Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Sophocles deliberately chooses to show first Oedipus, not as an innocent, abandoned baby with an injured foot, which is the first sight a reader might have of Oedipus and is the beginning of the actual myth. Instead, the ancient Greek playwright shows Oedipus first to the audience as an arrogant king. Oedipus says that he will discover the reason for Thebes' plague, just as he set it free from the Sphinx. He shows tremendous confidence in his own intelligence. And then Oedipus curses himself, and curses the murderer of the former king -- his own father whom he killed in a quarrel by the roadside. Oedipus' action of murder towards an apparently poor stranger, which he dismisses as fairly inconsequential, also shows how little he values the human life when his personal honor is threatened. However, Oedipus' most quintessentially arrogant action is his denial of the veracity of Tiresias. Tiresias has lived both as a man and as a woman, and although blind, he has been given the gift of foresight of the future. Because Oedipus does not like what Tiresias says, he believes he has the power to ignore the words of the prophet who is transmitting the will and the ideas of the gods. This is one, one might observe, a familiar pattern in Oedipus' life and also the life of his father -- their shared belief that one is able to ignore what the gods say, if one does not like what the gods say through...
Tiresias is blind, but he can see the future clearly. As a blind prophet, Tiresias is humble to the inevitability of fate. He does not believe that his ability to see into the future gives him power. He knows that all human beings are just playthings of the gods. Oedipus only comes to this understanding after he realizes that he has fulfilled his terrible fate. This is why he blinds himself, so he will not have to see the horror his life has become, but also as a symbolic act to show his submissiveness, like Tiresias, to the will of the gods. He understands the folly of his past arrogance, loses his status as king, and also his hubris. Oedipus, because of his intelligence, was given the status of king, and the hand of a beautiful queen. He loses everything, not because he is unworthy of these things, but because he has been given a terrible fate and also because he was arrogant enough to believe he could avoid that fate. Thus Oedipus is indeed the paradigmatic tragic hero, not simply because he is given a bad fate he does not deserve from birth, but also because he brings that fate upon his head by trying to resist the destiny given to him by the gods.
Oedipus as Tragic Hero In most dramatic plays, tragedy usually strikes the protagonist of the play and leads him, or her, to experience devastating losses. While tragic instances can be avoided, there are other instances where one's fate and future is out of the protagonist's control. In Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles and first performed around 249 BC, Oedipus cannot escape his destiny and even though he tries to overcome
However, the play goes even further than these hints in demonstrating the irrelevance of any supernatural force to the story's action when Tiresias mocks Oedipus for suggesting that the blind seer is the source of the plague (Sophocles 27). When Oedipus accuses Tiresias of a being "a conspirator" to Laius' murder due to his reluctance to tell what he knows, Tiresias responds by asking "Sooth sayest thou?" (Sophocles 26-27). While
This is because they are not learning from the lessons of the past and they do not see things for what they really are. When this takes place, there is a possibility that they are open to more problems through failing to understand and address critical issues. Oedipus is used to show this sense of arrogance and contempt for the truth. (Sophocles) ("The Oedipus Plays") Evidence of this can be
Oedipus the King At the beginning of Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus clearly sees it as his purpose in life to be the best leader he can. In his mind, this meant to be as close to his people as possible, especially when the play opens and the land being in trouble. This is clear in what he says to those who come to him with the problem of their
He complains that his name "is now begrimed and black" (3.3.384) and fears that Desdemona has made him a "fixed figure for the time of scorn" (4.2.53). His fears might be those of any man, insecure in his position, concerned about how he is viewed. Thus, both heroes are true to life in that each has his own particular faults, like any man. Aristotle's fourth condition of the tragic hero
As a result, he flees from Corinth, where Polybus and Merope, are in order for the prophecy not to be fulfilled. The statement "truth has made me strong" is partially false, because while the main character believed that his life was exactly as he made it, it was actually shaped by his fate. A chain of events had lead to the forming of Oedipus as a strong and wise man.