Oedipus REX
How is Oedipus Rex a tragic hero according to Aristotle?
An Idea of a Tragic Hero by Aristotle
Aristotle said that a tragic hero is a famous person who is in a high place or status in life and unfortunately falls into bad luck because of a "hamartia," or character flaw. Based on Aristotle's ideas, a tragic hero should be a good or fine man, but not perfect. Aristotle said that seeing a bad person go from having good luck to having bad luck doesn't make you feel sad or scared. Nevertheless, the downfall of a man who is almost perfect in every moral way is disgusting and terrible. At this point, Aristotle thought that the tragic hero was a man who was neither very good nor very bad. The sad hero is neither a perfect person nor a bad guy. Another thing Aristotle says is that the tragic hero must be true to himself. Aristotle thought that the disaster or catastrophe in a play was caused by a mistake rather than a crime that was done on purpose.
Oedipus, according to Aristotle's Criteria
According to Aristotle, the tragic hero must have three characteristics: (1) a high social status; (2) be morally perfect or good; and (3) have a flaw in their character or do something wrong when they didn't know what was going on. All of these things are true about Oedipus, but the last one needs more thought. Oedipus is born into a royal family and is raised by a king and a queen. He later becomes a king and marries a queen. In this way, he is a man of high social rank. Additionally, he is a man with strong values, though he is far from perfect. Unfortunately, we can't say for sure that his bad luck is caused by a flaw in his character. However, his flaws do give the idea that he should pay for them. But it's also not fair to say that he's just a puppet for fate. He is free to do what he wants as long as he stays within certain limits. However, it is important to remember that the oracle's prediction would have come true even if he had taken other steps.
Oedipus' Exemplary Traits as a King and a Person
Oedipus is a good king who cares deeply about his people. He is also a man of honour, a good leader, and a very smart person. But he is also a religious man who trusts in oracles, values family and hates being dirty. It's because he gets a sign from the Delphic oracle that the murder of King Laius is being looked into by the gods. This makes him believe in their predictions. The people of Oedipus have a lot of respect for him. Many people pray to him as if he were a god, and they respect him as a saviour. The priest remembers the great work he did for the city of Thebes by defeating the Sphinx. He now looks forward to saving the people of the city from the illnesses that have now spread through it. The priest's plea is met with full support by Oedipus. He has already sent Creon to consult the oracle at Delphi, and soon he will call on the prophet Teiresias for help. As soon as Creon tells Oedipus what's wrong with the city and what the oracle told him to do to fix it, Oedipus vows to find the criminal and curses him very badly. After reading all of this, we can say that Oedipus is almost a perfect king. Besides that, he shows that he is a loving husband and father. Despite Jocasta's feelings and ideas, he cares about them and gives all of his love to his daughters. Additionally, he gets along well with the chorus and is always polite to them, sometimes even taking their advice into account. Because of these things, Oedipus is a great person and a great king.
Problems with Oedipus
Oedipus does have some flaws, of course. He has a short fuse, makes snap choices, is too proud of how smart he is, and makes decisions without much thought. He gets angry with Teiresias very quickly when he finds out that the prophet doesn't want to tell him what he knows. It doesn't take him long to figure out that Creon has paid Teiresias and that the two of them have planned an attack on him. He definitely talks to Teiresias with respect at first, but when he smells a threat to the kingship, his mood changes quickly and completely. The way you don't trust the messenger is very different from how religious Oedipus really was. Even though he is religious, Oedipus the king is more connected to the world of politics and human norms than to God's plan for the world. Later, when Jocasta makes him doubt the oracles, he also loses his religious zeal.
En route to despotism
The scene with Creon makes it clear that Oedipus is arbitrary and likes to be in charge. He doesn't think twice about suspecting a family member he knows and trusts, which shows he is angry and influenced quickly. He is becoming a tyrant because of his power and position. He loves people very much, but he wants full and full power, but in the case of Creon, he is very close to killing someone in court.
His "Pride" or "Hubris"
One thing that makes Oedipus stand out is that he is naturally proud of how smart he is. His success in solving the Sphinx's puzzle appears to have increased and strengthened this sense of pride. He is proud of the fact that not even Teiresias, who was a seer, could figure out the answer. One of the choir odes makes a vague reference to Oedipus's sense of pride. We don't really feel sorry for Oedipus because of his pride or folly. Being confident in yourself is a good thing, but when it turns into pride, haughtiness, attitude, or rudeness, it's disgusting and annoying. Our first opinion is that he is setting himself up for failure because he is intolerant of both Teiresias and Creon and says hurtful things about both of them. Of course, Oedipus has already done the things that make him a sinner in the eyes of the gods, himself, and other people. He killed his father and married his mother long before we realised what he had done wrong. That being said, the sadness is not so much that he did those things, but that he found out he did them. There wouldn't have been much sorrow if the crimes hadn't been found out. There is tragedy for both Jocasta and himself when they are found out.
His Pride Did not Directly Lead to his Sins
It wouldn't make sense to say that Oedipus is suffering because he is proud. There is no doubt that he is guilty of this sin. But his crimes and disasters are not directly caused by his pride. After hearing from the prophet what was going to happen to him, he did everything he could to avoid what was written. When he killed his father and married his mother, he didn't know anything about it. His disaster was caused by mistakes, not by anything he did on purpose. Still, one could say that things would have turned out differently if he had been a little more careful. He could have avoided the fight on the road if he wasn't so cocky and irritable. He also could have refused to marry a woman who was old enough to be his mother if he hadn't been so proud of how smart he was for solving the Sphinx puzzle. For that reason, the oracle's predictions would have come true in some other way, since nothing could have stopped them. Because of this, pride doesn't explain why Oedipus killed his father and married his mother.
His Pride, which Drove Him to Make the Discovery
But does pride have anything to do with the fact that his crimes were found out? After all, that's what makes the tragedy so tragic. We're pretty sure that Oedipus might not have been shocked by what he found if he hadn't been so determined to find out. He is driven to find out more by something inside him. Jocasta tells Oedipus not to keep looking into things after Teiresias first refused to tell him anything and then made some scary predictions. But he doesn't care about her idea that life should be a chance. She tries again to stop his searches after she knows the truth, but this time she fails. The shepherd from Thebes also tries to stop Oedipus from wanting to know the truth, but it doesn't work. This insistence on the truth is what led to the tragic finding. We can see this insistence on the truth as a form of pride, like the pride of being smart or the pride of knowing everything. There is a clear chain of events connecting Oedipus's pride in his intelligence and his realisation of his sins. However, there isn't a strong link between his pride and the fact that he did wrong, because he would have done wrong anyway if the oracle had come true. They said that Oedipus would be guilty of those sins, but they didn't say that he had to find out the truth. Oedipus's devotion to the truth is what led to the disaster. As was already said, we can call this love of the truth "intellectual pride." What comes after the discovery—self-blinding and self-punishment—is a different story. What comes after is also very sad, but it's not the discovery itself that is tragic.
How the Tragic Hero's Spirit Never Gives Up
So, in accordance with Aristotle, Oedipus is a true tragic hero because, among other things, his tragedy is a result of both his own efforts to discover the truth and outside events. These days, people don't think that the tragic hero needs to be in a high social place. The modern reader also doesn't believe that oracles are true. But putting these things aside, Oedipus is a real tragic hero, even from the point of view of a contemporary reader. Through Oedipus, we can see both how useless people are in difficult situations and how great people are in general. People think a lot of Oedipus because of how he handles his sentence and how he blinds himself when he realises he is guilty. We meet him in the opening as a man of heroic proportions, and he leaves the play as a man of heroic proportions. The most important thing about a sad hero is that their spirit does not give up, even after they lose.
REFERENCES
Barstow, M. (1912). Oedipus Rex as the ideal tragic hero of Aristotle. The Classical Weekly, 6(1), 2-4.
Elahina, O. THE TRAGIC FLAW AND THE TRAGIC HERO IN OEDIPUS. Згідно рішення Вченої ради Житомирського державного університету імені Івана Франка протокол № 21 від 25.11. 22, 39.
Cudjoe, R. V., Grant, P. K. T., & Otchere, J. A. (2011). The Fall of the Tragic Hero: A Critique of the “Hubristic Principle”. UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 12(1), 1-33.
Paolucci, A. (1963). The Oracles Are Dumb or Cheat: A Study of the Meaning of Oedipus Rex. The Classical Journal, 58(6), 241-247.