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Oedipus and his flaws
Oedipus's Inextinguishable Flaws Flaws plague every man and woman on this planet.
Flaws are what we have in common with each other, and all characteristics
that make us human. Sophocles's Oedipus, shows that sometimes the
combination of certain flaws and other human characteristics can have a
tragic outcome. The caring King Oedipus was paranoid and short tempered,
and these characteristics brought him to his downfall. From the beginning of
the story Oedipus is depicted as a noble caring man. He is greatly distressed
about the plague in Thebes. "My soul mourns the city..." (Sophocles 305) he
tells the priest and the suffering people of Thebes. If Oedipus did not care for
his kingdom, he never would have bothered to seek out Laius's murderer.
Oedipus also mourned the death of his wife. As well, Oedipus proves himself a
loving father towards his daughters, by asking Creon to take care of them.
One of the main reasons for Oedipus's exile is his short temper. Oedipus
loses his temper with Tireseas, because he will not tell Oedipus the truth.
After Tireseas speaks the truth, Oedipus grows even more short tempered, and
taunts Tireseas for being blind. Oedipus then accuses Creon of sending
Tireseas to make Oedipus think he is the murderer. After Oedipus accuses
Creon he tells him, "I do not desire your banishment-- but your death."
(Sophocles 313) The death of Laius would never have occurred if it was not
for Oedipus's short temper. Oedipus forced King Laius off the road because
his procession wouldn't make way for Oedipus and his group. If Oedipus had
thought things through he would have never have acted so irrationally and
killed King Laius. Oedipus's short temper is triggered by his paranoia.
While he meets with Tireseas, Oedipus believes that Creon, his own brother-in-law
and friend, is against him. "Was it Creon that planned this or yourself,"
(Sophocles 309) Oedipus says to Tireseas. Oedipus also thinks that his own
countrymen could be against him. Once Creon comes home and tells Oedipus
that he must find Laius's murderer he proclaims, "...whoever slew Laius might
turn a hand against me." (Sophocles 306) Oedipus has a certain paranoia
around himself as the truth is being unraveled. His wife, Jocasta tells him to
In Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” Milgram explains his own study on the effects authority has on levels of obedience. Milgram designed the experiment in order to recognize the subjects as “teachers,” and actors as “learners,” with another actor posing as an "experimenter.” (Milgram 78). Milgram required the teacher to read a list of word pairs to a learner and to test their remembrance afterward (78). As Milgram explains in his essay, each time the learner answers incorrectly, the teacher is required by the experimenter to flip a switch on an electric shock generator. The author illustrates that the experimenter implies that the teacher is electrically shocking the learner; however, no shocks are actually inflicted. Diana Baumrind
At one time in our lives there is a moment that we may think of ourselves as better than someone or something else. There may also be a point when making a decision leads to a great error in judgment. In the play Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles, both of these characteristics can be seen in the main character. These characteristics are known as tragic flaws. These flaws are known as hubris meaning excess pride, leading to overconfidence, and hamartia meaning errors and weakness in judgment. Both of these characteristics are the main reason of destruction and downfall in mankind and the tragic hero in this play. The tragic hero is unable to escape his misfortune that is destined to happen. There are many more tragic flaws other than these two that also contribute to the falling of the hero. The destruction and downfall can be seen as fate. Even though the hero chooses his own actions, the resulting consequences that come about are ones that are unable to be changed. As seen, no one is able to outrun his or her own fate.
Jimmy Cross has many burdens to bear out on the line of duty because of his leadership position as platoon leader and first lieutenant. As per his rank, Cross is required to carry such things as maps, code books, a compass, his pistol and the responsibility of the lives of his men. Jimmy carries around memoirs of his love back home, Martha. He carries two pictures of her, a letter that she ...
1. In Stanley Milgram’s original experiment where he studied the potential of a person to physically harm another when told to do so by an authority figure, he assigned three roles: experimenter, teacher, and learner. The experimenter and learner were complicit in the experiment’s intended goal to measure the threshold at which a person would disobey a command to administer increasing levels of shock treatment. The shock treatment was presented to the teacher as having 15 level increments ranging from 15-450 volts, with descriptions from “slight shock” to “danger: severe shock.” The experiment was disguised as an attempt to study the effects of punishment on memorization of word groups, and involved the unknowing teacher to inflict fake shock treatment at increasing intervals upon the actor-learner upon their delivery of an
The book Obedience to authority by Stanley Milgram is about a series of experiments performed by Milgram himself, on unsuspecting participants. The experiments were performed to answer the question if people had a tendency to comply with authority figures. Milgram drew inspiration from Adolf Eichmann’s trial, to create a study to explain the actions of the Nazis. As quoted “The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.” (pg. 5) The experiment involved a learner, whom was strapped to a chair and connected with electrodes, an experimenter who lead and gave instructions about the experiment and a teacher whom asked
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross goes through a constant struggle between what he remembers about Martha and what he feels about Martha despite the fact he knows in his own mind that what he imagines is not true. Since Lieutenant Cross was the head of the unit, it was his job to lead his members. It was his job to maintain a leadership. However, Lieutenant Cross’s thoughts and feelings about Martha change as he goes through changes within himself throughout the narrative of this short story.
All Lieutenants have a heavy burden to carry during war. They hold the responsibility of keeping the men safe and being their leader. Lieutenant Cross is not able to fully perform his job being a Lieutenant due to the fact that he emotionally distracts himself with a girl back home named Martha. We see Cross’s obsession for her when the narrator says “It was a phantom jealousy, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself.
Her lack of interest in him as a romantic partner is clear, yet he continues to believe that she may love him one day. This intricate fantasy has caused his mind to wander from the important matters at hand. Throughout their many missions, he would remind his men to spread out and to be aware of their surroundings. Ironically, Lieutenant Cross would slip away from reality to think about Martha and what he could have done when he was next to her. In the midst of one of his many daydreams, a fellow soldier, Ted Lavender, dies. Lieutenant Cross is suddenly hit with the realization that it was his
Throught Oedipus Rex, Oedipus displays his heroism many times. From the Prologue of the play to the moment in which he leaves Thebes, Oedipus' heroics are extremely apparent; however, at the same time, the decisions which make Oedipus a hero ultimately become the decisions which bring him to shame and exile.
Aristotle defined a tragic story as the adventure of a good man who reaches his ultimate downfall because he pushed his greatest quality too far. Sophocles advocates the definition in the tragic play Oedipus Rex. He develops the play with the great polarities of fame and shame, sight and blindness, and ignorance and insight to show Oedipus’ experiences in search for knowledge about his identity. Through his search, Oedipus pushes his quest for truth too far and ultimately reaches his doom. Oedipus’ reliance on his intellect is his greatest strength and ultimate downfall.
In the first paragraph of the story, Jimmy Cross' rank is noted (First Lieutenant) along with the fact that he "carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey" (434). From the outset, the reader sees that Martha plays a pivotal role in his thoughts and actions. The fact that Jimmy Cross "would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire" after he marched the entire day and dug a foxhole indicates that he thinks often of Martha (434). While these thoughts of a lover back home provide some form of escape for Lt. Cross, they also burden him with the obsessive feelings of unrequited love. ...
Factors such as institutional authority, people’s attitude change after the experiment, participants’ interaction with the experimenters or the confederates may play an important role in the results of Milgram’s experiment. People or even social psychologists can also be vulnerable to the situational factors and thus conform or obey.
Two novels written before the nineteenth century were, Pride and Prejudice and The Three Musketeers. In the first novel, Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen, there is the Bennet family. They have five daughters and Mrs.Bennet is very eager to get them all married. At coincidental timing Mr.Bingley, a wealthy single man comes to Netherfield. After a social visit by Mr.Bennet to Mr.Bingley, the Bennets are invited to a ball. At the ball Jane immediately catches the attention of Mr.Bingley and they spend the entire evening dancing together, however for Mr.Bingley’s friend Darcy, the same cannot be told. Elizabeth was recommended to dance with him but he arrogantly and very rudely turned her down. Eventually after having many encounters with Elizabeth at other balls and such, he is attracted by her intelligence and charm. At the start of winter Mr.Bingley and Darcy leave Netherfield to go back home. Therefore Jane visits the city in hopes to see Mr.Bingley, but instead is scorned by Miss Bingley (Mr.Bingley sister) and sadly returns. A little bit after Elizabeth goes to visit her best friend Charlotte, who lives near Darcy’s aunt. Upon hearing this Darcy comes to the house and proposes to Elizabeth by confessing his love for her. But she rejects him immediately calling him arrogant and scolds him for steering Mr.Bingley away from Jane and disinheriting Wickham. Darcy does not respond and just leaves. Shortly after Darcy writes a letter to Elizabeth explaining that he steered Mr.Bingley away from Jane because he felt the relationship was not going anywhere. He also explains that the real cause of their disagreement was that Wickham (a man in the militia that the younger Bennet girls have fallen in love with) was attempting to ...
Oedipus demonstrates that he is not a purely evil character by fleeing his home town for safety of others, taking care of his city and accepting responsibility for his actions. Once Oedipus has grown to be a young man he is told that he is to kill his father and sleep with his mother because it is his fate. As a result “I [Oedipus] herd and fled” to Thebes so he can prevent those actions from occurring (822). Oedipus runs away from his fate to help himself out as well as his family. He does not want to kill his father; therefore, he runs away from his fate for the safety of his father. This shows that he is not a purely evil character because he is saving a life and looking after others besides himself. However, running from what he believes is his fate causes him to run into his real fate which leads to his downfall as a leader. On the other hand, it causes Oedipus to take the position as king of Thebes. Being leader of the city, he is forced into
Oedipus was a victime of fate, his futur was foretold by an Oracle, he had no way of knowing that his wife was his mother nor that the stranger he killed was his father. Oedipus could not prevent his own downfall. Oedipus was the king of Thebes, he became king when he cured the city of a deadly plague. He cured the plague by solving the riddle of the mythical creature, the Sphinkx. Now the city is suffering from another plague and as king Oedipus must solve the riddle of this one.