Oedipus Tragic Flaws

A tragic hero is a character who has the potential to have heroic qualities, but their fate is a tragic downfall. Aristotle defined a tragic hero as “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment”. Some tragic heroes in literature are John Proctor in The Crucible and Macbeth in the play Macbeth. It is possible for two characters to be labeled a tragic hero, but the audience can feel differently about them.

Aristotle says a tragic hero defines the kind of man the protagonist must be. The tragic hero is virtuous but they make mistakes. The tragic hero is fallible. They also usually come from a status of high power, making their downfall even more tragic. A tragic hero is a flawed individual who commits massive wrongdoings that lead to their misfortunes.

Odysseus shows considerable hubris when he brags to King Alconis about slaughtering the small village of Ismarus. Odysseus claims that he and his men “stormed that place,” enslaved the women, and slaughtered those who fought. (Homer 43). Due to Odysseus’ arrogant decision to assault Ismarus, a few of his men died. This demonstrates how arrogance and the hunger for victory will lead to certain death.

The character John Proctor from Arthur Miller’s; The Crucible is a model example of a tragic hero. Proctor is initially made out to be a character that has committed the sinful crime of adultery and is attempting to re-set up his reliability in himself and his better half, Elizabeth. As The Crucible advances an extraordinary transformation in nature and character happen in John Proctor, making the crowd sympathize with him when his nemesis begins. A tragic hero is someone usually of great reputation that falls into a state of utter pessimism,. As the audience witnesses the fall of this character they would feel feeble understanding that the fall of this hero was caused by accident, fate or a critical flaw in his character.

This backstory almost always displays the tragic flaw / hamartia that the hero suffers. A Tragic Flaw, strictly speaking, is one or more character flaws (also known as hamartia) that lead to this character’s demise. It must be noted, however, that the flaw only seems to put this character into the hands of fate, and it is ultimately fate that sends them over the edge of despair. This backstory, which gets people to relate to the character also helps them to see this flaw and notice it in themselves and others, so that they may save themselves from it. In Oedipus’ case, the tragic flaw is that of hubris, or being too confident in one’s own abilities.

The driver, who’s forcing me aside, I smash in anger.” (926-929) The phrase “I smash in anger” depicts the intensity of how Oedipus is not able to hold his composure when someone gets on his nerves the first time after his encounter with the prophet. He pours all his anger on the old man uncontrollably and eventually kills the old man. A rational Oedipus would not kill anyone for just “crowding him off the road.” If he had controlled his feelings in the first place, his father would still have been alive, preventing Oedipus from marrying his

In the short story titled “Antigone,” the author portrays Creon as a tragic hero by displaying flaws in Creon's character shown throughout the story. Creon’s character contains many flaws which lead to many problems. His decisions end up deciding the fates of his son, his wife, and Antigone. Creon finally realizes that what he has done is sinful to the gods. He has put his own pride over the appreciation of the gods.

A tragic hero is defined as a character who is noble in nature, has a tragic flaw and discovers his fate by his own actions. According to the novel Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Okonkwo’s flaws were his fear of being weak and like his father. He looked at his father as being a deadbeat, weak and lazy. He even characterized his father as being woman like.

A part of him seeing himself as not being a hero is when he lost innocence. The second text, ‘The Patriot’, shows the loss of innocence of the main character’s two younger sons. The director deliberately uses a mid-shot to show the two young boys, killing a number of men. Even though these boys did not want to kill the men, their father forced them to. This happened because the men they killed just killed their brother.

I believed that Beowulf isn’t consistently admirable and heroic and that he becomes a flawed character. He follows the criteria of a tragic hero. The criteria of a tragic hero is that a tragic hero must have a tragic flaw, a hamartia, that causes the hero’s demise. A tragic hero must have a hubris, over excessive pride from themselves. A tragic hero must have a moment in time to discover an important element in the story.