tragoed Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex) as Ideal Tragic Hero Essay

Oedipus Rex as the Ideal Tragic Hero If we give ourselves up to a hvirtuosost sympathy with the hero, on that point is no question that the Oedipus Rex fulfills the function of a calamity, and arouses idolatry and pity in the highest degree. But the modern reader, coming to the classic turn non entirely for the purpose of enjoyment, will not always throw in himself to the emotional effect. He is apt to worry about Greek fatalism and the judge of the downfall of Oedipus, and, finding no satisfactory solution for these intellectual difficulties, loses one-half the pleasure that the drama was intended to produce. Perhaps we trouble ourselves too overmuch concerning the Greek notions of fate in human life. We are inclined to bet them with a lively antiquarian interest, as if they were something remote and peculiar only in reality the essential difference between these notions and the more well-known(prenominal) ideas of a later time is so slight that it need not concern the n aive and sympathetic reader. After all, the fundamental aim of the poet is not to teach us about these matters. but to construct a tragedy which shall completely fulfill its proper function. Nevertheless, for the student of literature who feels bound to cream the twofold problem, How is the tragedy of Oedipus to be reconciled with a rational design of life? and How does Oedipus himself comply with the Aristotelian requirements for a tragic hero? there is a simple answer in the ethical teaching of the long philosopher in whose eyes the Oedipus Rex appears to have been well-nigh a perfect tragedy. In other words, let us compare the saint of the Ethics with the ideal of the Poetics. Aristotle finds the end of human endeavor to be happiness, that is, an unhampered activity of the reason i... ... in accordance with reason. In the Oedipus Rex Sophocles had already shown the reverse. The man who sees but one side of a matter, and straightway, driven on by his uncontrolled emotions, acts in accordance with that imperfect vision, meets a fate most pitiful and terrible, in accordance with the great laws which the gods have made. This philosophy of Aristotle and Sophocles is clearly expressed in the drama itself. May destiny still find me, sings the Chorus, winning the approbation of reverent purity in all words and deeds ratified by those laws of range sublime, called into life throughout the high, clear heaven, whose father is Olympus altogether their parent was no race of mortal men, no, nor shall oblivion ever get them to sleep the god is might in them and grows not old. Works CitedSophocles. Oedipus Rex. new-sprung(prenominal) York Dover Publications, Inc., 1991.