The character of Hamlet, and the characters of the others, are the centers of gravity of William Shakespeare's work, just as Oedipus and Jocasta are the nuclei of the Aristotelian tragedy Oedipus Rex . However, it is important for a character to be more than just the subject of a play to make it a true tragedy. Aristotle's tragic hero has several important qualities that lend relevance, power, and emotion to the cathartic nature of tragedy. First, the tragic character must be coherent and relevant to the audience as it must reflect an image of life, at least at the beginning. Hamlet lives up to this requirement. As the show begins, he is a student (like many of us) temporarily removed from school to deal with the death of a loved one. However, tragic characters, however real they may be made, must also have a certain noble quality about them. This nobility must be of the spirit and be directed outward to establish the coherence found in tragic heroes. Finally, the most important part of a tragic hero is, of course, the tragedy - extended like Oedipus' hamartia in which he marries his mother, or reserved like Hamlet's - simply by being the one who seemingly suffers from a million ills. Hamlet has less hamartia than Oedipus in his tragedy, but we can still consider him a tragic hero. Not only does it have the