King Oedipus Tragic Flaw

King Oedipus’s Tragic Flaw A tragic flaw, according to Aristotle “is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty”. With that said, it is confirmed that King Oedipus possessed a tragic flaw. Pride is a very powerful quality, state of self-importance or opinion and this is what leads Oedipus to demise. One of the reasons why pride caused Oedipus to fall, was when he was taunted with the idea that Polybus was not his father. This astonishingly destroyed Oedipus so hard that he couldn’t think of anything else but to seek and confirm the truth. In that trajectory, he couldn’t find anything but to be told a prophecy where he would kill his father and marry his mother. Consequently, Oedipus decides to leave Corinth and his adoptive parents. By this, he is showing enormous pride because he is challenging the gods in saying …show more content…
Another reason why pride lead to the demise of a tragic figure like King Oedipus was when he went against Creon. He accused Creon of being a traitor since he believed that the prophet Tiresias and he had plotted against him to find Oedipus guilty of murdering King Laius. Thus, so that Creon could become king. According to E.R. 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...Oedipus was already an incestuous parricide; if that was a punishment for his unkind treatment of Creon, then the punishment preceded the crime—which is surely an odd kind of justice.” (Dodds,