Throughout the infamous Greek tragedy, “Oedipus the King”, Oedipus’ characteristics of excessive arrogance and ignorance ultimately led to his demise. First off, Oedipus had developed a strong sense of pride, being the savior of the people of Thebes, and this stuck with him until the very end of the play. Arrogance itself kept a veil over the entire truth, in the way that Oedipus’ mind was filled with the lies of his own hubris. In addition, Oedipus’ strong trait of ignorance contributed to his fall. Readers get to watch as this character remains oblivious to his immoral actions, and faces the terrible consequences after the fact. Overall, these two main traits of Oedipus are vital to the plot of the tragedy.
Oedipus had grown to be an arrogance-oriented
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He is hopelessly pursuing the murderer of the king Laius, when the killer is really him. In the beginning of the story, Oedipus proclaims, “So I will fight for him as if he were my father.” This quote depicts how truly uninformed he is about the situation. Consumed with finding whoever this person is, Oedipus doesn’t stop once to look at all the evidence that points to him. This just adds on to the stressed irony of the Greek tragedy. Oedipus doesn’t think about the issue from an outside view or even question any of his own past doings. As the story unravels, Oedipus slowly but surely begins to realize that he is a possible verdict in the situation. Even after making this conclusion, Oedipus is still fully unaware that he not only killed his biological father, but also married his own mother, who bore him four children. By the time he learns this, it is too late to take any of his actions back. To sum everything up, readers of this Greek tragedy will tend to see a common pattern of events: Oedipus being clueless about his own behavior, Oedipus being presented the evidence of his actions, and lastly, Oedipus recognizing his fundamentally immoral doings.
In conclusion, Oedipus’ downfall was a result of his arrogance and ignorance. His own pride of conquering of the Sphinx filled his head, shielding him from the ultimate truth. Oedipus was too arrogant to consider or even accept his fate. Also, Oedipus’