Oedipus Rex Tragic Hero Essay

Oedipus Rex meets the requirements of classical tragedy in many ways. In Oedipus Rex, the tragic standards come from how fear and pity have been stirred up. Through stirring up of fear and pity, it shows that the person is imperfect in several ways. The element of fear and pity are displayed from a character who has both right and wrong traits which when comprised together make the character compelling. In Oedipus, he has a mixture of both good and bad, and it is this that makes him a tragic hero. Oedipus is a clever leader though refuses to heed the advice and warnings given to him by Teiresias by choosing to be blind to the truth. An ideal tragic hero according to Aristotle must be better than the other people regarding superiority. The consideration of superiority is observed from the character living of a life of high social standing and even is prosperous and later falling into a calamity because of the character’s error in judgment. Oedipus was considered to be a better and superior man and it this that made him be the perfect tragic hero. Oedipus superiority comes about from how smart he was when he solved the Sphinx’s riddle. …show more content…
Fate in Oedipus Rex comes about as a dramatic irony, and it is because of this that Oedipus fits the perfect description of being a tragic hero. The dramatic irony comes about from the fact that the audience knows the outcome of the story but not by the character, and it is this that regards the character’s action as being ignorant and painful because of what is to come. The concept of fate and dramatic irony also apply in an instance where the character tries as much as he can to try and change fate which is ironic to the viewers because they already know that he cannot avoid the