A tragic hero is a character that “exhibits the heights and depths of human experience, the extremes of suffering and knowledge” (Krook 37). Because of a tragic flaw, the hero is destined to suffer a terrible fate that eventually leads to the character’s death. Sophocles’ Oedipus displays all of the qualities of a tragic hero and is justly so the example from which all tragic heroes are based. Oedipus has a greatness of soul, though it is thwarted by his hamartia, he experiences peripeteia and anagnorisis, and the reader experiences catharsis at the end of the play.
Oedipus displays greatness of soul through his bravery, intelligence, and nobility. Even before Oedipus meets the citizens of Thebes, he is willing to risk his life for their safety. He faces the sphynx and is “unsparing with his life, knowing that there are conditions on which life is not worth having” (Sim 2), and also knowing that “the noblest of labors is for a man to help his fellow men with all he has and can do” (Sophocles 19). At the beginning of Oedipus the King, Oedipus tells his subjects that he “would be insensitive to pain, if I felt no pity for my people seated here” (Sophocles 6), and that “your pain torments each one of you, alone, by himself – by myself, and all of you … I have wept many tears” (Sophocles 7). Once Oedipus is told that Laius’s murderer has not been found, he decides that justice must be served, and he “shall shrink at nothing in my search to find the murderer of Laius” (Sophocles 16). He goes so far as to “call a curse” (Sophocles 15), on the murderer and to “pronounce a curse on myself if the murderer should, with my knowledge, share my house” (Sophocles 15-16). Even when Jocasta discourages Oedipus from searching for the truth, both of Laius’s murderer and his parent’s identity, he declares that “nothing will move me. I will find out the whole truth” (Sophocles 61). Once Oedipus learns the truth about his parents and the crimes he has committed, “he speaks of banishing himself from Thebes” (Sophocles 73). In a final act of selflessness, Oedipus expresses that he would rather “have died then and there” (Sophocles 75), while on Cithaeron as a baby than become “a source of grief for myself and all who love me” (Sophocles 75). Even when faced with tragedy, Oedipus manages to handle himself with more grace than most are capable of under normal circumstances. He becomes “representative of all humanity” (Krook 37), as well as all future tragic heroes, by “being exceedingly unlike common humanity” (Krook 37).
A tragic flaw keeps heroes on the same plane as other humans, making the audience able to sympathize with them. Oedipus’s flaw is that of hubris, or overwhelming pride. He displays hubris through his “kind of impetuousness, irritability” (Krook 38), as well as his continuous efforts to defy the gods. Oedipus’s fury is the “chief outward sign of hubris which brings the tragic heroes and heroines to disaster” (Krook 43), and which Plato identified as “a permanent feature of the courage of the tragic hero” (Krook 43). Oedipus’s rashness and quick anger can be seen imitated in later works, such as Macbeth and King Lear. Oedipus’s anger is shown when he blames Creon for plotting against him after hearing what Tiresias has to say. While “a healthy ego fosters trust, courage, and fortitude” (Ford 3), Oedipus’s overwhelming ego “destroys courage and trust and substitutes dogmatism and fear” (Ford 3), causing Oedipus to lash out at those that he should trust, such as Creon and Tiresias. Though Tiresias is the prophet of Apollo, Oedipus blatantly disregards what he has to say and brands him as a liar and a traitor. He ignores his prophecy from the gods on multiple occasions and believes that he can choose to not participate in the fate that he has been given. He speaks about his lack of faith in the prophecy, and even tells of how it did not come true. When Polybus dies, he tells Jocasta that it is not his fault, as “I did not put hand to sword” (Sophocles 53). When Oedipus runs away from Corinth, he believes that he is simultaneously running away from the gods will. However, he in unknowingly running towards it.
Peripeteia and anagnorisis are very important to tragedies and are also major components of what makes them so captivating. Through the entirety of the play, Oedipus remains totally in the dark about his true parentage, as well as who it is that he kills. Oedipus’s “lack of knowledge” (Ford 3), leaves him “deprived of the informed knowledge [he] needed to accomplish [his] goals” (Ford 3). He does not recognize Laius as his father or anybody of significance, so after Oedipus kills him, he unknowingly launches an investigation against himself. This leads to him learning of his crimes and causing him to blind himself while uttering about his “eyes that saw those you should never have seen, and failed to recognize those you longed to see” (Sophocles 73). Oedipus quite literally experiences a reversal of sorts, thinking that he has ran away from his parents and thus avoided his fate, when in reality he only helped the prophecy along. The dramatic irony in Oedipus the King is constant and serves as a frustrating tool so that the reader cannot miss the reversal that is happening. When Oedipus finally recognizes what is going on, he finds it too hard to bear. The emotions of both Jocasta and Oedipus amplify the recognition, making it feel truly tragic. After defying the gods and committing such horrendous sins, death would have been too quick a punishment, so instead Oedipus “was saved – for some strange and dreadful end” (Sophocles 80).
Catharsis is a very powerful emotional experience. Feeling the pity, fear, and overall relief at the end of a tragedy is something that many readers look forward to. Catharsis is something that cannot come fast enough at the end of Oedipus the King. Nearing the end of the play, the audience has experienced so much dramatic irony that it becomes hard to bear. From Oedipus claiming that “I will never go to the city where my parents live” (Sophocles 55), to when Oedipus “raised his hands and struck his eyes again, and again” (Sophocles 73), the audience is left only desiring some sort of release. This release comes at the end of the play, after Jocasta kills herself and Oedipus is no longer King. The audience feels pity that Oedipus has lost his family and his honour but is also relieved that he is no longer married to his mother or committing so many crimes against humanity in general. With those emotions also come the fear that audience members may be struck with similar fates, or ones equally as bad as that of Oedipus. Like in other works, such as Othello or Macbeth, the audience is left feeling desperate for some sort of recognition about what is going on, as well as a solution. While the endings in tragedies are not the happy sort, they do give closure to satisfy the audience.
Aristotle’s guidelines for a tragic hero imitate the traits of Oedipus extremely well. Oedipus displays greatness of soul in the way he cares about others, he has overwhelming pride shown by his rashness and constant attempts to defy the gods, his experiences while searching for his family and Laius’s murderer exhibit his experience with peripeteia and anagnorisis, and the audience feels a cleansing of emptions at Oedipus’s downfall. It is clear that Aristotle took inspiration from the character Oedipus while building his criteria for a tragic hero.
2019-9-26-1569463376