Every tragic hero has a tragic flaw, a hamartia, and Oedipus is no exception to the rule. Usually this hamartia is hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence. Every mortal needs pride to some degree, but when this self-confidence is so excessive that it blinds the hero to the truth, it prevents him from making sound decisions and ultimately leads to his downfall.
In Greek Mythology, the gods determined a person’s fate. However, sometimes a mortal was...
Every tragic hero has a tragic flaw, a hamartia, and Oedipus is no exception to the rule. Usually this hamartia is hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence. Every mortal needs pride to some degree, but when this self-confidence is so excessive that it blinds the hero to the truth, it prevents him from making sound decisions and ultimately leads to his downfall.
In Greek Mythology, the gods determined a person’s fate. However, sometimes a mortal was so confident in himself that he challenged that destiny and tried to create his own. This angered the gods, and the mortal was then put in his place.
Oedipus does just that. When he is told of an Apollonian prophesy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, his excessive self-confidence leads him to take matters into his own hands, and he flees Corinth in an attempt to distance himself from his “parents” and escape his fate: “I heard and fled, henceforth to share with Corinth only the stars, where I would never see completed the disgrace of those evil oracles of mine.” Little does he know that his real parents are the king and queen of Thebes, which will be his final destination. Ironically, defying the gods and using his free will is what leads him to his heinous fate.
Even after he inadvertently fulfills his destiny, hubris leads Oedipus to the truth about his past while at the same time blinding him from the truth. He forces Tiresias to tell him who Laius’s murderer is, even though the blind seer warns him of the consequences of that information. As wise and revered as Tiresias is, Oedipus feels himself wiser, and threatens the seer with death: “Do you really think you can say this unpunished?Do you really think you can say this unpunished?” When the seer finally reveals the truth, hubris blinds Oedipus, and he mistakenly focuses on finding out his parentage instead of realizing the true message in Tiresias’s words: “I say that you secretly have lived most foully with those who should be most dear, nor do you see to what extent of evil you have come.”I say that you secretly have lived most foully(385) with those who should be most dear, nor do you see to what extent of evil you have come.I say that you secretly have lived most foully(385) with those who should be most dear, nor do you see to what extent of evil you have come.
Finally, Oedipus shows hubris even after he has learned the truth. He attempts to defy the gods yet again when demands that Creon exile him immediately. Creon states that he must wait to see what the gods’ plan is.
OEDIPUS: Send me from this land.
CREON: You ask me what is God’s to give.
OEDIPUS: The gods hate me.
CREON: Then they will grant your wish. (1545)
In typical Greek tragedy fashion, at the end of the play, the hero finally learns the error of his ways and is humbled of his hubris.
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