Who Is King Oedipus Tragic Flaw

Oedipus’ hamartia is his determination. The term hamartia is the greek for a tragic flaw or error of judgment. An example of Oedipus’ determination is when he goes to find Laius’ murderer. Oedipus wanted to find Laius’ killer so he could save the city from Apollo’s revenge. Apollo put the city, Thebes under a plague as a punishment for Laius’ death. Apollo wanted the murderers of Laius to be either banished or killed. The journey to find the murderer lead to his downfall. If Oedipus wasn’t determined to find Laius he would never learned about his dark past.

Abraham Lincoln once pronounced, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” In Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus tries to escape his fate by fleeing from his adopted parents in Corinth. Instead, he becomes responsible for triggering the destruction that leads to his eventual demise. A tragic hero is of noble birth characterized by a personality flaw and fated by the gods for doom (Santora). Oedipus is classified as a tragic hero by his tragic and heroic qualities, his responsibility for his fate, and his enlightenment.

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.

"A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall." -Aristotle No one wants to be a tragic hero. A great or virtuous character, but sadly they are destined for downfall because of their own judgement. Sophocles’ Oedipus exemplifies Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero.

Oedipus, the main character of Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, has a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. A tragic flaw is defined as “an otherwise good trait that turns destructive when taken to an extreme” (Stary). In a tragedy one can see the suffering of the main character, which is evident in Oedipus’ case. Oedipus’ tragic flaw is his determination, when he intensely seeks to find Laios’ murderer, forces the unwilling blind prophet Teiresias to reveal the truth, and when he stopped at nothing to prevent the prophecy from becoming true.

In the story of Oedipus, Oedipus is considered a “Tragic Hero” because of the tragic fate and effect that he had upon his life. My definition of a tragedy is a great loss that has a unhappy ending to which concluded me to state that Oedipus falls under that category. Throughout the book, Oedipus is leading himself to his own destruction when trying to find the killer of the late King Laios. So when a journal article I found published by The John Hopkins University Press stated that a “tragic hero is a man who fails to attain happiness, and fails in such a way that his career excites, not blame, but fear and pity in the highest degree” ( Barstow, Marjorie.) there was no doubt in my mind that the story Oedipus fell under the category. In my

The characteristic of the tragic flaw has not only lead to the hero's demise, nevertheless may also persuade the reader to sympathize with the character. Consequently, it follows that in Oedipus the King, a Greek tragedy, the tragic hero Oedipus should have some sort of flaw. So, the question is does Oedipus really have a tragic flaw? The answer is yes. The Oedipus tragic flaw is pride and rage which remain Oedipus from obtaining his true fatal fate.
 What caused the tragic flaw because, he could not accept the predictions about his life. Oedipus can’t admit that he killed the king, his own father, Laius. Oedipus does not get that the stranger, he once killed was his father, and that he married his own mother Jocasta. Also, Oedipus announces to the Theban people, that if any man confesses, he will be banished, however, he will be punished as

15 years later, during Oedipus’ reign, he begins to take interest in the death of Former King Laius, for he was not aware that he was the one to murder him. Oedipus sends Creon to bring Tiresias to him and Tiresias basically sums up everything that Oedipus has done wrong, yet Oedipus, hardheaded as he is, clashes with Tiresias. Oedipus, while “stepping forward threateningly” (24), yells and spouts very serious allegations towards Tiresias and Creon. If at this time Oedipus had done anything but what he did he would have discovered much sooner his homicidal and incestuous

The question is does Oedipus have a tragic flaw? The answer is yes. His tragic flaw is pride and anger which keeps Oedipus from accepting his true fatal fate. His tragic flaw is what caused his downfall because he can’t accept the predictions about his life. He can’t admit that he killed the king, his own father, Laius. He does not get that the stranger he once killed was his father and that he married his own mother.

Before the play begins, Oedipus had left Corinth and eventually happened to stumble upon the city of Thebes. As stated before, Oedipus left his hometown because an oracle had told him that he is destined to to sleep with his mom and kill his dad. Nevertheless, in leaving Corinth and coming to Thebes, unconsciously causing the prophecy into coming true when he murders Laius at the triple crossroads and marries Jocasta which are his birth parents. Without a doubt, Oedipus of course did not want any of this to occur but some things are inevitable. To further more in ways Oedipus's actions lead to his downfall is when Oedipus endeavors to discover why the plague is taking place in Thebes. So when Oedipus sends Creon on a quest to Delphi and also request Tiresias to come to the palace to only unearth the disheartening truth of that he is the source of the plague. Fatally Oedipus just wanted to investigate the root of the plague and save the people of Thebes yet, everything goes spiraling south that results the death of his mom and his exile. Disregarding all the events that transpired Oedipus refused to give up and calls forth the sole survivor of the massacre at the triple crossroads to come converse with him. The sole survivor indicates that one person annihilated Laius's party at the triple crossroads not a group of individuals as Oedipus had been

Creon advises Oedipus to enlist the help of the blind prophet Tiresias to solve the mystery. When he demands the answer as to who the murderer was,Tiresias told Oedipus that he, was the “defiler of this land,”(30). Essentially, Tiresias was telling Oedipus that he was the unclean thing the oracle referrers to that needs to be driven out of the land. Angered, outraged, and confused, Oedipus could not accept this truth of hearing he was the murderer, and further insulted the blind prophet. Similarly, Oedipus’s pride falsely leads him to think that he could escape his fate that he was told about in the prophecy. While in Corinth, Oedipus went to a shrine of Apollo, where he was told a prophecy in which he would murder his father, marry his mother, and have unnatural children. “The oracle of Phoebus Apollo said that I/ Must kill my father, lie with my mother. /This drove me out of Corinth. I regret nothing - /I have married happily, raised a family, known the sweetness of power” (61). Oedipus believes that since he escaped from his “parents” in Corinth, he escaped his fate and could no longer fulfill the prophecy. Because he did not believe in oracles, nor know Jocasta was his mother, nor know Laius was his father, he was certain at this point that he indeed was not king Laius’s murderer, despite Tiresias’s words. As the tragedy unfolds, it shows further evidence that he had fulfilled the prophecy. Oedipus’s pride, which was once seen as favorable to him, destroys

When discussing and analyzing a playwright by a greek dramatist one has to keep in consideration the patriarchal society of the time and the specific character traits the author is trying to portray. This idea is supported by E.R Dodds when he aptly tries to disprove the first two heresies he encountered when asking how the Oedipus Rex attempts to justify the ways of God to man (Bloom 18-24). These considerations will help in understanding the meaning behind the play. However, before getting to the meaning of the playwright one needs to probe Aristotle’s argument on what creates a tragic hero in the first place. “Aristotle finds the end of human endeavor to be happiness” which is a result principally from a “steady and comprehensive intellectual

is a trait viewed as being favorable to a character at first, but it leads to their later downfall. It was often used in ancient Greek tragedies to show that mankind was susceptible to flaw. This was present in Sophocles 's tragedy, Oedipus the King. The protagonist of the tragedy,Oedipus, was not exempt from his own flaws. Oedipus’s traits of excessive pride and desire for knowing the truth were advantageous to him in the beginning, yet were the very things that contributed to his tragic downfall.

In the play Oedipus the King, Oedipus struggles to accept the truth and lets his temper over power him. He can be displayed as a tragic hero. His refusal to accept the truth led to Oedipus’ down fall. A tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle, “is a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction.” Sophocles’ Oedipus exemplifies Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero.

Oedipus the King by Sophocles is a story about a boy who was left by his own parents in the mountains, by himself, to die because of a prophecy that were given to his parents by the Oracle of Delphi. A shepherd found this young child and decided to bring him to King Polybus and Queen Merope, who can’t have a child of their own. The couple decided to adopt the child and name him Oedipus, which means swollen ankles because of the way the shepherd found him with his ankles pierced with pins. When Oedipus grew up, he saved the town from a beast which made Oedipus be considered a hero of his town. Oedipus is considered an epic hero, but also a tragic hero. An epic hero is someone who is applauded for his bravery against the beast. A tragic hero is someone who does good for its town, but does not always do the right thing which leads to their own ruin. Oedipus is a tragic hero because he has a fatal prophecy that he could not bypass.