Oedipus Flaws

Oedipus’ fatal flaw is stubbornness. Despite the countless warnings and pieces of advice he receives Oedipus charges blindly forward on his own path unwilling to make even the smallest deviation. Oedipus’ stubbornness brings plague to Thebes, pushes away his family, and seals his tragic fate. By the time Oedipus recognizes his flaw and begins to change, he has already brought grief and ruin to everything he loves and cares about. Before the play even begins Oedipus comes to a narrow crossroads at the same time as a group of five men. Oedipus decides that he should go first, but the other group decides they should go first as well. One of the men tries to crowd Oedipus off the road. Oedipus retells the story to Jocasta, “In anger I struck the driver… I killed the whole lot of them.” A normal person would realize going first and saving at most a minute or two on their trip would not be worth fighting over, and certainly not fighting five men at once. However, Oedipus is not a normal person in this regard. He quite literally sticks to his path choosing kill five men before deviating from it. Oedipus’ stubbornness leads him to murder and unintentionally fulfill a prophecy to kill his father.

He calls in the Oracle of Apollo, Tiresias, to determine the cause, but Tiresias only warns Oedipus against pursuing the truth. Oedipus, upset he has not gotten his way immediately, throws a tantrum. He rails petulantly, “I will, I am angry enough to speak out. I understand it all.” This tantrum hardly represents the behavior of an adult willing to compromise or take advice, more so the behavior of s stubborn child. Tiresias eventually snaps under Oedipus’ single-minded assault and reveals that Oedipus is King Laius’ murderer. Oedipus’ stubbornness causes him to be branded as a murderer, a far worse reputation than the shrewd king who defeated the Sphinx and saved