Hubris in Oedipus Essay

Oedipus the King is considered champion of the greatest classical tragedies ever written. When Sophocles wrote this great bidding, he followed the concept of calamity which dictated that the tragic hero should embody a tragic deface in his character which acts as a motivation for the characters eventual d causefall. In Oedipus the King, the tragic flaw of the plays hero, Oedipus, is center on on the concept of hubris, or excessive and destructive pride.Oedipus, through his pride, eventually experiences the worst tragedies that can befall an individual however, if the events of the play argon examined closely, separately of the tragic events can in some way be committed to Oedipus pride. One key example (in the myth of Oedipus which provided background for the play) is when Oedipus unknowingly murders his own father. Despite being warned by the oracle that he was destined to purge with his own hand his fathers blood, Oedipus quarrels with Laius on the road to Thebes oer whose wagon had the right-of-way and his ultimate anger fueled by hubris led Oedipus to inadvertently murder his own father.After solving the Sphinxs riddle and unknowingly marrying his own mother, Oedipus, as King, must face a plague which is jeopardize Thebes. The plague was sent as a form of revenge by the gods because of Laiuss murder. To help him find out the condition behind the plague, Oedipus consults a prophet named Tiresias, who is blind. When the prophet warns Oedipus to stop see exponent the true murderer of Laius, Oedipuss pride leads him to suspect Tiresias of treachery and dishonesty.Even though Oedipus has been warned all on about hsi destiny, he continues to try to control fate and therefore becomes unless and further entangled in tragedy. It is his excessive pride that drives him to refuse to try to the wisdom of those around him, even prophets. Eventually, Oedipus says during the play that he is superior to the gods, and this is a blatant expression of his hubrisY ou pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers (Oedipus, 254).By grammatical construction this, it is clear that Oedipus considers himself even a greater power as king than the god themselves. A central part of the refer of Oedipuss hubris is the spectacular mockery which takes place in the play. The irony of Oedipus not knowing that he has murdered his own father and married his own mother and the irony that he is in fact the one responsible for the plague on Thebes and that his desire to rid the land of Laiuss murderer would lead to himself are all possible because of Oedipuss extreme pride.He is oblivious to the adventure that the oracles predictions or the words of the blind prophet could doom anything other than the elevation of his own glory and strength that his eventual tragic fall actually begins simultaneously with his rise to kingship and power, with the auditory sense seeing the irony. The reason that Sophocles created such an ironic level of expression for the ext reme hubris of Oedipus was to demonstrate to his hearing that a great tragedy is always created by the inner-flaw or weakness of its main character.The Greeks regarded pride or hubris as one of the most normal and dangerous of personal flaws and this play demonstrated for them and also for modern audiences the impact of excessive pride when carried to extreme levels of power and influence, although the lessons learned in the play are also applicable to common people in their customary lives. By using irony, exaggeration, and an epic scale of symbols, Sophocles was able to present his audience with a frightening portrayal of the negative impacts of hubris or excessive pride.