The play is a Shakespearean tragedy. Tragedies usually adhere to a set of conventions: the play centres around a tragic hero, usually male with high status and moral virtues, whose fatal flaw and the intervention of fate set him on a path of self-destruction from which he cannot escape, ending in his death and the restoration of the natural order. Audiences were meant to feel a sense of catharsis—that is, they could experience the intense emotions of the plot without making the same mistakes as the protagonist.
