"Identification of Ideal Aristotelian Tragic Hero in General Zia of Mohammed Hanif’s ‘ A Case of Exploding Mangoes"

Mohammed Hanifis a well-known contemporary novelist who takes up the controversial actual incident of blowing up of Pak One, that is, the official airplane carrying the president of the country General Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq, on 17 August 1988. The incident took place only a few weeks after the writer had left Pakistan Air Force Academy while doing the training as a Pilot Officer. The story pivots around General Zia and an Under Officer of Pakistan Air Force Academy Ali Shigri. Half of the story has been narrated in first person by Ali Shigri whereas the rest has been told in third person. The aim of this research paper has been to analytically assess the character of General Zia keeping in view the characteristics of a tragic hero as described by Aristotle in his ‘The Poetics’. The text of the novel has been taken as a primary source for analysis. Conclusion of the study suggests that the treatment of the character of General Zia by and large is congruent to the likes of Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet thus proving his significance with an ideal Aristotelian Tragic Hero.


Introduction
Hollywood's Academy (Oscar) Award, on the face of Earth, is undoubtedly and inarguably considered the most prestigious and the most valuable award presented annually.The films competing for the best picture of the year category are hundreds and thousands of films produced all over the globe.There are numerous movies for a particular year that do perhaps hundreds of times greater business on the box office than the film that outshines all these business-making films and proves worthy of getting the most lucrative announcement in the show business which is "and the Oscar goes to….".The most predominant question that arises in viewers' minds is 'Why?' Aristotle has the answer to this.Aristotle, a philosopher who lived some 5000 years from present day that is, about 3000 years before the birth of Christ, provides the answer in his 'The Poetics' while explaining various features of tragedy in theatrical performances.The same Aristotle, about whom the great historian of philosophy Will Durrant quotes Zeller as saying, 'Aristotle almost achieves the Nirvana of respectability' (Zeller, 1897).The 'respectability' that hovers till present day so prominently that out of those hundreds of thousands of movies featured in a year all over the world, only those are nominated for the category of best movie for the Oscar that commensurate the best with the basics of Aristotelian tragedy.The universal significance and predominance of this discourse by the classical philosopher is so overwhelming that most of the fiction texts either comic or tragedy, produced even today after a lapse of thousands of years, consider 'The Poetics' as bible.Undoubtedly, 'Aristotle inaugurated the systematic and distinctive discipline of literary criticism and theory with the Poetics'.(Cain, W. E et al, 2010).
Though rooted in the literature of its time (and focusing especially on a form of drama quite different from ours), the extant Poetics has continued to powerfully influence criticism (Cain, W. E et al, 2010).Henceforth, it is an established fact that a discourse -may it be the screenplay of a movie, a play or that of a short story -is most often closely tested by the critics against the literary legacy left by Aristotle in his 'The Poetics'.Despite the fact that novel is a modern genre of literature yet any discourse produced in genre strictly needs to identify itself regarding its plot and its characters with principles put forth by the aforementioned treatise in order to be recognized as a quality piece of literature.Novels, therefore, without any second opinion, seek direct influence from Aristotle's 'The Poetics'.
The characterization of the protagonist of the tragedy is the factor on which the actual success of a novel hinges.The current paper is based upon the assessment of the character of General Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq in the novel 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is an exciting, well-constructed read."(Bruce, 2009) authored by a Pakistani contemporary and 'not a postcolonial novelist' Mohammed Hanif in order to signify the identification of the character as 'an Aristotelian tragic hero'.The novel is based on the '1988 air crash in which the Pakistani dictator General Zia-Ul-Haq died, along with the head of the Pakistani Intelligence Service, other officials, and the American ambassador' (Bruce, 2009).The plot of the novel revolves around General Zia, who alongside being the serving Chief of Army Staff was doing as Military ruler holding the pinnacle office of the President of Pakistan.As genre of the book is novel, that is a fiction, the writer artistically concocts the reasons why the tragic incident of plane-blow-up took place presenting various circumstances -in a dramatic sequence -that became cause of the incident.The writer knits up plot of the novel in quite a masterly fashion.The twists, the turns, the drama, the suspense all contribute to having the reader spell-bound and finishing this comparatively lengthy discourse in one sitting.The writer having served in Pakistan Air Force -one of Pakistan's three armed forcestakes complete liberty of explaining various situations which are characteristic of any set up of armed forces whether Air Force, Navy or Army.

Significance of the Paper
The current study is quite valuable in a sense that the perspective chosen to view the discourse is astonishingly fresh and novel as both -the perspective and the discourse -overtly seem to be poles apart.On one side it is the discourse which besides being contemporary has also been researched by certain critics and researchers as 'postmodern text having the elements of black humour and some meta-fiction' and even 'the grand-narratives' (Manzoor, F. 2016) aspects of the text have been explored whereas on the other hand is the theoretical framework which was presented thousands of years past the current day.The readers would find the paper acceptably significant when logical parallels are drawn among a number of maxims of the classical literary theory and established as congruent with the discourse selected from contemporary literature and that too from one of as modern genres as novel.
The very theme of paper is as stylistic as if, just for the sake of understanding we make the title of the study extremely figurative such as 'Mangoes Explode to Summon Aristotle'.Here, in order to get the underlying meanings of this highly stylistic title draws the attention of the reader and compels him to read through this paper in order to find out as to what possibly could be the relation of the contemporary discourse with the classical philosopher history remembers as Aristotle.
The literature review given in the succeeding section of the paper reveals that the novel under study has chiefly been dealt with as a contemporary discourse and mostly the post-modernist and post-structural perspectives of the novel have been researched.However, the piece of fiction under study has hardly been viewed from a classical perspective.It, therefore, necessitates the importance to explore and unfold certain aspects of the novel with regard to as classical literary theories as found in the treatises of 'The Poetics'.
In fact, the most obvious research questions before the researcher, here are as follows: a. How is the character General Zia brought to light by the author?b.How much does the character of General Zia in 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' identify as an Aristotelian Tragic hero?
3 Literature Review/ Theoretical Frame-work Though hailing from a decolonized country that is Pakistan and living in a period after the colonizers have left the country for about more than seven decades, Mohammed Hanif, referring to Bill Ashcroft's 'The Empire Writes Back' which provides an ideal explanation of various characteristics of post-colonial literature, clarifies about the exact classification of the novel under study by presenting a straight-forward disclaimer while replying to a question in an interview as, "I don't think I am addressing the empire or I am writing back to it…..there is no way that you can sit at your desk and say that I am going to write a story which will please the Empire or criticize it".(Qureshi,I.

2011)
In a research paper titled 'Praetorianism in 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes', A Critical Analysis', (Tanvir, M, 2014) the researcher portrays all the aspects of General Zia's personality that were questionable being a ruler in uniform.However, the researcher did not take into account the genre of the discourse as being a novel meaning thereby that a story 'all made up' and that 'the central incident that the plane crashed is the only truth in it'.Most of the things mentioned in the paper are most likely the facts collected from news and views.The researcher in other words tries to correlate the information provided about General Zia in the novel with what actually had been happening in the country.Another researcher takes almost the same stance through his paper bearing the title 'An Analysis of the Role of

Comprador Class, A Neo-Colonial Study of A Case of Exploding Mangoes' and yet another study is useful with regard to post-colonial analysis of the novel i.e Totalitarianism and Colonial Legacy, A Postcolonial Analysis of Muhammad
Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Arafat, Y., et al, 2015).Contrary to this, Mohammed Hanif signifies the actual reality of the text of his novel 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' as, "The central incident that the plane crashed is the only truth in it.Everything else is made up….Tiny irrelevant details might be true but as far as the plot and characters are concerned, it is all made up."Whereas Mohammed Hanif claims that the novel 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' is nothing but a 'made up' story, the researchers in their researches keep correlating the character of General Zia of the novel with the real figure that has been the President of Pakistan, Chief of Army Staff and the Chief Martial Law Administrator.These researchers may, however, have taken a lead from the famous critic Rosenheim, who points out, 'The dupes or victims of punitive satire are not mere fictions.They, or the objects which they represent, must be, or have been, plainly existent in the world of reality, they must, that is, possess genuine historic identity.The reader must be capable of pointing to the world of reality, past or present, and identifying the individual or group, institution, custom, belief, or idea which is under attack by the satirist.'(Rosenheim,

1983)
In his dissertation, 'Para-colonialism, A Case of Post-1988 Anglophone Pakistani Fiction', Ali Usleem Saleem views the novel under study as 'Postmodernism's parodic treatment of history'.Postmodern theory asserts that any form of social, political and cultural history is a discursive construct and the only way to know the truth about past is first by acknowledging it as a construct and then by incorporating it in a narrative to make its various versions contest against each other.Postmodern fiction aims to deconstruct the social and political contexts of history and challenge its status and acceptability as the only true record of past events.In this way, parody is one of the best forms of post-modern literature because it challenges also incorporates the ideas, person or persons that is/ are chosen as object of parody.Mohammed Hanif chooses the incident that is one of the most ambiguous incidents of the history of Pakistan and thus takes liberty to incorporate as many versions for that as he could.Crimpe (1983) theorises the novel under discussion as the postmodern historic fiction.He maintains that in such a fiction 'Notions, originality of authenticity and presence…are undermined' (Douglas, 1983).
Another novel from the contemporary authors that discusses the same issue that is General Zia's plane crash is 'The Geometry of God' by Uzma Aslam Khan.There, in fact the post-modern strategy of producing 'black humour' through making a parody by ridiculing the Zia regime and portraying his fundamentalism as a laughing stock.The review of the novel under study has been presented by the researcher highlighting the elementary techniques of post-modernism used in the discourse such as meta-fiction and grand-narratives.The novel is even reviewed through the lens of Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridization, (Homi K. Bhabha, 2004) and that too not from a behavioural perspective but from a physiological perspective.The plane crash had the remnants of bodies of Pakistanis (Generals and others) as well as those of the 'shining star of the State Department Raphel' thus leading us to the physiological hybridization of the two worlds as Hanif writes, "What they found in the wreckage of the plane were not bodies [...] Remains.They found remains.Bits of flesh splattered on the broken aero plane parts, charred bones sticking to mangled metal, severed limbs and faces melted into blobs of pink meat.Nobody can ever say that the coffin that was buried in In other words, the object to be imitated by tragedy is an action or a piece of life being of serious interest, something which has to be complete in itself and having its volume good enough to orientate the change in the fortunes of the tragic hero.Moreover, its seriousness should be to an extent such that it cannot be marked as 'trivial'.Besides, the medium that is language used should be 'embellished' by all available decorations, such as melody and poetic diction.The action so performed as imitation should be dramatic which is to say that actions are not narrated but performed.The representation should arouse in the audience the pity and fear and by providing an outlet for these and other similar emotions produces a sense of pleasurable relief called as catharsis.

Aristotelian Tragic Hero
Terry Eagleton in his book 'How to Read Literature' writes, "What matters above all for Aristotle is the plot or dramatic action ….It is not that Aristotle thought character unimportant in general.On the contrary, he regarded it as supremely important, as another of his books, the Nicomachean Ethics, makes clear.This work is all about moral values, qualities of character, the difference between virtuous and vicious individuals, and so on."(Eagleton, 2013) Charles Reeves provides the explanation of 'pity and fear' as follows, "Pity and fear are affections of the soul.Fear is occasioned by the misfortunes of one like ourselves and pity by undeserved misfortune.Hence it must be clear that they are both essentially moral in nature, for a man like ourselves or a little better is, as we have discovered, moderately virtuous, and the judgment whether suffering is deserved or not is a moral judgment."(Reeves, 1952) As the Aristotelian hero must arouse the emotions of pity and fear in the audience at the end of the tragedy played as drama, the hero, therefore, cannot be a perfectly good man.This is so because audience would not love to see such a man passing from happiness to misery.Such a situation will be disgusting and odious.The contrast of this aforementioned hero, that is, a bad man is also not recommended as him passing from happiness to misery would not develop emotions of pity and fear.The absence of catharsis is plainly not at all termed as tragedy.There is yet another -a fourth category of hero which, after having the above noted exclusions, consequently seems to be the ideal hero for an Aristotelian tragedy.

Research Methodology
The current paper is descriptive in nature and therefore, the research is taken up in qualitative paradigm.As described earlier, Aristotle's 'The Poetics' is considered as the framework to analyze the twists in the plot of the novel so as to analyze the main character of the story General Zia-Ul-Haq as an ideal Aristotelian tragic hero.The chief characteristics of a tragic hero as described by Aristotle in his 'The Poetics' are taken up one by one and the character of General Zia as portrayed in 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' by Mohammed Hanif is assessed in that context reaching at exploring various congruencies among both, the former, the tragic hero as described in the framework with the description in the latter, quoting the instances from the discourse.These discovered congruencies therefore, lead to conclusive interpretations thus making the research an interpretive research as far as the type is concerned.

Textual Analysis
As described in 'The Poetics' by Aristotle, a character's qualities are best known from the text itself.The writer puts the life in a character through his words.He, the writer of a discourse, is the one who makes the character talk, walk, think, or even dress up in a way as the writer perceives him in his mind.The character of General Zia-Ul-Haq will therefore, be analyzed in context of the discourse of the novel and thus put to the theoretical examination against Aristotle's tragic hero's description.
A tragic hero, as given in 'The Poetics', must possess four characteristic traits.The fifth essential element of a tragic hero, the catharsis is, however, produced by the tragic ending of the tragedy (or the tragic hero himself) on to the audience of the drama.

Characteristic One: A Tragic Hero Hails from Higher Strata
General Zia-Ul-Haq, the main character of the novel, 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' has been chosen by the writer Mohammed Hanif keeping in view his political position.He, General Zia, at the time of the incident of his plane crash was the sitting Commander-in-Chief, the President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff.Moreover, as the happenings described in the text of the novel go back to 1977, when he established his military rule after toppling the elected government of the then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the protagonist of the novel had also held the position as a Chief Martial Law Administrator and he remained to be so till general elections, though on non-party basis, were held in the country in 1985 as a result of which an elected government was established.A tragic hero cannot ask for a position or for that matter positions higher than that held by General Zia-Ul-Haq.General Zia has also been considered as the architect of Afghan Jihad starting from late 1970's against the invading the then Soviet forces.The main aim, as it has been since the times of Russian Czars, of the Soviets were to cross a merely 20 kilometer wide, Wa Khan strip situated in Afghanistan and parting Pakistan from the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and enter Pakistan territory so as to have access to warm waters of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.Such has been the geo-political significance of Pakistan.The Afghan Jihad was, therefore, considered and dealt with as Jihad to defend Pakistan, a country founded on the Islamic Ideology, against the foreseen invasion by a Socialist country.General Zia ultimately, left the mighty Super Power licking her wounds at the hands of a relatively much weaker country like Pakistan.Being the winner of the war against the Socialist super power, General Zia has to be graded at par with all times Shakespearean tragic hero in Othello, the Moorish General.Besides, another identification of General Zia is with who in the beginning of the Shakespearean tragedy comes up as a winner of the war.
The personality of General Zia has, therefore, been well-received among the masses of Pakistan.The same was manifested before the world when the television cameras from all around the world focused on his funeral and burial in the compound of Faisal Mosque at Islamabad showing hundreds of thousands of mourners following his coffin.
General Zia of 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' in various aspects also identifies himself with one of the Shakespearean Tragic Heroes; namely Macbeth.If Macbeth, being Commander of the forces of the state, murdered King Duncan, and extorted the throne, General Zia again being the Chief of Army Staff after the coup against the elected Prime Minister of the country Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, made himself the President of the Country.He is also blamed to be a main player who ensured -although through a decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan -the award of capital punishment to the downed Prime Minister.Both, the Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hanif's General Zia were highly-trusted and considered as right hand of their respective Chief Executive that is, King Duncan for Macbeth whereas Prime Minister Bhutto for General Zia.Later throughout his regime, exactly like Macbeth, General Zia did not fear anyone -not even the Creator -murdering anyone who would come in the way of his ascent to the power.The lust of power, as for Macbeth, enticed General Zia to prolong his Military rule as far as eleven years.

Characteristic Two: Hamartia -The Tragic Flaw
Besides being from a higher strata and having a good repute before the higher authorities as well as among masses, the Aristotelian Tragic hero possesses 'a weak point within his personality that leads him to commit fatal mistake during the events and that is what causes his decline'.This weakness is in fact the flaw in a tragic hero's personality which, by any means must not be a flaw in the character that is, a moral turpitude.This tragic flaw is termed as 'hamartia' in the Aristotle's 'The Poetics'.The hamartia does exist inside the tragic hero, however it ascends and ultimately overwhelms the personality of tragic hero forcing him to commit the fatal mistake that causes his descend.Having read the complete novel, the hamartia in the character General Zia-Ul-Haq -as instilled by the author Mohammed Hanif -is his unnecessarily superstitious personality on the basis of his extraordinarily strong belief in interpretation rather misinterpretation of the divine book 'The Holy Quran'.Any divine scripture is revealed by the Creator to humanity for guidance and not to be used as a horoscope.Doing so may lead the believer of the holy scripture misinterpret the ordained truths.Zia would get up every day for Fajr (morning) prayer offered at dawn and would recite holy Quran before the prayer and then would ponder over the verses he had just read discussing them with his chief security officer and other men.
Right at the start of the novel Zia is seen, after offering morning prayers, reciting Verse 86 of Surah Al-Anbya of Al-Quran, the writer starts building upon the level of hamartia his tragic hero lives with.The verse describes the prayer offered by the Holy Prophet Yuonus A.S whence he had been gulped alive by a whale -where he spent forty days -repenting over his unlikely behaviour after having been acceded to by the Creator in as high a stature as a prophet.The Marmaduke Pithall English translation the verse 21:87 exactly reads: "And remember Zunnus, when he departed in wrath: he imagined that We had no power over him!But he cried through the depths of darkness, "There is no god but thou: glory to thee: I was indeed wrong!"General Zia's superstitious nature impels him to think that last four words of the verse have been, in fact, ordained for him.The complete plot of the novel in a sense is knit on this verse as the writer later describes the bloody Hercules C-130, the last carrier of General Zia, looking like a huge whale, in which General Zia was to be gulped just like Prophet Yuonus A.S is described to be gulped by the whale and kept in alive for forty days in verse 60 of Surah Younus.
This more than required dependence on Islam is the actual tragic flaw on the part of Hanif's tragic hero.Believing in Islam is not a flaw but the politicizing of Islam or in other words Islamization of political issues turns it into a tragic flaw.
For instance, about issuing death warrant to the then Prime Minister Bhutto, the consulting of the Holy Book by General Zia has been ironically related by Hanif: "He had always consulted the book for guidance and always found the answers he was looking for(…)Then Two years later, between fending off World leaders' pleas to not to hang Bhutto and signing his death warrant, Zia has opened the Holy Book and found this, And the Guilty behold the fire and know that they are about to fall therein, and they find no way of escape thence."(Hanif, 2008).

Characteristic Three: Peripeteia -A Reversal of Fortunes
Owing to his in-built tragic flaw, the hamartia, the tragic hero carries out certain action which brings about his downfall.In other words, the tragic hero's high position and all the perks and privileges -for instance, acceptance among the masses -are compromised and he starts a nose-down flight.Another notable element about reversal of fortunes is that it comes as a surprise to the tragic hero, since hamartia has also been agreed upon by the scholars as being an error of judgment or a miscalculation.The hamartia in case of General Zia has been discussed in length in the previous section of this research paper.The case of Bibi Zainab, a blind woman who had been kidnapped and raped for several days proved to be the thing which has been perhaps taken a bit lightly by Hanif's tragic hero thus catching him up as a surprise.General Zia, despite having mounting international pressures, refuted to offer any clemency to the poor woman.Instead, he consulted his Saudi Legal advisor Qadi by asking as to what the judge would do if the woman claimed that she was forced to fornicate?Qadi's reply, unfortunately, was quite ridiculous: "Women always make this excuses when they are caught fornicating.The rape is not easy to commit.The perpetrator will need at least four accomplices."(Hanif, 2008) General carried on asking for further clarifications if the raped women would need to identify five culprits and what if the perpetrators would be wearing masks, the reply from Qadi was even further misguiding: "Is he a bank robber?....I have never heard of a rapist wearing a mask in forty years as a judge.Rapists like to see their own reflection in woman's eyes.That is one reason they would never wear masks." As described in the novel, this decision of stoning the blind Zainab to death proved to be the turning point in the regime of General Zia, after which he only lived to see his downfall.As per Aristotle, there is no fixed point for this 'peripeteia' to occur.This pivotal twist in plot is also often seen as the climax of the tragedy.It can happen either at the start, somewhere in the middle or even towards the end of the plot of the tragedy.The ideal time, however, is if it occurs in the second half of the plot and that too towards the middle.This is so because in this way, the audience will be having more time for catharsis.The occurrence of this essential element for the tragic hero of the novel under study is, therefore, ideally placed due to certain reasons.First, it comes in the middle of second half of the novel, second, the protagonist of the novel General Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq was at the prime of his regime as he could influence rather command even the Supreme Court to make finalize verdicts.The same is manifested in the verdict given against the blind Zainab Bibi,

Trait Four: Anagnorisis -Tragic Awareness or Insight
Once the error of judgment has taken place to make to the tragic hero have a downfall, next stage in an Aristotelian tragedy is to have the awareness of the error that he has committed.Here, the insight of the tragic hero enables him realize what wrong he has done.This is where the audience comes to know the soul reason why a tragic hero should belong to higher strata and most likely from a noble lineage.It is only in this case that he would make a realization of his miscalculation and resultantly suffer the consequences following that action based on the error of judgment.This realization period and the suffering in fact turn the audience to feel pity and fear for the protagonist.
In the discourse under study, the realization of his miscalculation comes almost immediately after it is done.This was the time when he, just like Shakespeare's Macbeth, started apprehending that all the people around him wanted to kill him.At one stage, he asks his chief security officer to tell him who wants to kill him.Right from then onwards, the character of General Zia stops attending the public meetings and other such functions where he has to have some public appearance.The incident of distribution of goods among the widows inside the premises of President House has been one good example.In other words, owing to the realization of his error of judgment, he imposes house arrest on himself.
General Zia carries the apprehension of being killed by someone all along even to the final boarding on the Hercules C-130 plane.In the scene of Bahawalpur airport, General Zia quite diplomatically asks General Baig to put his glasses off so that he could judge General Baig's true expressions by looking into his eyes thus notifying that General Zia doubted his own Vice Chief of Army Staff.Later in the same scene, General Zia forcefully drags the unwilling General Akhtar to accompany him on the plane -a true reflection of his doubt seven about his own Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, the man whom Zia always considered as his right hand.General Akhtar had been the person whom he always kept involved in all his serious and most difficult decisions.Behind all these actions of General Zia was that realization of his hamartia.All these incidents present a true portrayal of the anagnorisis on part of the tragic hero of the discourse under study.

Characteristic Five: Catharsis -Arousal of Emotions of Pity and/ or Fear
This charactristic of the tragic hero is not on his part but on the part of audience.It means that the feeling of closeness to the tragic hero by the audience (readers in our case) makes them have the arousal of emotions of pity and/ or fear.Aristotle explains tragedy and its hero in such a way because he understands that the only way to feel pity rather than either disgust or horror in someone's misfortune is to perceive that the downfall is both just and yet not wholly deserved.
As the discourse under discussion is a novel and not a drama that is a text read and not performed on stage, therefore, the feelings of the audience on occurrence of the peripeteia and then anagnorisis cannot be observed as such.In this case, since the incident of plane crash of General Zia, the President of Pakistan, is a historic incident that is, the general response of Pakistani nation -that went through this tragic incident in true sense -on the incident of tragic plane crash, ('the only truth' in the novel as admitted by the writer himself in an interview), may be analyzed and considered as the response of the audience.
As described earlier, the complete nation was in a state of shock as the incident of plane crash left nation in a state of crisis, as alongside General Zia, twelve top brass Generals aboard also breathed their last.Moreover, the presence of the United States Secretary of State being among the departed souls, Pakistani nation had all their apprehensions in who thought as if the United States would attack Pakistan for having their Secretary of State lost in a plane crash.The wave of fear and uncertainty was prevailing among the masses.The incident of crash was such a tragic one that almost everyone felt pity for the departed souls.

Conclusion
The above noted discussion and reasoning provide us with an ample evidence that the protagonist of the novel 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' by Mohammed Hanif is a true Aristotelian Tragic Hero, one of the likes of Macbeth, Othello or Hamlet.The limitation of the analysis has been felt as far as true judgment of the catharsis on the part of audience is concerned.However, it is felt that if the novel is dramatized and converted as an enactment, the audience would surely have the arousal of emotions of pity for the protagonist and fear for the uncertainty of the future of the nation.
Arlington Cemetery didn't carry bits of General Zia's remains and that what lies buried in Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad are not some of the remains of the State Department's brightest star."(Hanif, 2009) In his 'The Poetics', which forms to serve as theoretical framework for this research paper, Aristotle explains tragedy as, 'Tragedy is a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements [used] separately in the [various] parts [of the discourse), [represented] by people acting and not by narration, accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions'.(Aristotle, 1961) 4 Aristotle's Description of Tragedy