Aristotle’s ideal image of a tragic hero is someone pure hearted, an inspiration, and royalty with a tragic flaw. A tragic flaw consists of weaknesses like hubris, ruthless ambition, or jealousy. The story all began when Oedipus fulfilled his legacy and then had four children, Antigone, Ismene, Polyneices, and Eteocles. Polyneices and Eteocles got into an argument which results in both of them killing each other and Creon is left as the new King of Thebes; however, Creon only buries Eteocles body and leaves Polyneices body to rot outdoors. This starts conflict within the family.
Everyone has their own definition of a hero. Many people think of superheroes who fight for the good of humanity. Others think of great warriors in ancient Greece and Rome. While it's nice to know what heroes might look like, it's more important to understand what makes someone a hero. Odysseus is one of these important heroes whose actions should be explained.
From the beginning Oedipus was destined to fulfill a terrible prophecy, but through particular events that follow the steps of the Hero’s Journey, Oedipus becomes a powerful king of Thebes, only to be destroyed by the prophecy that should have ended his life as a child. The Hero’s Journey typically leads to self-confidence and power, however; the Hero’s Journey of Oedipus leads to his tragic demise. The Hero’s Journey lays out the steps of Oedipus’s future actions, which create suspense, fear, pity, and other emotions that captivates the audience. Similar to many famous stories, Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles in 430 B.C., follows the Hero’s Journey path, which is evident in Oedipus’s departure, initiation, and return.
As the door gradually turned open, the audience fell silent, waiting with their held breaths to visually perceive what would transpire to the one within the king’s arena. Once the door was open, a ferocious tiger leapt out of the area from abaft the door. Then, the man was gradually ripped asunder for all to witness. The audience screamed out with disrelish and disappointment at how the man’s life ended. During the horrifying event the king laughed maniacally at the riddance of the man.
The Romans saw Oedipus as a hero, at the same time, you wouldn’t think of him as a “hero” but he is. Why do the romans see Oedipus as a hero? Well here’s why. Oedipus was born in Delphi, his parents were King Laius, and Queen Jocasta, King Laius wanted to thwart a prophecy, so he ordered the shepherds to leave Oedipus on a mountain side to die. The shepherds couldn’t do the mission so, they brought Oedipus to another shepherd, the Shepherd brought Oedipus to King Polybus, where he would raise and name him Oedipus, which means “Swollen Foot.”
The tragic hero in this play written by Sophocles, “Antigone”, has to be Antigone, the main character, or Creon, the King of Thebes and Antigone’s uncle. “Antigone” is about Antigone’s disobedience towards Creon and her death sentence that would cause the suicidal deaths of her own, and Creon’s wife, Eurydice, and his son, Haemon. A tragic hero is a character who makes a judgement error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction, and in this play that tragic hero is Creon. A tragic hero usually has characteristics such as hamartia, a tragic flaw that causes the downfall of the hero, and hubris, excessive pride and disrespect of hero for natural order (Beers 263)
Odysseus: Hero or Not? A hero can be defined as a person who has special achievements, abilities, or personal qualities and is a respectable and well-followed leader. The Odyssey chronicles the poem’s epic hero, Odysseus, on his journey home to Ithaca with his men. En route, he encounters many obstacles and challenges but is able to overcome them using his own military knowledge and with help from the gods.
The tragic hero is a character in a book that comes from a noble background that has a tragic flaw which brings the character the greatest suffering which results in their downfall. In “Antigone”, there are two characters who can be considered the tragic hero of the story: Creon and Antigone. Antigone is a brave and fearless women who dies for a noble cause, while Creon is a controlling and powerful king of Thebes. Both Creon and Antigone have qualities to make them the tragic hero, but Creon is the true “tragic hero” because his hamartia causes his downfall. Creon is the tragic hero of “Antigone” because his hubris muddles his judgment and makes him cause his own undoing.
The Real Tragic Hero When people think about the meaning of tragedy the first thought that reaches them is that it is an unfortunate event. However, tragedies are a little more complicated than “just an unfortunate event”. In Poetics, Aristotle states, “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pitty and fear the catharsis of such emotions.” This means a play must concentrate on an important and severe issue, which will be acted out in an extremely dramatic way, and will lead the audience to feel sorry for the main character who is the tragic hero. For a character to be considered a tragic hero, he must possess certain qualities that classify him as tragic.
Critic Northrop Frye claims that tragic heroes “seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them… Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” A perfect example of this assertion would be King Oedipus in the classical tragic play “Oedipus Rex,” written by Sophocles, where Oedipus, himself, becomes the victim of his doomed fate. As someone who was born and raised of royal blood, he becomes too proud and ignorant, believing that he was too powerful for his fate. Using the metaphor “great trees [are] more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass,” Frye compares the heroic but unfortunate Oedipus to the great trees as they both are apt to experience victimization of tragic situations
“What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and maturity to use the power wisely” (Christopher Reeve). Superman is known to be a hero because he has certain attributes that help the audience recognize him as one. He is brave, courageous, and noble but has a weakness. The characteristics that distinguish Superman as a hero are the same traits that describe a tragic hero. Tragic heroes are found in Ancient Greek tragedy plays written by playwrights like Sophocles.
Oedipus the King is a tragedy that was written by Sophocles that emphasizes the irony of an irony of a man who was determined to trace down, expose and punish an assassin who in turn became him. Oedipus the King is also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus. The art is an Athenian play that was performed in ages approximated to be 429 BC. Oedipus the King would later in the play fulfill the prophecy that he would kill his father and later on marry his mother. There is a twist of an event in the play where Oedipus is looking for the murderer of his father to bring to a halt the series of plagues that are befalling Thebes but only to find he is in search of himself (Rado, 1956).
The play, Antigone written by Sophocles, presents a tragedy that fits the classical definition, but it is the story of Creon, the king of the main character. Creon starts out as the king of Thebes , Creon’s tragic flaw is his pride and his arrogance which caused him reflecting upon his mistakes making him a broken man, recognizing what he did to his niece, he is a character within Antigone, even though he was portrayed as an antagonist he was the main character since he was. Creon’s tragic flaw, hubris, causes his downfall. Creon will not listen to anyone.
Oedipus becomes the tragic hero in the story, but a tragic hero develops a tragic flaw. Because of their tragic flaw, they have a downfall. In the story Oedipus, his tragic flaw is caused by his pride because he is arrogant, he tries to control his fate, he killed a man, and he disobeyed the gods. Oedipus´s tragic flaw is his pride.
Through the outcomes of both plays, the audience is able to receive some hard truths and be confronted with reality. In their respective ways, the two plays reveal truths about the human experience in the way that the plays are symbolic of very real human or societal problems. Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, has a fateful plot with a tragic ending. His play follows the conventions of tragedy, implementing plot, character development,
