Essay Undergraduate 647 words

Oedipus the King: Tragic Hero and the Fall from Nobility

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Abstract

This essay examines Sophocles' Oedipus the King as the foundational model of Greek tragedy, analyzing its protagonist through two critical frameworks. Drawing on Kenneth Burke's three developmental stages of the tragic hero—purpose, passion, and perception—and Aristotle's concept of the tragic flaw (hamartia), the paper traces Oedipus's arc from noble king to ruined exile. The essay argues that Oedipus's pride and arrogance function as his fatal flaw, driving each stage of his downfall, and concludes that Sophocles created so perfect a tragedy that it remains the standard against which all subsequent dramatic works are measured.

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What makes this paper effective

Efficiently integrates three distinct critical voices—Jacobus, Burke, and Aristotle—to build a coherent analytical framework before applying it to the text.
Uses direct quotations from the play as primary evidence, grounding each of Burke's three stages in specific dramatic moments rather than summary alone.
Closes the argument with a broader literary-historical claim, situating Oedipus as the originating model for tragedies by Euripides, Shakespeare, and Miller.

Key academic technique demonstrated

The paper demonstrates framework application: it introduces a critical schema (Burke's three stages) in the opening paragraph, then systematically maps each stage onto textual evidence from the play. This structure ensures that every analytical point is anchored to both theory and primary source, a reliable method for literary analysis essays at any level.

Structure breakdown

The essay opens by synthesizing three scholarly definitions of the tragic hero, establishing the analytical lens. Each of the three body sections is dedicated to one of Burke's stages—purpose, passion, and perception—with at least one direct quotation from Sophocles supporting each. The conclusion broadens the argument by placing Oedipus in the wider Western dramatic canon, reinforcing the thesis that it is the standard for all tragic drama.

Introduction: Defining the Tragic Hero

In The Bedford Introduction to Drama, Lee Jacobus writes that "Greek tragedy focused on a person of noble birth who in some cases had risen to a great height and then fell precipitously." The modern critic Kenneth Burke expands on this idea by developing a three-stage pattern for these tragedies. Burke holds that the tragic hero passes through purpose, then passion, and finally perception. Aristotle — perhaps the greatest contemporary of the tragedians — adds that the tragic hero must bring about his own downfall "by some error or frailty" within his character; today many refer to this as the character's tragic flaw.

Oedipus is a noble character — he is king of Thebes. The very essence of tragedy revolves around the idea that a character must fall from a great height. Oedipus has achieved the greatest height possible in both his life and his power, and in his arrogance he decides to take on the plague that has cursed the city. He resolves to investigate and to curse the murderer of Laius:

Oedipus and Burke's First Stage: Purpose

If anyone is out to shield a guilty friend
(or is it guilty self?),
He'd best listen to the penalties I plan.
That man, whoever that man be,
I this country's reigning king
Shall sever from all fellowship of speech and shelter,
sacrifice and sacrament,
Even ritual touch of water, in this realm.
Thrust out from every home,
he'll be the very picture of that pestilence
he brought upon our city,
As Apollo's word from Pythia has just revealed to me.
Yes, such an ally, nothing less,
am I of both religion and the murdered man. (15)

With this declaration, Burke's first developmental stage is established: Oedipus has purpose. Within this passage an audience also glimpses the flaw that will eventually be the king's downfall — his pride.

2 Locked Sections · 210 words remaining

Burke's Second Stage: Passion · 80 words

"Oedipus's temper and passion drive his downfall"

Burke's Third Stage: Perception and Anagnorisis · 130 words

"Oedipus gains truth through blinding self-revelation"

Conclusion: Oedipus as the Archetypal Tragedy

Oedipus is the standard upon which all other tragic heroes have been built. His great fall from nobility to horror, as the result of his tragic flaw, is the format by which all of tragedy is measured today. Every play — from Euripides' Medea to Shakespeare's Hamlet to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman — has been written about and criticized in relation to Oedipus the King. There is good reason for this: Sophocles created the perfect tragedy. He created a play so consummate in form and content that it remains a model against which all other plays are still compared.

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Key Concepts in This Paper

Tragic Hero Greek Tragedy Burke's Three Stages Hamartia Anagnorisis Pride and Arrogance Noble Fall Sophocles Dramatic Framework Oedipus Rex