Oedipus Arrogance

The story of Oedipus is about a man who helped the people who resided in Thebes, which was located in Greece. He heard of the troubles that are affecting the city he asks Teiresias who explains it is his fault that there are disasters going on in Thebes. Only to find out he is the reason why there is problems in Thebes and banishes his self from Thebes.

Oedipus is described as a hero with god-like qualities. They worship him. The people of Thebes for instance believe that Oedipus ascended to the throne through God’s guidance. Sophocles play Oedipus definitely exemplifies Aristotle definition of a tragic hero.  Oedipus is not only a king but a person born a noble. Oedipus takes his fate into his own hands and takes his decisions head on. He is his own cause of the things happening around him, to him and in his life. Sadly, his life falls apart, but by his own doing. He has to suffer the consequences of his actions in many ways. First, he forces Teiresias to reveal his destiny as well as his father’s name. Teiresias tries to avoid all these questions but in the end he has to head warning to Oedipus against forcing him to reveal those details. Oedipus is relentless and is determined to find the truth. He continues questioning Teiresias further. Teiresias finally

Sophocles’ Oedipus is one of the most well-known tragic heroes in the history of drama. His strange

“Oedipus the King” is a tragic story written by Sophocles. Oedipus is a king that is trying to escape his fate. An oracle had predicted that he was going to be the killer of his father, and was going to sleep with his mother. When he was first born, his parents attempted to kill him yet he survived and was adopted. Instead of getting away from the atrocious future that was predicted, Oedipus walks right into his fate. This Greek tragedy is about transitions. He starts off as arrogant, unknowing, and full of ego but this drastically changes as we reach the end of the play. Oedipus becomes a wise man and has accepted how life is. No matter how much power or knowledge you have there is no way of tampering with fate, instead accept and learn from it.

Noble birth: oedipus is born to the two rulers of Thebes Hamartia: oedipus’s tragic flaw that ultimately causes his downfall is hubaris. Hubaris, or arrogance Peripeteia: oedipus was living high and mighty, but he became arrogant with power and ignored his fate. This ignorance leads to him realizing he had killed his father, oedipus reacts by sending himself off for death.

Hamartia is an alternative expression for “tragic flaw”, that signifies the fatal flaw leading to a collapse of a tragic hero. King Oedipus possesses a disastrous and negative defect, which is pride. To the unluckiness of Oedipus, he adhered plenty of it to himself throughout his lifetime. Pride is an extremely powerful quality of self-importance or opinion, thus; it eventually leads Oedipus to decease.

Oedipus a man who’s fate was out to get him, the great king of Thebes formerly prince of Corinth. He had to face many struggles in his life that he had well caused, and even though Oedipus tried to escape his fate by leaving Corinth. His true fate lied in Thebes while Corinth was just an obstacle. Oedipus is a man who in a way caused his own fate to be brought out into the light revealing everything. It was all because of Oedipus determination to figure out who killed the great king before him Laios which had turned out to be his father. Oedipus kept on going and going on how important it was to find out whom truly did it, and even though he couldn’t connect the dots. His wife and soon figured out mother did, Jocasta realized that Oedipus was her son and she wanted him to stop searching everywhere so that the truth would not be revealed. It was not come to the light and life could continue to be great. However Oedipus was a man who cared about the people so since he knew what Apollo had said to get rid of the disastrous Plague in Thebes Oedipus went on and on. Not stopping until the truth was revealed and when it was, the despair Oedipus felt was unbelievable. Some people might say that Oedipus could have just been a man who fell into his fate as it was already written for him, however Oedipus can actually be classified as a man who brought out his own fate because of his determination to find Laios killer and find out the truth of who he truly was.

Oedipus Rex has many instances of where Hubris and Hamartia are engaged throughout the play, which helps develop the tragedy. Hubris being the excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis. Hamartia is personal protagonist’s personality that brings about his tragic downfall in a tragedy. This defect in a hero’s personality is also known as a “tragic flaw”.

Traditionally, hamartia has been identified either as being a “tragic flaw”—a serious physical, psychological, or moral flaw in an otherwise impeccable character—or as being directly caused by such a flaw. For example, Laurence Berns states, “As a result of a flaw natural to his kind, the tragic hero harms and destroys those he loves most. It is those very qualities for which he is admired and honored that cause him to wreak great evils” (77). Oedipus, then, is said to be a just and noble ruler who cares for his people as though they were his own children. Indeed, Oedipus addresses the citizens of Thebes as “children” in Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the King (111–113), and he burns with an admirable passion to discover the truths pertaining both to his own past and to the cause(s) behind the plague besetting his city . The fundamental purpose of this dramatic story is that a king picks up his legacy by killing Laius who is his father, so he can fill in as imperial ruler in Delphi. The metaphysical realities revealed through Oedipus' actions go beyond the noble/base, advantageous/injurious or pleasant/painful noted above. Oedipus' actions can be further defined as either virtuous (virtue) or vicious (vice). Virtue and vice are metaphysically manifested through Oedipus' actions in the play.

In fact, both the classic and modern tragic hero display the staple Aristotelian trait of a tragic flaw, coined by the Greeks as “hamartia.” The two ultimate character downfalls in Oedipus and A Doll’s House differ in that Oedipus’ hubris is blunt, antique, and expected from the classic model of a tragic story. Oedipus’ moral weakness stems from his excessive pride, otherwise known as hubris, and all negative consequences of his weakness took root in pure pride. The King of Thebes took fault in a relentless search for the truth in his past and ignored those who warmed him that “the truth is only pain to him who sees!” (1436), but he desperately continued looking in spite of the warnings because Oedipus egoistically believed that his judgment trumped all others’. Ibsen’s Nora conversely sets out on a journey away from the truth, and her literal movement away from the very idea that Oedipus moved towards foreshadows the opposing direction Nora’s tragic flaw will take. Nora too drowns herself in an excessive amount of pride, but hers manifests itself in resistance rather than persistence. She foolishly believes that she can hide the truth of her financial dishonesty from Torvald until “years from now, when [she is] no longer so attractive” (1721). To Nora, the story of her independent expenditure resembles a plaything that she will dangle over her husband’s head until the time is right, and nothing is more prideful than believing she can assume the role of god in her private matters. Like Oedipus, Nora, clouded by her own pride, cannot see that her fate lies completely out of her own hands, and these incessant attempts to alter her predetermined ending only heighten the extremity of Nora’s ultimate demise. It hurts to stumble over the truth, but it pains one even more when he or she deliberately set out to trip and

Hamartia is defined as a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero. Aristotle defines a tragic hero to be a man “who is not completely good and just, whose misfortune is brought out not by vice or immorality, but by some error or weakness.” The three key requirements of Aristotle in regards to a tragic hero are; a high social standing, goodness or moral excellence, or error committed by the hero in unawareness or ignorance. Two quality examples of men that portray Aristotle’s idea of a tragic hero, and who also fit the three main requirements are Oedipus Rex and Willy Loman. Oedipus Rex clearly and without a doubt answers to each of the three requirements laid out by Aristotle is regards to a tragic hero. He is a man of social reputation, and possesses exceptional qualities, but is in no means perfect. It is safe to say that Oedipus’ hamartia is the cause of his own downfall. Willy Loman on the other hand is also considered to be a tragic hero. Like Oedipus, Willy goes through his life, for the most part, blindly, and never really realizes the complete truth of himself. Through his delusional personality, and his continual blindness, Willy’s hamartia is also the main cause of his downfall, where in his case, leads to his death. Through further analysis of both Oedipus Rex and Willy Loman’s tragic flaws, along with literary criticism from Aristotle’s poetics, their hamartia, which ultimately leads them to their

     Greek tragedy is characterized by the emotional catharsis brought about by the horrific suffering of a heroic figure. In Oedipus The King, by Sophocles, the onslaught of pain assailing the protagonist is a result of his tragic flaw. Sophocles often used a characters hamartia to alter or influence the outcome or future of the hero. Oedipus' hubris traps him to fulfil the oracle and intensifies his punishment.

Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex is arguably one of the greatest tragedies ever written. Written and performed in Ancient Greece, Oedipus is a character well known to the Greeks, forever known as an example of one’s inability to escape their fate. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, a tragic hero faces a change in fortune “from good to bad”, as a result of “frailty in character” – otherwise known as hamartia or a tragic flaw (Aristotle’s Poetics 3). In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus follows the paradigm of a tragic hero, specifically through his tragic flaws of ignorance and anger, and is utilized by Sophocles’ to evoke feelings of fear and pity from the audience. Although Sophocles’ intended for Oedipus to relate to the audience of Ancient Greeks, a modern

Oedipus was a man who had a short temper. He became enraged when King Laius ran him off the road, so he killed him and all of his men except one. This was the beginning of the downfall of Oedipus. From here Oedipus comes into Thebes and saves them from the sphinx and married Jocasta who was King Laius’ wife. This was the downward spiral of his prophecy coming true, killing his father and marrying his mom. The one man that got away from the murder of the king and his men later identified Oedipus as the murderer and the baby of Jocasta and Laius. Oedipus’ anger continued throughout the story, he got enraged at the prophet for revieikling him as the murderer so he teamed up with Creon to overthrow him. Oedipus’ anger gets out of hand on multiple accounts and never changes, making him a static character throughout the story.

Destined for a shameful fate from birth, Oedipus tries to outrun his destiny in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. It was prophesied that Oedipus would “lie with [his] mother and beget children men’s eyes would not bear the sight of- and [to] be the killer of the father that gave [him] life” (Sophocles 45). His fear for his destiny and ignorance of the truth as his fate catches up with him makes this story a classic example of a tragedy. Aristotle states that a tragedy should have a tragic figure who is noble, not completely innocent nor wicked, has a tragic flaw, and suffers a downfall. The noble and innocent characteristics versus the hubris and fearful characteristics of Oedipus along with his downfall conclude his identity as Aristotle's definition of a tragic figure.