Martha Stewart Literature

Martha Stewart’s Tragedy

Martha Stewart grew up in a working-class community near New York City (Biography, n.d.). She first started her career by concentrating on gourmet cooking, starting a catering business in the late 70’s (Biography, n.d.). Ten years later, her hard work paid off as her company succeeded into a million dollar business, with corporate and celebrity clients (Biography, n.d.). She later started selling books, magazines, and recipes. She became widely known as her hard work paid off, having a popular cable television show, newspaper column, radio show, and Internet site as well. She was once looked at as a hero to business women coming from the working class community and many others; however it tragically takes a turn. Martha Stewart, America’s ideal woman, fits Aristotle’s concept of a tragic hero because she has the qualities of hamartia and peripety.

First, Stewart’s hamartia, or fatal flaw, is her inability to adopt a good work ethic and her love of money. She cheated her way to more fortune, showing that she has no integrity and does not value hard work. Having integrity is one of the attributes to a good work ethic, which Stewart claims she is the work ethic (Leung, 2007). She portrayed herself as this elegant and respectful woman with honesty. In 1995, she claimed she can leave this world tomorrow and not miss a thing, because she can feel comfortable with just family alone and does not care for the material wealth she has now (Leung, 2007). In an interview she also stated that the two things that bother her most are dishonesty and those who lack morals (Leung, 2007). These words are ironic being that she was charged with lying to investigators and illegal stock deals. Her love of money led to greed and her role in illegal insider trading. Insider trading is illegal when you trade your own stocks by giving others information, or tips that the public does not know about. Stewart sold over $200,000 of stocks that she owned for ImClone...