New Labour are febrile with disloyalty, betrayal, ambition, and all the other ingredients which make politics a very nasty game.
Undoubtedly, it's the policies as much as the personalities which have contributed to this sorry tale. But Brown's innate insecurities have also contributed to his imminent downfall.
He is, indeed a tragic hero - in the literary sense .
Eng Lit students of a certain age will have read A C Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy - in which protagonists are all assigned a "fatal flaw" which leads to their downfall. Othello's, obviously, is jealousy. Macbeth's ambition. Hamlet's is procrastination. In his 25 years in Parliament, Brown has somehow managed to combine all three of these very human traits. So no wonder he's in serious trouble.
Aristotle also had five prerequisites for tragic heroes . They normally start off being nobly born or blessed with wisdom. Unfortunately, they then fall prey to something called Hamartia, roughly translated as an error in judgment. This then leads to peripeteia - a reversal of fortune brought about because of the hero's mistake. Closely followed by anagnorisis - recognition it's basically his own fault. Then there's catharsis - a purging of all all the above.
Where is Brown amid this Greek tragedy? Stage 4. As he broods on the beach at Southwold,
my guess is he knows that his current malaise is all his own fault. The question is what happens next.
As the Blairite vultures gather round, my guess is he will end up, tragically, like King Lear, alone on the "blasted heath" of New Labour.