Example Of Essay On Character Flaw Of Oedipus's Tragedy

Oedipus Rex is an astounding and great Sophoclean play which portrays a tragic hero in a unique way. The play was composed during the ancient Greece time when Sophocles took advantage of the using character flaws in the drama. He gave Oedipus the role of a tragic hero to ensure that he captured the attention of the audience. Sophocles’ play was outstanding because the play-watchers felt to be part of it and experienced a catharsis of reactions. At the beginning of the play, Sophocles gives Oedipus a decidedly recognized character with a high sense of intelligence. Oedipus is portrayed as a privileged individual who is not destined to failure but as a shining star. Oedipus earns an extraordinary reputation due to his bravery and courage. Thereafter, the great playwright decides to pull out the prominence of Oedipus and introduces sorrowful emotions, misfortunes and fright to the audience due to the fall of Oedipus, the tragic hero, from the greatness.
Deliberately, Sophocles assigned certain flaws to the character of Oedipus to develop his downfall in a well-stage managed manner. It should be noted that the purpose of the Greek drama was to remind its people about their own mortality and have an impact to life teachings. Oedipus is an impeccable hero associated with flaws, doggedness and ignorance that leads to inevitable doom of his superiority. His persistence is observed from the start of the play, but it later comes to a standstill. In this paper, I will discuss the tragic flaw associated with Oedipus that led to his downfall due to self-made pride and arrogance. I will also shed light on how the character is determined to be an escapist of his fate and tries to decide his own fate.
The tragic flaw of Oedipus is his intelligence. The flaw is a connection of the character’s intelligence which leads to self-discovery as well as destruction. From the play, Oedipus’ intelligence helped him to solve the riddle of Sphinx after which he becomes the King. Later, his intelligence causes disaster as he becomes arrogant with metaphorical blindness in the process of searching for the truth. In this instance, curiosity is the tragic flaw. Oedipus could not just sit and watch the downfall of his kingdom, thus he decides to search for a solution to the problem regardless of the consequence. Unluckily, the consequence of search of truth leads to Oedipus eminent downfall.
Outrageously, Oedipus is very arrogant and has faith that he can determine his fate. His arrogance is a tragic flaw in the play. When Oedipus finds the truth from the Oracle, he escapes away from home. He opts to free from Corinth after the oracle tells him that his fate was already sealed and sooner or later, he was going to murder his father and marry his mother. He is disgusted with this news and tries to change the fate under all means. Coincidentally, King Laius was facing nightmares and decides to seek for intervention from the oracle and they come in cross paths. Oedipus gets infuriated as he confronts the King and a war emerges. The fight between father and son escalates since none of them wanted to appear a loser. As it was prophesied, King Laius dies and Oedipus continues with his escape mission. He is unaware that he has just killed his father. Oedipus reaches Thebes where he solves the riddle of Sphinx. As a result, he is rewarded with the widowed Queen Jocasta who was her real mother for a hand in marriage. Thereafter, Oedipus the King swears to bring to letter the corrupt and sinful people who were polluting the city of Thebes. Unintentionally, he vows to punish his deeds. It is, therefore, impossible for him to escape his own fate and the arrogant belief in him that he could determine his fate fails to materialize.
Oedipus, the King, portrays the qualities of a perfect Greek tragedy. As the saying goes, “pride comes before a fall,” his character flaw can also be associated with his pride. The audience recognized him as a great and intelligent King, but his demise is heartbreaking and disappointing. In addition, the ability of the play to indicate a plot twist speeds up the reaction of the audience. This is evident in the play where the messenger lands in Thebes and informs Oedipus that he was not staying with his real parents. The disclosure led him in discovering his sealed fate after he murdered his father without his knowledge. Dramatic irony is observed when the characters does not know each other when only the character are aware of what is happening and it causes much anxiety and tension. Sophocles uses the chorus to link up the audience with the play so that they can understand the unfolding events.
The pride thrust upon him made him use lethal force to his dad and this is a clear instance of tragic flaw that puts him into a catastrophe in the play. Oedipus was always proud and humility was not in his character. The description clearly describes him because of his tendency to overreact to every event. For example, he is denied his right of way after involving himself into an intersection; he is knocked on his head with a double whip. He responds back by giving a murderous blow to his staff due to anger. Later, an investigation on the murder puts him into problems as he is found guilty of committing murder to King Laius.
The aristocracy and virtues of Oedipus the king are vital to his success as a tragic hero. His qualities have earned him respect from his people. First, the Greek audience are aware that he is the son of the King of Thebes and this is noble by itself due to the royal kingdom. Secondly, Oedipus thought that he is a child of the King of Corinth. Again, this also associates him with nobility. Lastly, Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx and this repays him with royal respect from the people of Thebes. Since he is considered a hero for liberating the city, Creon assures him of dominion over the city. The heroic events make the Greek audience emotionally attached to Oedipus and they respect him always.
The play-writer uses "hamartia," the Greek term, which refers to mistake, error, failing but not an innate flaw. Sophocles creativity is enough to bring the downfall of Oedipus marinating the respect he gets from the audience and this makes them feel pity for him. The audience fears for Oedipus as his falling is not accidental. Alternatively, the king’s flaw is a virtue that emerges without the knowledge of the audience. It should be noted that, a tragic hero failing should not be idiosyncratic or arbitrary. The fall of a tragic hero is deeply entrenched in human weaknesses. Additionally, the flaws of the character can be attributed to the deficiency of knowledge on his identity. Besides, there is a lack of enough anticipatory actions that could jeopardize Oedipus' hamartia as he is not held accountable of his flaws. The audience feels pity for Oedipus because it is impossible to overturn the outcome of the tragedy in the play.
In the end, the fall of Oedipus’ generates an extraordinary sense of pity from the play-watchers. He decides to blinds himself rather than committing suicide, but this deepens his suffering since it is a surrogate death. After developing blindness, his visual impairment forces him to experience the emptiness due to religion and intellectual darkness. Alternatively, the tragic hero is dead because he cannot enjoy occurrences in his life. Oedipus is alive but exposed to a lifetime suffering of his actions. He is subjected to the harshness of life and the worst appears to him as the crowd is moved with a catharsis of emotion.
As explicated above, Oedipus the King satisfies three parameters that identify a tragic hero. His vibrant and multidimensional character connects to the audience, his forces on tragic flaws make the audience raise alarm for him, and he provokes a boundless sense for pity from his audience without losing his admiration. I, therefore, conclude that, Oedipus the king is "the ideal tragic hero," who pairs his intelligence, arrogance and pride to associate with tragic flaws in the play.