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.
To begin, Oedipus had a fatal flaw that Sophocles made clear throughout the play. This flaw is hubris, which means excessive pride. His over inflated pride makes people less fond of him. People such as Tiresias tried to help him by telling him the truth, but he refused to listen. He turned a deaf ea...
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...
The nature of the tragic hero of ancient Greek tragedy was first discussed by Aristotle in Poetics in the fourth century BC. Using Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the King as a model, Aristotle identified four characteristics necessary for a tragic hero: position (power, royalty, good intentions), tragic flaw (a character’s fault that leads to the hero’s downfall), reversal (the downfall itself), and recognition (the hero’s realization that he has caused his own downfall). In Antigone, another of Sophocles’ tragedies, King Creon becomes king of Thebes after the deaths of Oedipus’ sons Eteocles and Polyneices. As, the proud, stubborn Creon abandons the gods’ law and refuses to consider the advice of others, tragic consequences ensue. During his reign, Creon demonstrates all four characteristics of the tragic hero.
The Tragic Hero is a person that comes from a royal family with a high estate. A person that has flaws and error within their judgement. Aristotle called this a hamartia, an error in judgement or a tragic flaw (Kennedy and Gioia, 2016, p. 905). Oedipus’ hamartia was crossing path with his father and killing him on a road. He solves the riddle of the Sphinx; therefore, marries the King’s wife and becoming the King of Thebes. Oedipus Rex is far from perfect; however, he is a good man. However, “according to this interpretation, every tragic hero has some fatal weakness” (Kennedy and Gioia, 2016, p. 858). Oedipus Rex has a high since of pride and overconfidence. Although Oedipus Rex is important to his society, his struggles and falls he encounter
In Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, Oedipus is the tragic hero; his flaw is his pride which he displays throughout the play, this is what leads to his downfall. In the play, Oedipus is attempting to free Thebes, his kingdom, from a plague; in doing so, he uncovers a horrible truth about himself and his family. In the end, he realizes that trying to outrun his fate, killing his father and marrying his mother, only brought him closer to fulfilling it. Throughout the play, Oedipus consistently, and sometimes without knowing, shows how prideful he is; in doing this he tries to avoid his fate and the truth. Oedipus’ pride causes him to lose everything because he chooses to overlook his fate and the truth.
In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, the protagonist Oedipus faces the realization of an ancient prophecy. Based on the prophecy, Oedipus is to kill his father and espouse his mother, Jocasta. Little to his knowledge, Oedipus has already fulfilled the prophecy. Initially, Oedipus’ emotions controlled him and his pride consumed him, only making him blind to the truth that he is the source of pollution in Thebes. Oedipus is a dynamic character who realizes his true fate. Once Oedipus fully becomes self-aware, he is no longer consumed by pride, and he no longer relies on his emotions.
According to Dodds, “Oedipus, they point out, is proud and over-confident; he harbors unjustified suspicions against Teiresias and Creon; in one place he goes so far as to express some uncertainty about the truth of oracles.” This very flaw is held as a pillar for the foundation of the play “Oedipus the King”. It ultimately propels the main theme of the falsehood of free will forward by showing how as a human, the emotions that swell inside will subject the owner to their own demise. Oedipus is subject to this theme by allowing his pride and resulting anger from discovering the truth to send him into a frenzy in which he proceeds to submit his role and disgrace himself by gouging out his eyes.
From the way the man speaks to the other shepherd, "Damn you, shut your mouth—quite!" (346) You can tell that Oedipus is not going to like what this messenger has to say. He to owns the knowledge that is blinding Oedipus. But he will soon know and the knowledge of himself will set him free, and he will be able to understand his faults. When Oedipus finally realizes that the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother had came true, he was over come with shame. He goes to Jocasta’s quarters, where she had taken her own life, and gouged out his eyes with the broach that she wore. In the end, Oedipus gains insight into his life, his failings, and the nature of the gods and fate only through his own blindness, only through accepting the truth of his lack of vision, and his inability to impact fate. Oedipus gains a compassionate, though tragic outlook because of his capacity to envision that which he could never see while he had his physical sight. Through his blindness, Oedipus is finally allowed the ability to see himself, and this is the irony of sight in Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King.
Tragic heroes are heroes of a story with a trait or flaw that ultimately leads to their downfall. In the play Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, Oedipus, the protagonist of the story, shows many examples of his pride and how his pride causes tragic events to take place. His many prideful moments in the play such as, the altercation with his father and Oedipus believing that the prophet was lying so Tiresias and Creon could take the throne. Consequently, Oedipus’ pride is ultimately the cause of his downfall and dethroning.
It is exactly this bad decision to which he is blind to his own doing, due to his tragic flaws. Aristotle also defined a tragic hero as having the character's flaw result from something that is also a central part of their virtue, which is Oedipus’ intelligence. Consequently, this need for knowledge pushes Oedipus to discover the truth. His intelligence directly influences his pride and arrogance, as he believes that he would have never been out-wit by the gods. A Tragic hero also usually possesses hubris, or excessive pride. Arrogance and pride virtues also play a role in his fall. Oedipus cannot accept the foretelling about his fate, due to his excessive pride. For this reason, Oedipus rejects the idea that the gods are in control of the lives of humans, and fate all together. This is evidence or his excessive pride and ego, as he believes that he cheat the gods. Oedipus commands information, however damaging it be, because he believes he can handle the truth. “Did you rise to the crisis? Not a word, you and your birds, your gods—nothing. No, but I came by, Oedipus the ignorant, I stopped the Sphinx! With no help from the birds, the flight of my own
Sight is a very important sense to a human being. It is one of the things generally taken for granted, but without it, many people would find themselves helpless and lost. The eyes are used to navigate, to interact, and to learn. However, even with sight people can still go astray and often become oblivious to the most apparent truths. This mental blindness can be more detrimental to one’s life than physical blindness. In the play Oedipus Rex, the title character Oedipus suffers from this kind of blindness. He is blinded from the truth his whole life, thus leading to his unfortunate fate. In the characters of Oedipus and Teiresias, Sophocles uses blind and sight as motif to effectively show how one’s uncontrolled emotions are blinding, and why physical sight is not needed for one to see the truth.
In the drama Oedipus by Sophocles, the determination of the main character leads him to recognize his whole life has been nothing but a lie. Although Oedipus is concerned for the well being of his city, he can’t help but also be concerned for his reputation and how the city of Thebes will look at him. Ultimately, the way Oedipus reacts to events in the play leads to his downfall. Sophocles uses the play to argue that when an individual is too prideful and quick to anger, it can result in ignorance and eventually, as the individual learns of their ignorance they will experience pain and self-destruct.
A tragic heros is someone who faces adversity and has courage and they have similar characteristics throughout different literature. A hero often times experience a downfall, but confronts the situation in a way that causes them to be given the title of a tragic hero. Aristotle once stated about tragic heroes and recited “A man doesn’t become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall.” Aristotle also came up with six characteristics that all tragic heroes have. Romeo is a prime example of a tragic hero by the quick judgements he makes due to his love for Juliet. He decides to attempt suicide when he sees Juliet faking her death, this shows his character falls in love too fast and too hard. The way he loves Juliet is Romeo’s downfall
Sophocles Oedipus the King is a tragic play which discusses the tragic discovery of Oedipus that he has killed his father and married his mother. The story of Oedipus was well known to the athenians. Oedipus is the embodiement of the perfect Athenian. He is self-confident, intelligent, and strong willed. Ironically these are the very traits which bring about his tragic discovery. Oedipus gained the rule of Thebes by answering the riddle of Sphinx. Sophocles used the riddle of the sphinx as a metaphor for the 3 phases of Oedipus life and to futher characterized him as a tragic man.