Oedipus Rex
In his Poetics, Aristotle defined the term 'tragedy' as 'a man not preeminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity, but by some error in judgement... the change in the hero's fortune must not be from misery to happiness, but on the contrary, from happiness to misery'. From this definition, he further expanded it by defining the profile of the tragic hero. I agree with Aristotle's views in which he considered the best tragedy ever written was Sophacle's Oedipus Rex. He felt that a tragedy should consist of the hero's goodness and superiority, a tragic flaw in which the hero makes fatal errors in judgement which eventually lead to his downfall, and the absence of freewill in the tragic hero's life. Oedipus was a good ruler: just, compassionate and sympathetic. When the priests of Thebes approached him, pleading for help
There, the 'leader' of the horse-drawn carriage ordered him 'out of the way'. Oedipus did not believe him and insulted the blind prophet, calling him names like 'insolent scoundrel'. His pride refused to let him believe he had killed his own father which lead him to his downfall. Oedipus lost his temper and killed everyone in the entourage due to his impulsiveness and foolishness. When he was born, Apollo's oracle predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother, to which his parents decided to abandon him on the mountain-side and leave him to die. All these errors in judgement he had made led to his eventual downfall. on behalf of the people of Thebes who were suffering from death and famine. He promised to 'bring everything to light'. Oedipus's superiority was also evident in the play, not only through his ranking of the king of Thebes, but also through his intelligence which was shown when Oedipus was the only person able to chase the Sphinx away with the correct answer to her riddle. However, Oedipus was not a perfect man. When Oedipus was later crowned King of Thebes he learned from Teiresias that it was himself who had killed King Lauis. His tragic flaw was that of stubbornness, impulsiveness and most of all, his great amount of pride. He brings us sympathy simply because he was not evil or foolish, just human and fallibal.
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