Tragic Flaw of Natashya Romanov in Joyce Carol Oates’s Expensive People: A Cognitive Poetic Analysis

Tragic flaw is one of the ornamental figures of speech that propounds a character’s demise in the plot. Cognitive Poetics is a literary theory that allow readers to interpret a text at his/her own cognitive level. By applying the theory of Cognitive Poetics this article intends to bring out the hubris of Natashya more over on a reader’s perspective with his own linguistic and psychological domain. Also, the fall of Natashya is the outcome of her hamartia. Her defective characteristics like the thirst for fame and material pleasure eventually force her to travel on the path of crisis, which ends her life tragically. Moreover, this research excavates the reasons for the error of her judgement which eventually forces Richard to assassinate her own mother. Natashya’s egoistic clash with her husband and unreal love for her son Richard make the plot more complex and tragic. Her desire to become an independent woman in a male-sophisticated society placed her in a spot of bother. Finally, this article concludes that the fall of Natashya Romanov is an outcome of her headstrong pride and her search for carnal pleasure.