Pride In Oedipus Rex

According to Aristotle, a tragic hero stands as impeded by a distinguishable characteristic or character trait, which leads to his/her ultimate demise. The “flaw” in a hero’s personality has the driving force behind their demise. This characteristic is said to not only lead to the hero's demise ,but may also enable the reader to sympathize with the character. It follows that in Oedipus the King, a Greek tragedy, the tragic hero Oedipus should have some sort of flaw. Further in the text, it slowly becomes more clear that oedipus’s flaw is his own pride. Oedipus’s pride can be seen when he learned from the oracle of delphi. That he will kill his father and marry his mother. He runs in a desperate attempt to defy fate and the gods, but nobody can just run from their fate. As the story progresses his fate becomes reality when he learns everything towards the end of the play. From the beginning, he blames others for the death of King Laius without putting himself into the list of possibilities. In lines, 374-376, “Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power O'er me or any man who sees the sun.”, Oedipus’s own hubris remains apparent within the play because of his believe that nobody has the right over

If Oedipus had never left Corinth he would have never ran into his father, King Laius, on the road to Thebes. If he wouldn't have met him then the chances of him killing the king would become far less and not murdering the king, he would have never had the opportunity to marry his mother, Jocasta. So you see things would have been a lot different if he did not try to control his future and go against the gods and his prophecy. Oedipus didn’t want to believe in his own destiny and fell into denial and eventually couldn’t bring himself to reality that he might have been the one who killed Laius. Prides known as one of the major seven sins within men and within a tragic hero Oedipus. Pride was his end