Oedipus the King, a Classic Tragedy
Aristotle, in his work The Poetics, tries to delineate the idea of a tragedy. Throughout his work Aristotle says that the hero, or at least the protagonist in a tragedy must be substantially good, almost godlike. This hero must bring upon themselves their downfall, due to their fatal flaw. If the hero is not at a high point, an audience will not care about them, and won’t notice their fall. One must fall a long way in social class in order for it to be noticed by the outside man. Oedipus perfectly exemplifies a tragedy, in relation to modern society, effectively showing how too much pride can often lead to downfall or doom.
Oedipus is a magnificent man. He is also the perfect example of a tragic hero. He solves the riddle of the great sphinx, which leads him to become the king of Thebes. This success suggests both good morals and the intelligence to put these morals to help those he now rules over. This event and morals cause the reader to develop an understanding or connection to Oedipus as a man more than a fictional character. This love for the protagonist is necessary for a tragedy to exist and in Aristotle’s The Poetics it states, “ In order for the audience to experience catharsis, they must believe in the character and be able to identify with him/her. Only then can the fate of that character cause the readers to experience pity, fear, sorrow, and—finally—purging”(Aristotle’s Poetics Summarize). Catharsis is necessary for a true tragedy to exist; these moments can be emotional or even spiritual for the reader. Aristotle is trying to portray that the reader must be able to connect with the protagonist or the catharsis will not be as great. A tragedy characterizes humans as having godl...
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...Oedipus blinding himself he is ridding himself of his hubris and rage; he is no longer a threat to those around him. The suffering comes from the act of cutting ones eyes out and having the blood rush out.
Oedipus is bound to a life of suffering, he was fated this way from his birth. The human race is subject to a life of suffering; the godlike potential that both Oedipus and the human race have only causes a harder, more tragic, fall. Tragedy lives everywhere, even in the stories of the common man. Because of the inevitability of suffering one should never go out proclaiming happiness. In the final lines of Sophocles’ Oedipus, the chorus states, “calling anybody happy who is mortal until he has passed the last milestone without calamity”(Sophocles ll. 1482-1484). The Tragic world prevents anyone from being judged on a happy prosperous life until they are dead.
The choir represents the voice of the people, the voice of the masses. People often conform to this uniform truth, they want to be like other people. This conformation leads to a uniform voice from the public. This voice is often ignorant to the truth, seemingly to the point that it creates its own truth.
On a warm, Summer's afternoon, I sat in my room, a Wii remote clutched in my right hand and a Wii Nunchuck in the other.
Oedipus’ fate caused him to isolate himself by blinding himself. Ironically, when Oedipus had his sight, he didn’t know the truth about the murder or even his life. He thought a group of bandits killed Laios and that his parents were from Corinth. Teiresias, a blind man, accused Oedipus of being blind “with both [his] eyes(p855, 196).'; Oedipus used his “blinded'; sight to discover the truth that brought him to his demise. Since he “had too long been blind to those for whom [he] was searching…from this hour [he would] go in darkness(p878, 49)!'; His strong reliance on his intellect unfortunately led him to see no more.
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
Tragic heroes cause intense empathetic reaction, developing an inevitable story of anguish and triumph. In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus is such a hero. He has many good, even heroic qualities; however, his deep flaws ultimately cause his undoing and terrible punishment. Although he comes across as a royal being who is basically good, he has flaws that ultimately cannot be controlled and devastate his life. As the readers watch his development and the development of the interwoven themes in the play, we ourselves suffer upon seeing and hearing the ironies of his relationships and motivations. Tragic heroes are relatable and saddening, and the pure idea of their being can draw deep emotion that lasts through civilizations and generations. Oedipus Rex is an iconic example of a tragic story with a tragic main character.
In the play, Oedipus the King, blindness is used metaphorically and physically to characterize several personas , and the images of clarity and vision are used as symbols for knowledge and insight. Enlightenment and darkness are used in much the same manner, to demonstrate the darkness of ignorance, and the irony of vision without sight.
Aristotle extensively explored Greek tragedies and came down to the realization that, “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude” (Section 1, Part VI, Poetics). Tragedy, like all other types of poetry, is a mimesis (imitation) that still contains a serious purpose. Aristotle tended to write things as they could be rather than how they actually are, which is greatly portrayed in Sophocles’ rendition of the Oedipus Plays. The whole idea behind a tragedy is to produce a “catharsis” out of the audience. There are six steps to be able to produce a catharsis, those being: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle (scenic effect), and song.
Although written after Sophocles crafted The Oedipus Trilogy, Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero fits perfectly with Oedipus. Aristotle, refers to tragic hero’s as those who are born of a noble birth and are fated by the Gods to doom and destruction. The tragic drama involves choices of free will and results in a paradox of whether if fate or free will is responsible for the suffering in the tragic hero’s life. The hero struggles against their fate, which leads to the drama of the downfall and the self-realization of their own self. Oedipus embodies Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero, as he struggles with his own fate, and is blind to his own self with his impulsive search for the truth.
Courageous and admirable with noble qualities defines a heroine. In Aristotle’s Poetics he describes a tragic hero as a character who is larger than life and through fate and a flaw they destroy themselves. Additionally, Aristotle states excessive pride is the hubris of a tragic hero. The hero is very self-involved; they are blind to their surroundings and commit a tragic action. A tragedy describes a story that evokes sadness and awe, something larger than life. Furthermore, a tragedy of a play results in the destruction of a hero, evoking catharsis and feelings of pity and fear among the audience. Aristotle states, "It should, moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation." (18) For a tragedy to arouse fear, the audience believes similar fate might happen to them and the sight of the suffering of others arouses pity. A tragedy's plot includes peripeteia, anagnorisis, hamartia and catharsis. Using Aristotle’s criteria, both characters in Oedipus The King and The Medea share similar qualities that define a tragic hero such as being of noble birth, having excessive pride, and making poor choices. They both gain recognition through their downfall and the audience feels pity and fear.
Here is a story where Oedipus the King, who has accomplished great things in his life, discovers that the gods were only playing with him. He has everything a man of that time could want; he is king of Thebes, he has a wonderful wife and children, and great fame through out the lands. He has lived a good life, but in the end everything is taken from him.
According to Aristotle's theory of tragedy and his definition of the central character, Oedipus the hero of Sophocles is considered a classical model of the tragic hero. The tragic hero of a tragedy is essential element to arouse pity and fear of the audience to achieve the emotional purgation or catharathis. Therefore, this character must have some features or characteristics this state of purgation. In fact, Oedipus as a character has all the features of the tragic hero as demanded by Aristotle.
Explained by Aristotle, the characteristics of a good tragic hero must be “better than we are,” a man who is superior to the average man in some way. A man one might say closely resembles Oedipus Rex. But Oedipus is more imperfect than perfect, as he commits his actions in haste and is unable to see what is happening around him. His hamartia was the main reason for his downfall. In the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus demonstrates his errors in judgement through his hubris, blindness, and foolishness and therefore is at fault. Oedipus’s great hubris led him to a path where he couldn’t come back from. His blindness and ignorance to the truth caused Oedipus to take actions that he thought would aid him escape the prophecy told by the oracle. His actions justify the line of events that occur in the play.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself among many other things. Oedipus is often portrayed as the perfect example of what a tragedy should be in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics. Reason being that Oedipus seems to include correctly all of the concepts that Aristotle describes as inherent to dramatic tragedy. These elements include: the importance of plot, reversal and recognition, unity of time, the cathartic purging and evocation of pity and fear, the presence of a fatal flaw in the “hero”, and the use of law of probability.
Oedipus the King by Sophocles has the ingredients necessary for a good Aristotelian tragedy. The play has the essential parts that form the plot, consisting of the peripeteia, anagnorisis and a catastrophe; which are all necessary for a good tragedy according to the Aristotelian notion. Oedipus is the perfect tragic protagonist, for his happiness changes to misery due to hamartia (an error). Oedipus also evokes both pity and fear in its audience, causing the audience to experience catharsis or a purging of emotion, which is the true test for any tragedy according to Aristotle.
Oedipus is depicted as a “marionette in the hands of a daemonic power”(pg150), but like all tragic hero’s he fights and struggles against fate even when the odds are against him. His most tragic flaw is his morality, as he struggles between the good and the evil of his life. The good is that he was pitied by the Shepard who saved him from death as a baby. The evil is his fate, where he is to kill his father and marry his mother. His hubris or excessive pride and self-righteousness are the lead causes to his downfall. Oedipus is a tragic hero who suffers the consequences of his immoral actions, and must learn from these mistakes. This Aristotelian theory of tragedy exists today, as an example of what happens when men and women that fall from high positions politically and socially.