It's essential that every tragedy has a character who is not too good, nor too bad--somewhere in the middle. Also, you need hamartia, which basically means "mistake" or "error" in English. Miasma and catharsis are also elements, but I want to talk about King Oedipus' hamartia for a moment.
The tragic irony from the start is that we all know that Oedipus is the guilty culprit he is so determined to find. To me, this is his true hamartia--his unyielding determination to find answers, no matter the cost. Even though his sins of unknowingly killing his father and marrying his mother are of huge-scale impact, his tragic mistake was his persistent anger and stubbornness. One by one, the characters tried to keep him from finding out what he didn't want to know, and he repeatedly sets their pleas aside.
Tiresias the prophet is one example. When demanded that he not hold back and tell all, he replies to Oedipus, "You have found fault with my anger, but your own, living within you, you did not see, but blamed me," (22, line 356). We all have aged, wise "prophet" figures in our lives, and they usually know more than we do. Yet too often, we set at naught their counsels and bring upon ourselves the very troubles they were trying to protect us from.
Another example is the woman figure in Oedipus' life, the queen Jocasta. She loves him, and begs him to not follow down a path she knows will end in grief. She has the foresight to see the utter ruin his revelation will bring not only himself, but all the kingdom. When he's on the edge of discovery, Jocasta begs him to stop, "No, by the gods! If indeed you care for your own life, do not go after this! I grieve enough," (48, line 1087). How many times have we had a misunderstanding of opinion with a spouse, a sibling, a parent? They care so much for us, and we still follow our route into self-misery.
Tragedies are tragic, and pretty much everyone dies or wishes they could die. But there is still something we can learn from them. Because they aren't reality, they can show us the most extreme of the human experience, and teach us lessons that we might not ever be able to learn in real life.
Sources:
Thomas, J. E. Oedipus Rex. Clayton, Del.: Prestwick House, 2005. Print.
I love that you related Oedipus' hamartia to our lives. It's true that we always have some sort of prophet figure in our lives who gives us advice or help which we brush aside. More often then not we ultimately end up regretting brushing aside that advice. The lesson then that we can learn from Oedipus is to listen more carefully to the advice of those around us. However we also need to make sure we aren't relying completely on what those around us say--we have to ultimately make decisions for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIt's so sad, because really, for Oedipus it's a no win situation. If he finds out the truth, he's doomed, and if he fails he'll be unsatisfied and the city will continue to suffer from a plague. How true that sometimes we turn away from the counsel of loved ones because we have blinded ourselves to everything around. It's like those times when we want something so badly we refuse to consider anything else as being true.
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