Sophocles: I Write Sins And Tragedies Every person at one time in their life, will face tragedy. Sometimes it is brought on by oneself, and sometimes it is doomed by outside or greater forces. It is detrimental to see how people react in the wake of tragedy, as their reaction shows who they truly are as a human being. Do they run from the problem, leaving other to clean up the mess, or do they face their problem straight on and accept their fate? Oedipus Rex, the “tragic king” of Thebes, was actually just that. By Aristotle's standards, Oedipus seems like the poster child for the idea of a tragic hero. Oedipus ran away from his fate, and in the end, made it tragically worse. He desperately wanted to try and reverse the word of the Gods and …show more content…
What the Gods spoke was final, and trying to escape the fate handed to you would only make your face more dreadful. Oedipus learned this the hard way as he ended up with his fate, and then some. After finding out that he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus immediately left Corinth where he lived, unbeknownst to him, with his adoptive parents. This was his first mistake and major character error, one of Aristotle’s characteristics of a tragic hero. By running away from his fate, Oedipus actually ran head first into it. On his way to Thebes, Oedipus kills the King, his real father, defeats the Sphinx, and marries the Queen of Thebes, his mother. When he was handed the throne, Oedipus truly believed he won, and had successfully outsmarted the gods, saving his parents from their shared fate. Not only did this seem fortunate, but it also encouraged Oedipus’ excessive pride, another trait, because he had save Thebes from terror. This only further promoted the fact he believed he was a God-like …show more content…
It was almost pitiful to see Oedipus go through the process of comprehension of realizing who his biological parents were. This reversal of fate, where Oedipus loses everything- his wife, his throne, his children, and his life, essentially- was entirely a result of his own actions. However, he does accept his actions and takes full responsibility for what he has caused realizing that it was not exterior forces, but entirely himself that caused everything, and even keeps his word, and banishes himself, which is yet another quality of a tragic hero. The final trait a hero must have is to face a fate worse than what is deserved, and of course, Oedipus fits perfectly. Not only does he suffer enough after finding out who his wife truly is, but also in that he is sentenced to blindly wander the land until he dies. Oedipus should rightfully be punished for the murder of King Laius’ but the incest was truly and obviously unintentional. Oedipus suffers enough every time he thought of his wife and children, knowing the sin behind it