Hamartia in Oedipus the King According to the Aristotelian characteristics of good tragedy, the tragic character should not fall due to either excessive virtue or excessive wickedness, but due to what Aristotle called hamartia. Hamartia may be interpreted as either a flaw in character or an error in judgement. Oedipus, the tragic character in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, certainly makes several such mistakes; however, the pervasive pattern of his judgemental errors seems to indicate a basic character
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Oedipus, however, is a contradictory hero, an ambiguous model. Indeed, it represents both superior wisdom and absolute horror. Oedipus is the equivalent of incest. He commits crimes that disrupt the order of the world and that bring plague on the city. So do not think of him as a hero of entity worthy of admiration. Moreover, he is not subject to action, his destiny, he does not control the plot, as one would expect it from a hero. He only submits to the prophecies spoken by the gods, he is only
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the three plays Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Oedipus the King by Sophocles and Hippolytus by Euripides, there are three prevalent themes. These are the role of the gods, the difference between good and evil and human responsibilities. All three of these tragedies reveal the importance of the role the gods play to mankind. The gods have control over mankind and sometimes use them as pawns to achieve their ambitions; the gods also ensure that each individual’s fate is secured. The tragedies also reveal to
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character Antigone took her own life rather than let her uncle, Creon, have the satisfaction of killing her. Although they may not be attempting to avoid suffering, what they choose to do with their life and fate is up to them. All people possess the right to take their own life and choose their own fate. However, some would argue that suicide is immoral for multiple reasons. Taking one’s life may lead to the
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Antigone Antigone is very much her father’s daughter, and she begins her play with the same swift decisiveness with which Oedipus began his. Within the first fifty lines, she is planning to defy Creon’s order and bury Polynices. Unlike her father, however, Antigone possesses a remarkable ability to remember the past. Whereas Oedipus defies Tiresias, the prophet who has helped him so many times, and whereas he seems almost to have forgotten his encounter with Laius at the three-way crossroads,
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his pride, he will have to change to eventually become a better person. Once he decides to give in to the demands of Leader, he finally goes to release Antigone and allow her to live, but alas, it is too late, the downfall begins. This was the first victim that was caused by the pride of this king was Antigone, “The king was shattered. We took his orders, went and searched, and there in the deepest, dark recesses of the tomb we found her . . . hanged by the neck in a fine linen noose strangled in her
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Wu 1 Derek Wu Professor Hyo Kim English 212 25, February 2013 Open to Interpretation: Plato’s Apology & Sophocles’ Oedipus the King Interpretation of human reality in many eyes can be viewed in numerous, if not countless number of ways. In Plato’s Apology and Sophocles’ Oedipus the King both text are intensely concerned with how human reality seems open to interpretation, and their concerns caused a threat to be overcome in both readings. In both readings their suggested responses is
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By Robert Segal, December 10, 2012 The story of Saul, the first king of Israel, begins with a demand by the Israelites — led until then by judges, the last one being Samuel: “When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel… Yet his sons did not follow in his ways… Then all the elders gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him… Appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations” (I Samuel 8.1-5). Israel had been led by an array of figures, starting with
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him, to limit his role in the world. Ahab refuses to submit to any higher power. He does not worship or even acknowledge the superiority of forces beyond himself. Ahab is ungodly but god-like; perhaps he even wants to be God. • Ahab’s Fate But we can see a different side of Ahab when the day before the Pequod's first encounter with the White Whale. For the most part, Ahab is a character who does not change throughout the novel due to his only obsession with killing the White Whale
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have been the weak the submissive characters as they were thought to be. Many well-known Greek plays contained several well-written, complex, and heroic female characters. Each female character took upon herself, the role of villain, the role of victim, and the role of heroine. The tragedies also revealed the problems women encountered in this era within marriage, inheritance and social life when they attempted to break out of their traditional gender roles. Clytemnestra, daughter of Leda
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