Pride In Sophocles 'Oedipus The King'

In the beginning of the play Oedipus meets Laios on a road. Both were driving chariots and neither would yield the right of way. Laios attempts to kill Oedipus’ horses but Oedipus reacts fast killing Laios attendants and his own father, Laios. Oedipus went to Thebes to help and destroy a monster and bless their town. Because of his heroic act, Thebes recalls him again to help and find the murderer who killed their king Laios and punish the man. Oedipus goes and does everything he can to get evidence and find the man who killed Laios the king: “Is this your prayer? It may be answered. Come, Listen to me, act as the crisis demands… Until now I was a stranger to this tale, As I had been a stranger to the crime. Could I track the murderer without a clue?” (Sophocles 1. 1. 204 - 209). Teiresias, a chorus of Theban, elders tells Oedipus he is the murder who killed his father and also mentions he married his own mother along with having children. Oedipus finds all of that to believe and what Oedipus does is find more people to tell him the truth. Jocaste, wife and mother of Oedipus, tells him through the play to not believe such a thing. In Act three Scene five, Shepherd the man, who took Oedipus to Corinth city’s reveals to him that everything is true. Oedipus makes the decision to gouge his eyes out making himself blind to not see the whole catastrophe. He begs Creon to send him away from Theban

Finally, Oedipus’ last attempts to show pride is evident when he blinds himself. “Snatching from her dress gold pins wherewith she was adorned, he lifted them, and smote the nerves of his own eyeballs, saying something like this - that they may see no more evils like those he had endured or wrought” (45). Oedipus blinds himself because he does not want to see himself anymore. He also says that he rather be blind than being to be able to see the prophecy. Oedipus’ action is very desperate and it is his obvious that he is still trying to defy his prophecy.

One day, Oedipus went to the Oracle of Delphi and found out that he was destined to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Oedipus tried to escape his fate by running away from Corinth, leaving who he thought were his real parents. However, he ended up running right into his real father. He saw a group of people riding a chariot at the crossroads and assumed that they were thieves. Laois happened to be one of them, and Oedipus killed him not knowing that he was his real dad. This is important since Oedipus fulfilled part of the prophecy. Oedipus remembered about his encounter with the chariot near the end of the play and said, “But he more than paid for it and soon was struck by the scepter from this very hand, lying on his back, at once thrown out of the car. I killed them all” (Sophocles, 39). Quite soon, he also won the throne of Thebes by answering the riddle of the Sphinx and unknowingly married Iocaste, his real mother.

“Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” says the writer C.S lewis. Indeed this is evident in Sophocles’ Oedipus The King. The rather disturbing events that takes place during the play. The pride of Oedipus, the tragic hero of the play, sets off a chain reaction of events that could have been avoided if Oedipus kept his pride in check. However, he can not and his ego inflates to the point his persona can only be described as a mental disorder. Through analyzing Oedipus’ behaviour and his interactions with the other characters in the play, it can be concluded that he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

A dramatic conflict occurs when Oedipus gets into a fight with a group of men where three roads meet; one of those men is his father King Laius. He kills all the men except for one who flees from the scene and then notifies the Thebians of the tragic news. Oblivious to Oedipus, the first half of his fate (that he was trying so hard to avoid) is fulfilled. Usually crossroads signify a decision point. If Oedipus made the choice of being civil toward the strangers and not letting his temper get the best of him, he could have avoided his fate. Oedipus ends up in Thebes were he is granted the honor of being the King--he solves the Sphinx's riddle which results in the city being free from captivity. In addition, Oedipus marries his predecessor's wife, Queen Jocasta--the women who gave birth to him. Once again Oedipus has crossed paths with his fate and is still blind to it.

       A different man might well stop at this point, calm down, and ask Teiresias what he meant. That is to say, a different man might have stopped hanging onto his own certainties; confident that they were the truth, and have listened carefully to what someone else had to say but Oedipus is not that sort of person.  In fact, rather than listen to Teiresias, Oedipus reminds everyone of his previous triumph over the Sphinx, stressing that Teiresias failed to help Thebes then.

“Well then! Alright! I will leave nothing unsaid in my wrath. And I say to you then, old man, that in my mind I have you as one of those who has helped in Laius’ murder! Yes, old man! You have worked with them. Perhaps even you, yourself, have committed the deed! Indeed, if you had eyes that could see I would have said you did the deed all alone!” (Sophocles 346-350). When engaging with the blind prophet, Oedipus attempts to pry the truth out of Tiresias by accusing him, Tiresias of the murder. He thinks that if he starts making accusations towards Tiresias, he will in turn tell the truth so that people don’t start hearing this rumor.

     “Oedipus: This much: If his account of the murder tallies with yours, then I am      cleared.

Oedipus’ foolish decisions ultimately lead to his downfall in the play. Oedipus chooses to kill Laios. He chooses to marry Iocaste. He chooses to forcefully, and publicly, assume the mission of discovering the identity of Laios’ murderer saying ironically, “I say I take the son’s part, just as though I were his son, to press the fight for him and see it won,” (633). He proceeds on this mission and chooses to ignore the warnings of Creon, Iocaste, Teiresias, the messenger, the shepherd, and anyone who attempts to stand between him and the truth; and, he chooses to blind himself. In the end, Oedipus’ most foolish choice prevails throughout the play; the choice of illusion over reality ultimately costs him his life.

When Oedipus hears that he is the killer, his pride is wounded for he cannot accept the truth. His judgment is so blurred that he also begins to view Creon as a traitor for using Tiresias. Creon’s words sum up Oedipus’s rage when he said, “Oedipus, your husband, he’s bent on a choice of punishments for me, banishment from the fatherland or death” (715-717). Jocasta is even surprised with Oedipus’s unusual character, as she said, “For the love of God, Oedipus, tell me too, what is it? Why this rage? You’re so unbending” (767-769). The reason why Oedipus pride is so wounded can be because his negative experiences with the Gods. As a baby, he was condemned to death, yet he survived and learned the horrible truth of his prophecy. In attempt to escape that life, he lost belief in the word of the gods because he refused that the prophecies should come true. This struggle between God and Oedipus only tears his moral beliefs as he has to be stone cold to survive his tribulations. This meant giving no consideration against people who presently posed a great threat to him.

In the beginning, Oedipus is told by Teiresias that he lives in shame. Of course, Oedipus feels that Teiresias is blind of not only sight, but knowledge:

Oedipus' pride is in his belief that he can be greater than the will of the gods that controls the actions of man. He believes that he is capable of forming his own destiny, one that is different from what the gods had in store for him. When he hears the prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi for the first time, he decides that he will defy the god’s by leaving everything behind to run. Oedipus said, “I went to the shrine at Delphi… And that I should be my father’s murderer… I heard all this, and fled” (1327). In Oedipus’ mind, he was successful in thwarting the gods’ will after leaving his home and defeating the mighty Sphinx.

The story of Oedipus shows that pride, which can be a positive characteristic, may lead to one’s downfall if it is expressed as arrogance. In the beginning of the play, “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles, Oedipus has perfect physical vision; however, he is ignorant and blind about the truth of himself and his past. He is consumed about wanting to know, to see his past and to understand, but he cannot. He desperately wants to overcome his blindness and seek the truth. Pride can blind you from reality, and Oedipus shows us that pride can lead to self deception, which causes us to neither see beyond nor learn from our past.

Oedipus was a tragic hero. Sophocles, instead of killing Oedipus in the end of the novel, chose to give Oedipus a fate worse then death. Oedipus found out who he was and that he killed his father and slept with his mother. His tragic end was a result of his hamartia, hubris. His pride was what caused him to attack the carriage and kill his father, which led to him marrying his mother. He

One moment, Oedipus is brimming with hope; the next, he’s sure that he is the killer of his father, King Laius. Every time Oedipus thinks that it can’t possibly be him, evidence proves otherwise. His wife, Jocasta, attempts to prove his innocence but “lets out part of the dire secret by her allusion to the ‘triple crossroads’” (Haigh). By attempting to assist Oedipus, she