In Aristotle’s Poetics, he states what he believes, what a perfect tragedies characteristic were. Aristotle said that for a perfect tragedy were: imitation of an action, the constituent parts if tragedy, the plot and character. To Aristotle the tragedy has to be a story to which is realistic and has a pin-point focus. To Aristotle the tragic hero has to be a man who has misfortune. The tragic hero must also pass from happiness to misery, must belong to a distinguished family and has achieved greatness and had a fall of greatness, must not be evil, cannot be perfectly just or virtuous, he must have a great downfall because of his error in judgement, and he must discover/ recognize his error in judgement. To Aristotle, Oedipus the King, is the perfect tragedy in his opinion.
Aristotle believes that Oedipus signified the most perfect tragic hero and
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With this tragedy it shows the dramatic irony this can happen when the tragic hero will try to change his fate, however the audience knows the tragic outcome of what will happen. When Oedipus’ true parents find out the fate of their son of killing the father and marrying the mother, they send him away to the side of a mountain and pin his heels together so he would die. Therefore, their son would not be able to marry the mother and kill the father. People cannot change their fate, it has to happen and the audience knows that. Therefore, there was extreme dramatic irony when that happened and the audience knows that their son will end up marrying the mother and killing the father even though they tried to get rid of their son. Another place in the tragedy where there is dramatic irony is when Oedipus and his mother/wife Jokasta are talking and Jokasta states, “he was tall with some gray salting his hair. He looked then not very different from you now” (227). Another example of the outrageous dramatic irony that is found in this tragic play is that Oedipus vows to kill whoever