Doing Unintelligent Things in Oedipus

There are several cases in which we, being the humans that we are, do unintelligent things. This central theme has been used throughout the ages in literature, poetry and theatre. In Socrates' Oedipus, he shows that even people in high positions, like King's, are unable to realize the information in front of them. In most Greek tragedies, characters have what is called a hubris which is pride or humans believing that they are more powerful than the Gods or people ordained by gods to be messengers. In the case of Oedipus, his hubris was also his hamartia or tragic mistake which makes him the tragic hero of the play. His hubris caused several reactions that effected the people around him including: effecting his country through the plague, effecting parents through fulfilling the profecy, and effecting his own life and his eventual downfall by making himself blind.

Oedipus's pride caused him a lot of trouble not only when he reached the land of Thebes, where he became king, but also in his own land of Corinth. There are several examples in which Oedipus is not able to put aside his pride and put the pieces of the puzzle together in order to realize that the Oracle prophecy came true. In the beginning, he believes that he can outsmart the Oracle. In fact, when telling Iocaste about his past he states that, "They prophesied that I should kill Polybus, kill my won father; but he is dead and buried, and I am here—I never touched him, never, unless he died of grief for my departure, and thus, in a sense through me. No. Polybus has pacted the oracles off with him underground. They are empty words (I iii 54-59)." First, his pride prevents him from respecting the power that Tireseas is given by the gods by being disrespectful to him. He completely ignores Tireseas when he says, "I say that you are the murder whom you seek (I i 144)." He is told straight out that he is the murderer and instead says in response, "Now twice you have spat out infamy. You'll pay for it (I i 145)." Second, his pride prevents him from seeing the similarities between Iocaste's story of how her husband died with his own story of how he got to Thebes. Iocate tells him that Laios was killed at a place where three highways meet (I ii 185-94) and this jogs Oedipus's memory and he tells the story of how he killed a man where three highways came together.