. If you did not read this tragedy before, I suggest you to do so before reading this, otherwise this post would ruin the play for you. Well, so just please help me improving this job and thank you for reading it. 
My Hero’s Tragedy
Throughout history, famous writers have been experimenting with a variety of tragedies. Many of these books became “master pieces” and are considered relevant in today’s life, such as: Othello, Romeo and Juliet and many others. However, Aristotle has written, in his work “Poetics”, his own point of view. In this dramatic theory he expresses an opinion on how a tragic hero should be in order to exploit the art of a tragedy at its finest, but the best example of Aristotle's description of a tragic hero is Sophocles' Oedipus the King, due to the perfect combination between his ambiguous characterization, the tragic events in his life and their outcome.
Aristotle wrote a characterization on how a tragic hero should be. He characterized this tragic hero as a man of a great reputation, well known among the city and as someone who is not virtuous, but at the same time is not evil. In Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus is characterized as noble and caring. The priest calls him “Noblest of men…” (46) He comes from Corinth and solves the riddle of the Sphinx and, by this action; he becomes king of Thebes. He is shocked by the plague that has attacked Thebes, and wants to stop it at any cost. On the other hand he is also very temperamental, arrogant and suffers from a lack of humility. “And justly you will see in me an ally, a champion of my country and the God” (135-136).This second characteristic is what Aristotle called Hubris, defined as arrogance. This word also represents the action, which later on is going to create the characters downfall.
Other important terms defined as part of a good tragedy by Aristotle are Peripeteia and Anagnorisis. Peripeteia is the moment of a sudden change where the fortune of the protagonist reverses. In the play this moment occurs when the messenger from Corinth comes to give Oedipus good news. Oedipus hears that his father is dead, so he believes the curse, in which he is going to kill his own blood and lie on his mother’s bed, is broken. However the messenger reveals the truth, “Because Polybus (Corinth’s king) was no kin to you in blood” (1016). At this point Oedipus realizes that he is not begotten by the person he thought was his father and later on is told that it was king Laius that begot him, the man he killed. This action leads to Anagnorisis, the moment when the protagonist recognizes his downfall. Oedipus realizes he is the pollution he has been looking for, so after what he did, he decides to leave for the good of Thebes.
In addition to these we should also look at Hamartia and Cathorsis. Hamartia is the tragic flaw that causes our character’s downfall. In Oedipus’ case it happens when, afraid of what he heard from the oracle, “I was fated to lie with my mother … and I was doomed to be murderer of the father that begot me” (Oedipus 792-795) he decides to run away out of Corinth. Then he finds a group of people, king Laius among them, who try to push him out of their way by force. Oedipus' temperament pushes him to kill them all including his father, who at this moment is unknown to him. This is the moment when Oedipus’ fate changes and leads him to accomplish his already set in stoned destiny. At the end he blinds himself with a pair of broaches and leaves Thebes to save it. After this resolution we find ourselves with catharsis, the moment of emotional release where we finally might think of the story as something that brings equilibrium to the Universe. Oedipus kills his father, has children with his mother, so basically he does wrong, and at the end he ends up blind. So we realize that all the pain our protagonist goes through is deserved.
In conclusion looking at all the resemblance between Aristotle’s description of a tragic hero and Oedipus the king, we can see that they are completely similar. Sophocles creates the perfect tragic hero. The noble, but not virtuous person who goes from fortune to misfortune and who’s story is a complete tragedy. Aristotle’s “Poetics” could have not had a better example of a tragic hero than Oedipus the King.
Gender:
Points: 300
Reviews: 0