Oedipus Rex and “Master Harold” and the boys are dramatic tragedies that tell the story of two men who, as Kreon would put it, “serve [their] own destruction. Although the two plays are completely different in plot and setting, they are similar in respect to the irrational decisions that the main characters make. The main characters also share many of the same characteristics which include a false sense of pride, intelligence which is over shadowed by irrational decisions, clouded judgment, and shame of their actions. Although the characters serve their own destruction, it can be argued that the environment shaped the downfalls which take place in each play. Pride is a personality trait that Oedipus and Hally develop in each play that eventually serve to their destruction. Oedipus and Hally are both introduced as humble characters who develop a false sense of pride as each story progresses. Oedipus’ pride is based on his inability to accept reality, while Hally’s pride is based on social influences that shape his views on humanity. Oedipus’ demonstrates humility when the Oracle informs him that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus believes what the Oracle tells him and eventually leads a journey to avoid his fate. Later in the story, he develops a false sense of pride which allows him to deny the truth behind Teiresias’ prophecy. Oedipus instead interprets Teiresias’ prophecy as a threat from Kreon and reasons that it is because of his “Wealth, power, craft of statesmanship! Kingly position, everywhere admired!”. (scene 1, 163-4) Oedipus’ language suggests superiority over Kreon and Teiresias, and it is this scene where he demonstrates that the humility he once possessed is gone. In the beginning of ... ... middle of paper ... ...er believes that he is smarter and more aware than anyone he speaks to and becomes blind to the truth which was shown when Teiresia explained the prophecy. Oedipus Rex and “Master Harold” and the boys focus on character, judgment, decisions, and the relationship between the three. Oedipus and Hally are not “evil” characters but they become very unlikeable characters towards the end of their stories due to poor judgment and bad decision making. The reader roots for each protagonist and is let down by their actions throughout their stories. They serve their own destruction in their stories but also serve the destruction of their likeability from the perspective of the reader. The tragedy of each play is due to the series of poor choices that the characters make which lead to their undesirable actions. The two men become examples of disappointment and wasted potential.
As tragic hero Oedipus displays all of the usual canon; power, arrogance, and pride. Oedipus manifests himself in a position of confidence, which he derives from his success at solving the riddle of the Sphinx and marrying a queen.“It was you who came / and released Cadmus’ Town from the tribute / we paid to the cruel songstress…” (Sophocles, 33-35) , “CREON: Then tell me this - / are you not married to my sister?” (Sophocles, 696-697). In turn, it also enabled him to make rash decisions, such as slaying his father, without personal recompense. “I was to slay my father. And he dies, / And the grave hide...
Set ages apart, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex provide different perspectives on the topic of tragedy and what is defined as a tragic hero. Although Oedipus would be thought of as better representing the tragic hero archetype due to tradition and time period, the modern tragic hero of Oedipus Rex is more of a dismal one. Through analysis of their respective hamartias, it is exemplified that the New York businessman with his humble story proves to be more thought provoking than the King of Thebes and his melancholic tale. **By incorporating a more relatable character and plot, Arthur Miller lends help to making Willy Lowman spiral toward his own downfall while building more emotion and response from the audience than with Oedipus. When Oedipus learns of his awful actions, this invokes shock and desperation. With Willy Lowman, the audience goes for a bumpy ride until the eventual, but expected, crash. ** (NEEDS WORK)
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.
In the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus learns things that make him realize that he is not who he thinks he is. His past is slowly unavailing throughout the play from where he came from to why it happened and he is determined to learn the truth. This play is based on tragedy and some say that Oedipus himself is to be held responsible for what happens to him towards the end. As Oedipus seeks out the truth behind the prophecy going on about killing his father and marrying his mother, Jocasta realizes the truth before Oedipus does and tries to prevent him from pursuing the knowledge.
Along the same line as humility comes pride. Odysseus had more pride and cockiness than any of the characters I have read about this semester. He didn’t seem as bad in the Iliad, but the Odyssey really showed him in a different light. He had to swallow his pride when he had to come back to his home and get it back. Just in the fact that he came back at all was pride swallowing. He lost all of his men.
In The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Allen Mandelbaum, Homer retells the story of Odysseus’s expedition from Troy to his homeland, Ithaca. Along the way, Odysseus faces numerous challenges—from dealing with Poseidon’s wrath to getting trapped on Calypso’s island. With Athena’s guidance, he returns to Ithaca to reunite with his son, Telemachus, and loyal wife, Penelope. Throughout the book, hubris or excessive pride is in display especially with Odysseus and the suitors. Hubris causes the them to neglect the gods and create careless mistakes which backfire in the future. Their incapability to make good decisions is affected by their pride which blurs what is and is not a good idea. In addition, hubris is also a trait looked down on in Greek culture. Homer lets his audience understand how pride can be part of one’s success. However, hubris will not only cause his or her downfall but also of those around them.
Most characters that appear in tragedies have one common similarity. This is that they all have a tragic flaw that leads to their downfall in the end. This tragic flaw can be many different things such as greed or anger issues, but the two most common are hubris, or excessive pride, and jealousy. In Oedipus Rex and Othello, we can see major examples of these two tragic flaws, plus a little bit of greed from a secondary character in Othello. This shows that tragedies typically follow the same storyline. Of course this is not meant as actually the same story. Basically these stories contain someone who has a lot of power or high social status with a tragic flaw that leads to their death or loss of power. That statement alone describes both Oedipus
The play "Oedipus Rex" is a very full and lively one to say the least. Everything a reader could ask for is included in this play. There is excitement, suspense, happiness, sorrow, and much more. Truth is the main theme of the play. Oedipus cannot accept the truth as it comes to him or even where it comes from. He is blinded in his own life, trying to ignore the truth of his life. Oedipus will find out that truth is rock solid. The story is mainly about a young man named Oedipus who is trying to find out more knowledge than he can handle. The story starts off by telling us that Oedipus has seen his moira, his fate, and finds out that in the future he will end up killing his father and marrying his mother. Thinking that his mother and father were Polybos and Merope, the only parents he knew, he ran away from home and went far away so he could change his fate and not end up harming his family. Oedipus will later find out that he cannot change fate because he has no control over it, only the God's can control what happens. Oedipus is a very healthy person with a strong willed mind who will never give up until he gets what he wants. Unfortunately, in this story these will not be good trait to have.
Upon reading the play, there is an apparent class structure found throughout. In Oedipus Tyrannus, two mai...
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.
Theater audiences and literary enthusiasts are not spared of Shakespeare’s astonishing ability to capture the human spirit in his play Hamlet. The story of the tormented prince who desires revenge but is unable to take action delves deep into the human mind than plays before it. While some uninformed readers may write off Hamlet’s behavior to poor writing, it is clear that the Oedipus complex is the true driving force of Hamlet’s actions when delaying his revenge.
In perhaps one of the most well known stories in the Western world, Oedipus the King, innocence and guilt are two of the most discussed aspects. The implications surrounding the guilt or innocence of Oedipus can not only be applied to this play, but to almost all stories told throughout the Western tradition. Within Oedipus the King, no one character carries the guilt of the events in the play, rather it is a culmination of humans trying to avoid their fate that create a paradox of individuals who are all at once guilty and innocent, with the different acts of individuals ultimately bringing about the fate that Oedipus suffers.
at the beginning Oedipus is so full of pride that he cannot see the obvious. He rages against the truth, for example, the truth as symbolized by Tiresias. But, eventually, he sees what is almost impossible to see, because it is so hideous. The Oedipus tragic flaw was pride by showing how he was better than the gods and feels he is capable of controlling his own destiny without the gods help. Oedipus suffers shame and loss because of the pride within his heart, Oedipus pride turned to shame due to his murder of his father and his relationship with his mother Jocasta. In addition losing things that are most valuable to him. Oedipus further learns from his experiences that pride is destructive
Sophocles’ Oedipus is the tragedy of tragedies. An honorable king is deceived and manipulated by the gods to the point of his ruination. In the face of ugly consequences Oedipus pursues the truth for the good of his city, finally exiling himself to restore order. Sophocles establishes emotional attachment between the king and the audience, holding them in captivated sympathy as Oedipus draws near his catastrophic discovery. Oedipus draws the audience into a world between a rock and a hard place, where sacrifice must be made for the greater good.
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.