Differentiating between "The Knight of Faith" and "Tragic Hero"

In “Fear and Trembling”, Kierkegaard develops two figures to help his readers ultimately understand Abraham’s decision to sacrifice his son, Isaac: “The Knight of Faith” and the “Tragic Hero”. On Friday’s pop quiz, I mixed up the two; so I figured I would dedicate this week’s blog post to clarifying the distinction between the two. Kierkegaard describes Abraham as a Knight of Faith through his actions which “transgressed the ethical altogether and had a higher telos [end] outside it.” Abraham had to have known it was wrong to comply with killing his son, but the act was sent to him by God (the Absolute) to be carried out. Consequentially, because Abraham agreed to kill Isaac he must be understood differently. His relationship to the Absolute is the only justification for killing his son. “The Knight of Faith” is thus “higher than the universal”, and stands in a direct “relationship to the absolute.” Kierkegaard introduces the” Tragic Hero” in order to show what Abraham cannot be. He says the Tragic Hero always “stays within the ethical”, meaning, any act committed by the hero is always in a relationship to the universal ethical code. Therefore, in the ethical, Abraham is a murderer. During Friday’s class, Dr. Layne differentiated the two in a concise manner; “The Knight of Faith” cannot be understood nor universalized, while the “Tragic Hero” can be understood.