OEDIPUS

Oedipus: A Tragic Hero

Oedipus: A Tragic Hero

The concept of villains and tragic heroes has been very frequent in English history of the ancient times. These heroes have made up the most brilliant of stories and novels. The personality of tragic hero depicts that he is neither evil nor virtuous. This tragic character is the main reason of fear and is better than the ordinary men or audience because of having some good qualities. The valor, gallantly and bravery was highly valued in the historical days. All the stories, dramas and plays included the element of bravery and tragedy as its climax or the most prominent part.

Similarly, one such tragic characters of the history is Oedipus who has been analyzed as the most tragic characters. Aristotle evaluates him on the basis of the features which a tragic man has. According to him, Oedipus was the man with extraordinarily outstanding qualities and with noble stature. The man is usually born of a noble birth, belongs to an affluent noble family and has many flaws and errors in his personality and decision making which brings his downfall. The reason of his fall is normally his own errors and consequences.

Moreover, a tragic hero moves from misery to happiness and finally faces huge costs at the end. However, this downfall is caused by a flaw or an error in his character instead of depravity or a vice. The next characteristic with the aspect of a tragic hero was that he was a man of good reputation and rapidly increasing wealth. We can very well comment that Oedipus was a sad hero for the reason that he possessed all the above mentioned elements of the tragic hero as described by Aristotle and his philosophies.

Oedipus is considered a tragic hero only after he has blinded himself. His inner struggle to exile himself and the act of blinding himself contributes to the theme of accepting the fate which gods have planned for mortals. The original sin that brought about this type of physical reconciliation was the sin of going against the will of the Gods. Oedipus was fated to sleep with his mother and kill his father, but he tried to avoid fate. By running away he essentially turns away from the gods, acts symbolizing his “blindness” to the will of the gods. But avoiding fate is only the beginning of his sin. (Charles, 88-95)

Oedipus would hardly be an 'average person' and not everyone can relate to him as 'a man like ourselves' therefore many might not be able to understand his decisions which led up to his tragedy. However one thing that some people might be able to relate to and pity him is the loss of his family. This makes the tragedy valued as a modern tragedy as it happens to most of the characters in today's age as well.

It is apparent that Oedipus is a brave, good, and intelligent king. He possesses some flaws or errors in his character but has a nice ...