Tragic Heroes today

During this unit we dealt a lot with heroes. We studied Hamlet and Beowulf to name a few.  When reading these stories we analyzed to see what made a hero during the time each story was written.  We also closely analyzed how heroes acted with other characters. By analyzing these we were able to see what the culture of the time saw as acceptable for a "hero" to act.  This then bring me to the question of whether or not it is possible to have a tragic hero, like the ones in Hamlet and Beowulf today.  In both stories the tragic hero in Hamlet and Beowulf were what we would call royals, or kings.  We never read of a tragic hero who is a commoner or a person that is not a king or queen, we always read of these persons in high places that experience a major down fall.  I feel that this is done so that they people of the time could see that these rulers were also human, this also idolized these rulers.  I believe that that today the tragic heroes do not have to be kings and or queens.  They are able to be people like you and I, commoners.  It is like this today versus how it is because of the society that we are in.  Today unlike the times of before we live in a society who believes that we are able to become what ever we want.   We don't have to have money or be famous to achieve our dreams.  Unlike before you had to be wealthy in order to be able to achieve them.  And because of the society that we do live in, it is possible to have tragic heroes today  however they are much different then what they were long long ago.