Oedipus As A Tragic Hero

Improved Essays
Virginia Boggs
Mrs. Meng
ENGL 201-D36 LUO
12 December 2014
Oedipus: The Tragic Hero Aristotle’s definition of the tragic hero is one that combines specific qualities. One is that the main person in the tragedy must be of superior status. Another quality is that the main character must be a person that is well liked by other characters in the play and the audience. The main person in the tragedy will also have flaws that not only bring him down but also other people around him. Oedipus is a tragic hero because his many flaws led to his eventual downfall. Oedipus is a nobleman; usually either being a prince or a king makes one a noble person. The priest in this play points out Oedipus social status fairly early in this play. ”Great
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He will not quit until he has uncovered that he was not as wise as he believed. He had not cheated the fates as he had thought, for every choice that he had made throughout his life, the fates had foreseen. “God. God. Is there a sorrow greater? Where shall I find harbor in this world? My voice is hurled far on a dark wind. What has God done to me?” (Sophocles 980,981). Oedipus was grief stricken after he realized the truth. Was it really Oedipus’ destiny that his life played out the way that the oracles had prophesied? Or did the fates have a hand in it? On the other hand, was it due in fact to Oedipus being too hubris and arrogant that made him ignorant to see what was obvious to the …show more content…
After Oedipus saved Thebes and its people from the Sphinx who had enslaved them by answering the riddle, he began to think that he was beyond the reproach of the Gods. Oedipus thought that his wisdom made him smarter that the oracles so smart in fact that he believed that he could outsmart fate by running from it. It was not only pride but also Oedipus’ ignorance that lead to his downfall and tragic end. At the very beginning of the play Oedipus questions the priest as to why there is so much sorrow and crying out to the Gods. When the priest answers that there is a plague upon the land and its people and that they wish for Oedipus to help them again as he helped them before. “I know that you are deathly sick; and yet, Sick as your, not one is as sick as I” (Sophocles 250). Oedipus does not show humility, but instead tells the children that he has pity for them even though not one of them has suffered as much as he has. “King Oedipus is the most pathetic in terms of suffering, that is, in terms of a reversal of fortune due in part to a hamartia, the chief Aristotlian criterion for “pathe” (Abade-Yeboah, Ahenkora and Amankwa 10). “I say you live in hideous shame with those Most dear to you. You can not see the evil” (Sophocles 958). Even before Oedipus finally quit blaming everyone for his suffering and accusing people of conspiring to overthrow him, Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother/wife

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