Tragic Tragedy In Oedipus The King

The Greek play, Oedipus the King, shows how easy it is for a man to fall apart, while trying to make things right. Sophocles’ tragedy tells the story of Oedipus, a regular man turned king of Thebes. Throughout the tragedy, Oedipus searches for the cause of the chaos and havoc encompassing his land; however, he discovers that he is the one responsible for the hardships plaguing Thebes. As the tragedy continues, Sophocles’ exposes a dark side to power, fame, and ambition. Further, Sophocles’ exposes the fear that many have of the truth, and exposes the grave danger in hiding from it.

Captivating heroes like Batman and Robin have become inspirational figures of modern day society that people love, but do they really dive into how tragic their lives really are? What happened to the truly emotional stories of tragedy rather than 15 minutes of non-important backstory? These heroes had done great things in their life, but fell gracefully from power due to selfish inhibitions and get remembered for how their mess up affected everyone else in the vicinity. Why can’t stories be as tragic as Sophocles’ Oedipus the King? He was a true tragic hero that saved his city and fell due to several flawed character traits. His drop from power came about because of his sense of hubris and ignorance to the presence of facts around him. People’s lives in the media should invoke more tragedy and suffering, making the character more relatable due to his flaws. While this doesn’t happen often, there are a few characters, like Duncan Dewey, that possess traits that make them tragic heroes.

play has the perfect Aristotelian tragic plot consisting of peripateia, anagnorisis and catastrophe; it has the perfect tragic character that suffers from happiness to misery due to his hamartia (tragic flaw) and the play evokes pity and fear that produces the tragic effect, catharsis (a purging of emotion).

Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles, is about Oedipus who is the tragic hero with a tragic flaw of pride. Thebes has been put under a terrible plague, and King Oedipus is willing to do anything to cure it.Oedipus comes to realize it is himself who is causing the plague and killed the man who turned out to be his father, which shows Oedipus living up to the prophecy that he was given as a child. Oedipus’ tragic flaw, pride, causes him to do many terrible things. Throughout the play, he realizes he is not as great as he sees himself. Oedipus’ selfish acts of pride cause the destruction of Thebes and leads to his own downfall.

In Sophocles's play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is what is known in a tragedy as the tragic hero. Oedipus is the tragic hero because his fate goes from having the fortune to ending up in misfortune. Usually, the tragic hero is given a "tragic flaw" that sets the character up for his own downfall. The tragic flaw is intentionally an excessive positive trait causes the character fortune to turn to misfortune. In these Greek tragedies, fate plays another role in the outcome of the characters. The Gods trust that in the path they give a person, it would play out as it should. The fate the Gods choose to give them can also add to the character's downfall. In Oedipus Rex, the tragic result of Oedipus's down fall is the fault of fate and Oedipus's decisions because of the God's Prophecy, Oedipus's tragic flaw, and his parents' dishonesty.

The ultimate tragic hero is presented in all its glory in the play “Oedipus the King.” Rather than being a typical tragic hero, “Oedipus,” has gone beyond the traditional into the unbelievable. “Oedipus” when we come to him in this play has already taken three noble positions. He was born the babe, and prince of one Royal Family, then discarded because of an oracle. This cast off prince, was then brought low to die, facing the flaw of naivety, which a babe only knows. A shepherd discovered him and took him to another royal couple, to which he became a prince once more. Later, as he became older another oracle was spoken of him and in his flaw of fear, he fled from the second royal family, becoming of no account once more. The purpose for this qualification. Following this, on the way he killed several men in ignorance, impulsiveness and anger. Later, when he would sit in his own father’s throne, sleeping with his mother, who bore children of this ungodly union, his tragic flaws would strike at his core and be brought lower than a man could ever or should ever know. Thus, the identification of “Oedipus” as a tragic hero is fulfilled and demonstrated three times over in this heartbreaking tale of woe.

Sophocles critiques the character Oedipus as having anger problems that cloud his judgment, lead to brash decisions, and ultimately becomes his major flaw that brings him down. The flaw can easily sculpt bad situations, especially when such an influential person is affected by it. He reveals his anger as a problem very early in the book during a road rage where he, “[brawling] with an old man in a carriage over right of way and in a fit of temper [killing] him.” (page #) Murder is a pretty serious crime to commit for a dispute of who had the right of way. He just didn’t take the time to think about what he was doing because he let his anger take control. Had he taken time to allow his anger to pass, he would have evaded the prophecy that applies

When there is the mention of a hero in literature, the image of a tall, strong man on a pure colored horse, with a sword drawn and the shield held up, crying out to his men the honor and good they will bring in defense of their homeland, may come to mind. This, though, is not the image Sophocles gives to Oedipus, yet Oedipus is considered a true hero. Even if he is not depicted as a great war hero, or one who does some great deed to the benefit of humanity, he is the image of the perfect tragic hero, having normal, imperfect qualities, yet facing the consequences of his actions with dignity.

The Greek play, Oedipus the King, shows how easy it is for a man to fall apart, while trying to make things right. Sophocles’ tragedy tells the story of Oedipus, a regular man turned king of Thebes. Throughout the tragedy, Oedipus searches for the cause of the chaos and havoc encompassing his land; however, he discovers that he is the one responsible for the hardships plaguing Thebes. As the tragedy continues, Sophocles’ exposes a dark side to power, fame, and ambition. Further, Sophocles’ exposes the fear that many have of the truth, and exposes the grave danger in hiding from it.

The story of Oedipus Rex details the suffering of a city, Thebes, as caused by their king, Oedipus. Tragedy struck in many forms throughout the play, all of which were ways for Sophocles to illustrate the tragic vision of the whole work. Oedipus is proven to be a tragic figure that functions as both an instrument and victim of suffering during his quest to avenge the city. The seemingly endless suffering brought on by Oedipus’ ignorance and superiority complex lends itself to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

A king must possess select components of bravery, pride, and determination that coincide with one another in a manner to which others will perceive as commendable. Nevertheless, the very qualities that make a king rise above his citizens may be the exact characteristics that lead to his downfall. This concept could be correlated to the acclaimed work of Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, whereby the epitome of a tragic hero is created in the main character, Oedipus. Moreover, Sophocles has characterized Oedipus to be the embodiment of a respectable leader, possessing both extreme pride and relentless determination, which later proves to be the fatal flaw leading to his eventual, inescapable demise. This is due to how Sophocles codified this

Oedipus the king has a temper “tragic flaw” it’s an anger that leads him to many unknown problems due to killing his own father, king Laius, which happened at the crossroads, however his violent temper has a good candidate in it which is due to a tragic flaw.

Noble yet naive, Oedipus eagerly seeks to discover if the oracle stating that he will murder his father and marry his mother is true. Although the beginning of Sophocles’ play “Oedipus The King” emphasizes Oedipus’ character as heroic, Oedipus eventually encounters an ironic turn of events once the truth brings knowledge of his past and present, and alters his attitude. The play’s powerful symbolic use of eyes and crossroads paired with the pattern of blindness towards truth foreshadows the downfall of a man who cannot change his inevitable fate. Even while seeing the truth with his own eyes, Oedipus’ enlightenment advances to physically blindness by the end of the play. Sophocles’ dramatic irony warns the audience that reluctance of the

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is one of the most well- known tragic plays in existence. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, is the victim of a curse in which he must suffer the tragedy of his own unchangeable fate. The tragic heroism of Oedipus befalls him because of his heroic qualities and his loyalty to his Thebans and to himself. His unchangeable destiny affects so many others throughout the play. These others’ subsequent suffering that Oedipus brings upon them helps contribute to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

The idea of a tragic hero was first thought of by the philosopher Aristotle in his work, “Poetics”. In article discussing the philosopher’s ideology of a tragic hero, with emphasis on hamartia, the author states: