As a tragic hero therefore, Oedipus does not err because his character is somehow flawed. Instead, his inevitable fall is caused by an error of judgment: instead of accepting his own fate, he tries to find out the truth about his origin and thus begins the quest that will lead to his dramatic end. Oedipus' almost paranoid search for the truth of his birth shows him as a social nonconformist who is urged to seek answers rather than meekly accept ignorance and his given lot. When he is close to finding out the whole truth of his birth Oedipus declares himself confident in accepting whatever may come, and seems to resign himself to his fate: "But I / Who rank myself as Fortune's favorite child, / the giver of good gifts, shall not be shamed. / She is my mother and the changing moons / My brethren, and with them I wax and wane. / Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth? / Nothing can make me other than I am."(Sophocles, 64) the infinite irony of this game is that what he is prepared to accept is but the truth of a lowly birth, and that he declares himself the child of fortune, forgetting the essential truth that fate is very fickle and might bring the unexpected. Once more therefore, fate turns against the tragic hero whose quest for identity is not triumphant but rather gruesome.
Finally, Oedipus passes through all the specific trials and stages of a common mythological hero, but all these apparent victories turn to be actually terrible defeats. Thus, he starts on quest to find out the truth about his birth, but this quest is the first mistake he makes. Then, he meets an opponent that, as a hero, he has to defeat....
The first victory of the hero is thus actually the first sin. He then passes through a second trial, and with the aid of his wisdom, he defeats the Sphinx and his riddle. Once again, the gate he opens and the recompense he gets are a part of his doom rather than of his blessing. As all he heroes, Oedipus receives the greatest reward for his efforts and his deed: he is offered the rule of a kingdom and a queen for his wife. The queen is however his own mother, so what would seem like an enviable success is actually another doom. Therefore, the last lines of the play point to the fate of the tragic hero, who is also the symbol of the helpless individual who is trying to fight against his destiny: "Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great,/
He who knew the Sphinx's riddle and was mightiest in our state./
Who of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes?/
Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!"(Sophocles, 142) Admired and envied for his qualities and deeds, Oedipus turns out to be indeed a hero but a tragic one who has fallen in the trap of his own destiny.
Sophocles' tragedy thus emphasizes the fate of the individual who is subject to his own destiny, through the fate of a tragic hero who is utterly defeated despite his great qualities and deeds that would rank him among the exceptional mythological heroes.
Works Cited
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex, in Four Famous Greek Plays edited by Paul Landis. New York: The Modern Library, 1929.
