Oedipus Character Analysis

The play Oedipus is a tragic the bean play written by Sophocles, in which the main characters, King Oedipus is considered to be tragic hero. According to the philosopher Aristotle’s, a tragic hero is “Virtuous man whose misfortune is brought about not by depravity, but by some error or frailty”. The statement means that the character is neither good of bad, simply decent, but eventually he will commit a mistake, often referred by the author as Hamartia, a tragic flaw. In the play, the author utilizes the character of the king Oedipus as the subject to this Hamartia, his mistake was to fervently search for the killer of Laius instead of leaving the occurrence be as advised by his wife. Sophocles brilliantly uses the adjective “deinos” to represent his tragic character, “deinos” means both wonderful and terrible, satisfying the idea that the hero can be both bad and good. It is

In Oedipus, the crime committed was not committed with a foul intent, it was due to the ignorance about his own past that lead King Oedipus into his traffic downfall, he had no knowledge that Jocasta was his mother and Laius his father. Even though Oedipus fall was excruciating, a tragic hero always gains something from his experiences, Oedipus finally knows the real truth about himself. A paradox is created in the end, due to the fact that now that Oedipus is blind, he is able to see his true self and therefore he sees the murderer of King Laius that he so ferociously seeks. Sophocles is wisely able to manifest the feeling of Catharsis, purification of emotions, onto the audience by feeling pity of Oedipus’s tragic end. The element of dramatic irony is always present throughout the play, because the entire audience knows the truth, which Oedipus is the killer of Laius, while he does not, so the audience feels pity for him to being so blind to clues in his surroundings that lead to the tragic