Oedipus Tragic Hero Essay

Although bleak, the story of Oedipus could be the story of any of us. Yes, everyone could capitulate to a foreboding future, for it is out of our hands, just as it was out of his. Even before he could speak there was prophecy of what he would come to do. He unknowingly killed his father, only to learn about it twenty years later. He takes his own eyes out with the pins of his mother’s brooches. Oedipus is a classic example of a tragic hero because of his unjust fate and cruel circumstances. When Oedipus is born, his father speaks to a prophet, and it is said that Oedipus will kill his father and be married to his mother. Long before the story even begins, there is prophecy of what he will do. He is strung up by his ankles on a tree by his own family and left to die there until he is saved and adopted. A tragic hero, being defined as a virtuous hero in a dramatic tragedy that is destined for downfall, cannot save themselves from the fate which they will inevitably succumb to and could be any one of us. At such a young age none of us could defend against a cruel fate such as the baby Oedipus. Jocasta …show more content…
He made a choice, to kill himself or to live, but he did not want to see what his shame had brought. In his grief, he pierced his eyes with the pins on his mother’s brooches, blinding himself. This is evidence to the fact that Oedipus is a tragic, for even killing himself may have been better than what he did to himself after finding out that his mother had perished. Ensuing the death of his mother and the blinding of himself, the Chorus tells Oedipus this, “I cannot say your remedy was good; you would be better dead than blind and living” (Sophocles 476). This is the juncture that finally ends the tragic story of Oedipus, and proves that he is worthy of the title of tragic hero as described by