Oedipus: A Tragic Hero

When Teiresias refuses to name the murderer, however, we see the other side of Oedipus, a hot-tempered man who cannot bear to be denied what he wants. He taunts Teiresias with his blindness and makes irrational accusations against both Teiresias and Creon. Later, when the old servant also tries to avoid answering Oedipus' questions, Oedipus threatens him with torture."Oedipus went so far as to accuse him of keeping silence because he himself taken part in the murder"(Hamilton271).Thats when Oedipus tells Jocasta that, on his way to Thebes, he killed a man who struck at him in the road. So it's clear what his tragic flaw is, and his impulsive,violent temper can even be seen as an

Everyone tries to convince themselves that it is all lies when you receive bad news about anything that you don’t believe in. In the play Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles in 430 BC, Oedipus is in denial about who killed the previous king, Laius. The town has asked Oedipus to save them from the disease that has spread killing all the life in town by finding the person who killed Lauis. Oedipus tells the people he will find the culprit and do whatever he needs to do to punish them. When he is given the truth, he is unwilling to accept the truth. Therefore, he will have to punish himself as he promised the people of the town.

The character Oedipus is a tragic hero because of his tragic flaw of having consistent, proper ambition to finding the murderer of Laius. In the second scene, Oedipus enters and addresses the chorus, as if addressing the entire city of Thebes. "To all of Thebes I make this proclamation: / if any one of you knows who murdered Laius, I order him to reveal / the whole truth to me . . . He will suffer no unbearable punishment, nothing worse than exile" (171) At this time, Oedipus is trying to convince the killer to come forward and confess the murder. Ironically, by announcing this he has cursed himself because he is, in fact, the murderer of Laius. Near the end of the play, Oedipus asks a Shepard from whom did he retrieve the baby from. "No— / god 's sake, no more questions! / You 're a dead man if I have to ask again" (230). After this threat, the Shepard confesses that the baby was from the house of Laius, confirming that Laius is Oedipus 's father. If Oedipus hadn 't been so determined to find the killer, he would have never discovered this information, and wouldn 't have ever his mutilated himself. Oedipus 's hamartia of ambition is the precise reason of why he is a

He discovers he is he killer he has been searching for and has married the woman that has given birth to him. Caught up in pride and continuing down the path of bad judgement, Oedipus blinds himself because he cannot bear to look at himself nor does he desire to see what others are seeing in him. Oedipus has chosen to live out the rest of his days blind so he does have to face the harsh reality that he has caused hoping it will soon vanish from his memory. Although Oedipus didn’t intend to cause any harm, his actions brought suffering to himself and those around him. His character flaws an strengths of determination, pride , and error in judgement led to his dreadful discovery and resulted in him losing everything he once

Oedipus is a hero, but he represents most men at the same time. He has human characteristics and feelings, such as his curiosity towards the knowledge Teiresias possesses and his horror when he realizes his horrible actions. “If you know something about our pain tell us…Speak then! Tell us what will emerge.” P.13 Oedipus questions Teiresias, curious to know what he knows. “Oh gruesomely clear it has all unraveled… I was bonded with the people I should have never killed.” P.40 Oedipus sees what he has done wrong and feels vulnerable and horror. The audience clearly sees that heroes are very human and how real their limitations. Most people would have felt that same vulnerability if the gods had made us their plaything and tormented us, writing a prophecy of our doom.

Thesis:In Sophocles play ‘Oedipus the king’,Oedipus is an example of a tragic hero because he changed from a hero at the beginning of the play into a tragic hero by the end by experiencing power,tragic flow,downfall and death.Oedipus changes into a person no can believe of,because in the beginning he was a hero for the city of thebes by solving a riddle to defeat the monster that was killing and taking over thebes.

Oedipus certainly deserved his fate. Oedipus and his actions are clearly disrespect to the gods , he faces the fate he deserves. He was doing things that would eventually lead up to the unfortunate event of his death , he was even warned by the great and wise Teiresias , but he being himself was to stubborn and did not listen. All the things Teiresias said would happen became the truth. He killed his father, married his mother, yet he tempted his fate , he deserved everything that came his way . He did not want to believe any of it he didn't listen , he thought he knew what was correct , and being the way he was , got the worst part.

Neil Gaiman once said, “There’s none so blind as those who will not listen.” This quote relates to the theme of sight and blindness in “The Tragedy of Oedipus Rex”. King Oedipus was a man who would not accept the truth about himself. Physically he was not blind but in truth he was. There are three examples of Oedipus’s metaphysical condition of blindness which will be listed as follows. First his denial of being the source of the plague. Second, his egotistical abilities that will form his plot to change his fate. And lastly, the consequences of his denial that will lead him to his physical and emotional destruction. It would seem that in this case, Oedipus’s fate is his own enemy.

So in the end, Oedipus no longer thinks of himself. Thinking of his children 's impending marriage, Oedipus begs for his children and no longer can think of himself as anything more than a creature that embodies what it means to be pathetic:

So when he starts telling him the truth Oedipus gets even more mad and taunts Tiresias about being blind. Then Oedipus accuses Ceron of being the murderer and that he is just trying to become king. If it was not for Oedipus’s temper he would not have killed king Laius and his men. Oedipus’s temper had a great contribution to his downfall and later his blindness.

A tragic hero is described as having excessive curiosity and being stubborn; these flaws negatively impact the story by not learning from his mistakes. Odysseus shows his heroic characteristics when “Cyclops, if anyone asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.” Odysseus is a tragic hero because he is always curious and is sometimes stubborn. Most of the time he puts his life or one of his men`s at risk.

The Queen, Jacosta, Oedipus’ wife tells him not to believe in the prophet, because they’ve been wrong before, she then tells Oedipus about how she and King Laius had a son who was prophesied to kill Laius and sleep with her but since the child was supposedly dead the prophecy couldn’t be true. Oedipus becomes a bit weary because as a child an old man told him he was adopted and that one day he’d kill his real father and sleep with his mother, Oedipus did also kill a man at a crossroads which sounded like the way Laius died.

The story of Oedipus the king is gloomy, yet captivating. Going from a child bond around the feet and abandon by the mountainside, to marrying his mother, his story is intriguing. In search of the truth about the prophecy and putting an end to a plague Oedipus, search for king Laius’s killer, did somethings inadvertently, making him a tragic hero. His search for truth in the death of Laius the king, as well as his birth led to the ultimate destruction and downfall of his life.

Brilliantly conceived and written, Oedipus Rex is a drama of self-discovery. Achieved by amazing compression and force by limiting the dramatic action to the day on which Oedipus learns the truth of his birth and his destiny is quite the thriller. The fact that the audience knows the dark secret that Oedipus unwittingly slew his true father and married his mother does nothing to destroy the suspense. Oedipus’s search for the truth has all the tautness of a detective tale, and yet because audiences already know the truth they are aware of all the ironies in which Oedipus is enmeshed. That knowledge enables them to fear the final revelation at the same time that they pity the man whose past is gradually and relentlessly uncovered to him.

In ancient Greek society, the tragedy was a deeply spiritual and emotional art form integral to daily life. Perhaps one of the best examples of Greek tragedy is Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. The work is distinguished by the deep emotion and thought it elicits from the reader. This is in part due to Sophocles’ expert portrayal of Oedipus, who bears all the attributes of an Aristotelian tragic hero. A once powerful king turned blinded pariah, Oedipus is characterized by both his pride and his honorable character. Through such characterization, Sophocles heightens the emotions in the play by demonstrating how these traits contribute to the catastrophic conclusion. Sophocles deliberately depicts Oedipus as a seemingly infallible yet prideful ruler in order to augment the subsequent devastation Oedipus causes, thus realizing the vision of an Aristotelian tragedy.