“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” said American singer/songwriter Pitbull. Imagine starting at the bottom, slowly working your way up, and finally reaching the pinnacle of your success, only to just plunge back down to where you started. Whether it be due to your actions or another’s, it hurts like nothing else. In Sophocles’s “Oedipus the King,” Oedipus goes from living the dream of his lifetime all the way to down to agonizing in his worst nightmare. Oedipus is a tragic hero because he suffers a huge reversal in fortune, all because of the errors he made resulting from his tragic flaws of anger and arrogance.
Oedipus’s reversal in fortune is his plummet from the mighty King of Thebes, to a poor, pitied outcast. At first, the people adore him. He is married to the beautiful queen Jocasta and has the trust of everyone placed in him. When a plague strikes Thebes, the people look to Oedipus first, saying that “it is because on life’s unequal stage, we see you as first of men and consummate atoner to the powers above… so, Oedipus, you most respected king, we plead for you to find a cure”(6). Here, Oedipus …show more content…
However, the fate that he did suffer over death is not favorable to many. “... so did his hands to strike his founts of sight… and all the while his eyeballs gushed…” (70). Oedipus cursed himself with eternal blindness in perhaps the most agonizing way possible. To top that off, Oedipus pleaded, “... so let me live among the hills, yes, Cithaeron, that very mountain famed as mine… There I’ll be obedient to the death they planned. For this I know, no sickness and no natural death will sever me from life... “ (77). To be banished to isolation on a mountain and not have the ability to see the world for the rest of your life? I know I would take a quick death over Oedipus’s tragic fate
Oedipus’s reversal in fortune is his plummet from the mighty King of Thebes, to a poor, pitied outcast. At first, the people adore him. He is married to the beautiful queen Jocasta and has the trust of everyone placed in him. When a plague strikes Thebes, the people look to Oedipus first, saying that “it is because on life’s unequal stage, we see you as first of men and consummate atoner to the powers above… so, Oedipus, you most respected king, we plead for you to find a cure”(6). Here, Oedipus …show more content…
However, the fate that he did suffer over death is not favorable to many. “... so did his hands to strike his founts of sight… and all the while his eyeballs gushed…” (70). Oedipus cursed himself with eternal blindness in perhaps the most agonizing way possible. To top that off, Oedipus pleaded, “... so let me live among the hills, yes, Cithaeron, that very mountain famed as mine… There I’ll be obedient to the death they planned. For this I know, no sickness and no natural death will sever me from life... “ (77). To be banished to isolation on a mountain and not have the ability to see the world for the rest of your life? I know I would take a quick death over Oedipus’s tragic fate