Oedipus as a tragic hero in Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex

Oedipus as a tragic hero in Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex

Q. Oedipus as a tragic hero in Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex

Answer: Aristotle, in Poetics, laid down ‘catharsis’ as the key emotion elicited by a tragedy. ‘Catharsis’ has been variously defined as purification and purgation –but the word which perhaps best appreciates this medical term in its literary and aesthetic content is ‘refinement’. The viewer of the tragic fate of a ‘hero’ is refined through proper channelization of the emotions of ‘pity’ and ‘fear’.

This is brought about by the cumulative identification, fear of the fate of the hero and finally a pity or sympathy for his fate when the misfortune finally befalls him. Aristotle also isolates certain other characteristics of a tragic hero that optimizes this sensation, namely the character should be of a middling kind – neither too good nor too bad but more inclined towards good than bad, should ideally be of a royal personage for then the misfortune of one becomes the misfortune for many, and finally the tragedy should be caused by some flaw in the hero’s character, which is called ‘hubris’.

In practice, there is no greater application of these premises than Sophocles’ Oedipus. In the beginning, Oedipus comes across as a well-meaning, virtuous and dynamic king. He is a noble, since the audience, particularly the Greek audience of his time, was aware of the fact that he is the son Laius and Jocasta. He himself, however, believes himself to be the son of Merope and Polybus, the queen and king of Corinth. This too, is a mark of nobility. He kills the Sphinx and as a gift gets reign over the city and kingdom of Thebes. With absolute dominion he earns what is rightfully belongs to him. His nobility is both an acquired and attained one.

Yet, all his success is lined by a sense of anxiety and fear, since the audience is piqued by what happens to him, knowing fully well the turn of events he is destined for. He cannot, by all his enterprise and action, cannot change what fate has decreed for him –that he will be his father’s killer and his mother’s bed-fellow. In fact, when the play begins, he has already committed these sins inadvertently.

Yet, his falling cannot be completely accounted to external conditions. It is important to note here that it is not the enormity of the act that causes Oedipus’ downfall, but his knowledge and realization of the enormity of the act he has committed that really accounts for his tragedy. Thus, lack of self-knowledge is a flaw that Oedipus has. But that is a common human trait and not strong enough as a hamartia. What causes Oedipus’s downfall is his hubris, his pride in his intellect, his position and his capacity to be an absolute controller of turn of events, even at the behest of gods.

In the course of his enquiry Oedipus is time and again warned by Tiresias, the crowd and Jocasta to stop delving deep into the mysteries of the past, as that only brings misery. But Oedipus, blinded by his pride gives them a deaf ear. He thinks he is, and in many ways he indeed is, searching for self-knowledge –the knowledge of the self that liberates the self. But, that comes at a price –and the price is terrible. Oedipus comes to know – to his ultimate horror, that he is the killer of his father and be the husband of his mother through whom he has sired children. The fear of the audience proves to be true.

After this realization, Oedipus blinds himself with the brooch of Jocasta’s dress. The motif of penetration continues which has remained so important throughout the play –with curses of barrenness and plagues killing urban children. And that penetration causes blindness –physical blindness, just as intellectual and cognitive blindness caused him to marry his mother and impregnate her. As a blind and cursed man, he loses all civil rights. He is effectively dead, with no home, no friends, no resources, no rights and no vision to guide him through. He is worse than dead, since he has to physically live with all this. Oedipus has no escape through death as Jocasta has. Unlike many tragedies like Oreastes and Clytemnestra, Oedipus Rex does not end in death. It spells something worse than death for Oedipus. He roams the neighborhood of Thebes a blind and destitute. This is where the pity of the audience completely sides with him. His fall is complete.

Thus, Oedipus in Oedipus Rex can be said to be the quintessential tragic hero. He is the ultimate hero not only because he completely abides by Aristotle’s formula, because it is more likely that Aristotle actually formulated his theory of tragic hero largely on the basis of Oedipus Rex, but because even after millennia he continues to awe and move with his fate and tragic readers and audiences alike.

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