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Oedipus: A True Aristotelian Hero
ENGL102: Literature and Composition
Emma Purschke
Professor Penner
September 17, 2025
APA Style
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Thesis Statement and Outline
Thesis Statement: Oedipus, the central character of Sophocles, is an excellent representation of
Aristotle’s tragic hero, fulfilling each of Aristotle’s six requirements for a hero.
I. Originated at a place of prominence and wealth.
a. “The tragic hero is a man of noble stature.” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1252)
1. Initially Prince of Corinth, he later became King of Thebes.
2. “Fall from a height.” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1252)
II. Hamartia
a. “To miss the mark or fall short of an objective.” (Glassberg, 2017)
b. Hero is good yet imperfect; hamartia is the root of his inevitable downfall. (Johnson
and Asp, 2018, p. 1252) 1. Replaced Laius without knowing entirely the man he was
after killing him.
2. Fight against “violent hands” and seek vengeance for Laius’ death.
3. Tries to defend the whole country but winds up being “the pollution.” (Sophocles,
line 142) “tyrannical behavior” (Glassberg, 2017)
III. Downfall
a. “His own fault, the result of his own free choice.” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253)
1. Teiresias, “You, with both your eyes, are blind.” (Sophocles, line 339)
- Freud’s statements about blindness.
b. Fate is only useful as a “cooperating agent.” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253)
- Both Laius and Oedipus try to get around a variety of prophecies, but the
efforts they make to do so have unexpected repercussions.
IV. Misfortune
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a. “The hero's misfortune is not wholly deserved.” (Johnson and Arp, 2018, p. 1253)
-“Left him to die on a lonely mountainside.” (Sophocles, line 678)
b. “The punishment exceeds the crime.” (Johnson and Arp, 2018, p. 1253)
-“Well-intentioned, but vulnerable to missing the mark.” (Ashton, 2016)
-It is not worthy of punishment. (Ashton, 2016)
V. Self-Discovery
a. “Some increase in awareness, some gain in self... a change from ignorance to
knowledge.” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253)
-When Oedipus realizes that Polybus and Merope have not been his biological
parents, he initiates his “search for knowledge” (Zachrisson) and seeks for his
identity.
-By the end of the play, he discovers who his true parents are.
-Realizes that his efforts to escape fate have only ended in the prophecies
becoming true.
VI. Catharsis
a. Emotional “cleansing” (Ashton, 2016)
b. “Although it arouses solemn emotions... tragedy, when well performed, does not leave
its audience in a state of depression.” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253)
-Defective moral order. (Glassberg, 2016)
Emma Purschke
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Professor Penner
ENG102-B02
17 September 2025
Oedipus: A True Aristotelian Hero
Each story has someone who is the main character. The reader can connect with and
comprehend the hero. The reader can connect with the hero. But heroes sometimes lack a happy
ending and enjoyable outcome. Occasionally tragedy and desperation stand at the center of the
hero’s tale. The first philosopher who outlined the key traits of a tragic hero was Aristotle.
Oedipus, the central character of Sophocles, is an excellent representation of Aristotle’s tragic
hero, fulfilling each of Aristotle’s six requirements for a hero.
To efficiently create compassion and awe in the audience, the character needs to begin
from a position with immense status or noble rank, according to Aristotle’s account of a tragic
hero. Based on Aristotle, a tragic hero needs to be “a man of noble nature” (Johnson and Arp,
2018, p. 1252). At the beginning of the story, Oedipus is prosperous and respected. At the starting
point of the play, Oedipus is the king of Thebes; nevertheless, it is alleged that soon after
Polybus’s death, he had been selected to be the prince of Corinth, who went on to become king.
To point out the resulting fall from grace, the hero must have been in a position of authority from
the start. The instances and behaviors of the characters’ lives in Aristotelian tragedy provoke
feelings of fright and compassion. For the viewer or reader to sense such emotions, the hero must
“fall from a height” (Johnson and Arp, 2018, p. 1252) that may end in deep internal disputes.
The concept of hamartia can be seen in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, where even the most
perfect individuals, regardless of their qualities, eventually are driven to their demise by their
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weaknesses and poor decisions. Given his weaknesses, the tragic hero is an ideal man. Either
misunderstanding or confidence in the larger good leads to the hero’s inevitable downfall
because of an “act of injustice,” or hamartia (Johnson and Arp, 2018, p. 1552). Overlooking the
target or failure to achieve a goal is known as hamartia (Glassberg, 2017). When Oedipus
attempts to defend himself from “violent hands” (Sophocles, line 142), he “misses his mark”
regarding who is going to follow him next to exact retribution for the fall of the prior leader,
Laius. He experiences an awful decline from glory as an outcome of his ignorance regarding
what happened. After discovering his predecessor’s loss, Oedipus demands that the killer be
identified and held liable for all his crimes, but he seems unlikely to be informed that he is the
focus of their present quest. Oedipus’s naivety and drive to squash Teiresias’s allegations are the
motivating factors underlying all his behaviors that followed. Oedipus strives with tremendous
efforts and shows “tyrannical behavior” (Glassberg, 2017) to demonstrate that he is not “the
pollution of this country” (Sophocles, line 338). Yet he only succeeds in becoming what he
intended to avoid.
Aristotle insisted that a tragic hero’s tragedy be caused by personal choice, and Oedipus’s
collapse is because of his failure to grasp reality instead of just outside circumstances. Oedipus
leads to his own destruction in his quest to demolish Teiresias and hunt down Laius’ killer.
According to Aristotle, this is still an additional requirement for a tragic hero. It needs to be “his
own fault, the result of his own free choice” for the hero not to succeed (Johnson and Arp, 2018,
p. 1253). Oedipus shuts himself out of reality since he is so eager to preserve his delusions about
Laius’ existence and his own role in the events untouched: “You, with both your eyes, are blind”
(Sophocles, line 339). According to Zachrisson, Freud initially defined a psychological disorder
in which an individual knows something to be true but fails to accept it as such. Oedipus in this
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instance is reluctant to accept that Laius is his father and that his efforts to avert fate only
succeeded in bringing about the events that were predicted, thus allowing fate to exist as a
“cooperating agent” (Johnson and Arp, 2018, p. 1253) instead of serving as the source of
Oedipus’s dilemma.
The audience expresses compassion and empathy for Oedipus since, unlike in Greek
tragedy, where the hero’s collapse must have repercussions, in Oedipus Rex, the severe nature of
Oedipus’s suffering outweighs his shame. A repercussion needs to accompany the crime and
contribute to the hero’s collapse, given that the hero must commit an injustice to ease the state of
hamartia. Aristotle’s description of tragedy, however, emphasizes that “the punishment exceeds
the crime” and that the viewers need to feel sorry for the hero (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253).
Oedipus suffers repercussions for his wrongdoing that include exile and his sight. Although it is
lighthearted, the use of his vision consequence is cruel in this situation, and compassion for
Oedipus’s position indicates an understanding that he is not worthy of the consequence (Ashton,
2016). Oedipus was “well intentioned, but vulnerable to missing the mark” (Ashton, 2016)
during the play. It is often said that “the hero’s misfortune is not wholly deserved” because
Oedipus’s hamartia was brought on by his arrogance and prior bad luck. Considering that he had
no shortage of sincere goals until he discovered the truth about the earlier ruler’s passing and
sought to rid his country of “pollution” (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253). The reality that
Oedipus’s father, Laius, “left him to die on a lonely mountainside” (Sophocles, line 687) when he
was still a baby to flee his fate, is to blame for his fate. The sole reason that Oedipus left Corinth
was to prevent his assumed parents the agony of the future that the God of Delphi had recently
revealed to him. Oedipus was a distraught and outraged young man looking for his identity and
to protect the people that raised him from themselves; he had no plans of executing these heinous
acts.
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Oedipus’s persistent drive for self-worth is an essential part of his tragedy, finally
fulfilling Aristotle’s criteria that a tragic hero transition from blindness to awareness. Oedipus’s
quest was always one of self-discovery. “Some increase in awareness, some gain in self...a
change from ignorance to knowledge” is another one of Aristotle's standards for a tragic hero.
(Johnson and Asp, 2018, p. 1253) Oedipus continues to struggle to figure out the most essential
details about himself. Where do I first come from? Early on, he realized that the people he
believed were his parents weren’t, and when interrogated, they strongly denied the accusations.
Yet as Sophocles describes it, “the suspicion remained always aching in my head” (lines
741742). How does it feel to always ponder who you actually are? When Oedipus can manage to
stop the doubts that are rushing through his head, he undertakes his “search for knowledge”
(Zachrisson). While Oedipus wishes he had not, he has ultimately found his parents and roots by
the play’s finale. He wished the truth would not come to him anymore. From the start of the play,
Sophocles demonstrated that Oedipus’s main weakness was his ignorance and unwillingness to
recognize the truth, an attribute that is addressed by the end of the play. After discovering the
truth while avoiding the fate indicated in the god’s prophecy, Oedipus discovers that every one of
his efforts eventually ends in his exile and vision loss.
Catharsis, the psychological release that enables viewers to leave a play with a feeling of
peace rather than sadness, is the final phase in Aristotle’s account of the tragedy. Oedipus Rex
successfully fulfills this at the play's ending. “Although it arouses solemn emotions...tragedy,
when well performed, does not leave its audience in a state of depression” corresponds to the
sixth and last criterion of Aristotle’s definition of the tragic hero (Johnson and Asp, 2018, p.
1253). Aristotle insisted that evil and morality be equal and that there be a type of emotional
reckoning. We refer to this process as catharsis. There are several various claimed meanings of
'catharsis,' yet it is unclear what Aristotle was thinking when he utilized the term. Nevertheless, it
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makes sense that Aristotle wanted the play’s ending to include an emotional “cleansing” (Ashton,
2016). The play’s ending for Oedipus exhibits catharsis because it creates a balance between the
tragedy of his life, his future mistakes, and the repercussions that he had for them. During the
story, the audience is made to feel empathy for Oedipus. This is because Oedipus feels obligated
to suffer “unmerited misfortunes” (Glassberg, 2016) during his life. Oedipus’s behaviors and
consequences restored the moral order to its rightful state after the catastrophe generated an
imperfect one (Glassberg, 2016). Therefore, although the audience may feel compassion for
Oedipus because of the difficulties he experienced as a child, his acts in efforts to undermine
Teiresias failed to make him appealing to readers and led to a sense of unhappiness during the
story until he was punished. The story provides a feeling of closure because Oedipus is
compelled to achieve justice, as requested.
Sophocles builds a character who not only illustrates but also entirely represents
Aristotle’s concept of a tragic hero, from the play’s opening line to the final sentence. A tragic
weakness in Oedipus, who opens the play as a king and a man of noble descent, enables him to
suffer from hamartia and eventually suffer from wealth and power in a deep sense. Considering
his awful flaw, he is even obligated to endure tragedy after hardship during his life, ending in a
single, severe punishment that is not completely deserved. Although he wishes he were able to go
back in the past, Oedipus starts his story on a search for understanding and concludes it with that
information. Finally, before finishing on a note of righteousness and closure, Oedipus’s story
takes the audience on an emotional journey through a variety of emotions, including empathy,
fright, anger, and vengeance. Oedipus, the tragic hero of Sophocles’ drama, continues to preserve
his place as a hero in the audience’s eyes throughout his devastating defeat.
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Reference’s
Ashton, G. & Tanner, S. (2016). From Puzzling Pleasures to Moral Practices: Aristotle and
Abhinavagupta on the Aesthetics and Ethics of Tragedy. Philosophy East and West66(1),
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database.
Glassberg, R. (2016). OEDIPUS THE TYRANT: A VIEW OF CATHARSIS IN EIGHT
SENTENCES. Philosophy and Literature, 40(2), 579–580. Retrieved from
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Glassberg, R. (2017). Uses of Hamartia, Flaw, and Irony in Oedipus Tyrannus and King Lear.
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Meyer, Michael, and D. Quentin Miller. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature.
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