Tragic Heroes Essay, Research Paper

Tragic heroes are found throughout Greek mythology and folklore. They are called tragic because their narratives are calamities. The two Greek dramas, Antigone and Oedipus, are good illustrations of calamity. These dramas, written by Sophocles, are really different and yet they portion one similarity tragic heroes. There are certain standards that must be met for a individual to measure up as a tragic hero. He ( or she ) is normally of baronial blood, but non a God. To be a tragic hero, one must see tragic flaw, peripateia, anagnorisis, katharsis, and normally a penalty. He begins by doing a error, one that anyone in the same place could do. The error is normally a defect of character or opinion that seems to be the right determination at the clip. More frequently than non, the error is non recognized as an mistake or defect. This is called the tragic flaw, or tragic defect. The tragic flaw can be anything such as an action, a character defect ( such as bad pique ) , a rebelliousness of or incredulity in the Gods, or a simple mistake in opinion. After the tragic flaw has occurs, which is normally unknown to the hero, it sets in gesture the series of inevitable events that follow. The tragic hero so begins to travel through the gestures, or consequences of his tragic flaw. He experiences peripateia and anagnorisis about at the same time. Peripateia is best defined as an sarcasm or a reversal of luck. This is when about everything the hero has done to either accomplish or avoid something, has been in vain. The consequences are precisely face-to-face of his wants. Anagnorisis is a Grecian term significance acknowledgment. The tragic hero experiences realisation as his purposes are destroyed and the really circumstance he has tried to avoid has occurred. Occasionally he receives an indirect penalty due to his tragic defect. The last demand a individual needs to be classified as a tragic hero is katharsis. Catharsis is a Grecian word, intending the cleaning of one s ego. But when it comes to tragic heroes, it s significance is closer to the cleaning of one s self through a redemptive action. After a tragic hero has his tragic flaw, he realizes ( anagnorisis ) that his tragic defect, whatever it may be, has led to his reversal of luck ( peripateia ) . He so does something to either attempt to repair the harm caused ( katharsis ) or if he can non he punishes himself ; because tragic flaw, his tragic defect, ever hurts person else other than himself. A tragic hero s katharsis normally involves harming himself in order to cleanse and deliver his ego after recognizing what has happened.

In Sophocles Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is the Ruler of Thebes. From a immature adult male and on, he has ever feared the prognostication he received from the Oracle at Delphi. The prognostication revealed to him that he would kill his male parent and get married his female parent. Oedipus s tragic flaw begins here. Anyone in this state of affairs would seek everything in his or her power to avoid this from go oning. This is precisely what Oedipus does. He should cognize non to seek to travel against the prophet because it is profane toward the Gods. But who would stand by and wait to kill their male parent and get married their female parent? Oedipus goes to Delphi to do certain he knows who his existent parents are, so he can avoid the prognostication. Of class, on his manner, he meets Laius at the hamlets and kills him. Some might state that Oedipus s tragic defect is killing Laius, but his tragic defect begins when he tries to hedge his destiny. Oedipus goes on to go the male monarch of Thebes and marry Laius former married woman, Jocasta, by replying the Sphinx s conundrum right. Unknown to him, he has already fulfilled the prognostication he has tried so difficult to avoid. This is Oedipus s peripateia, his reversal of luck. Although at the clip, he thinks everything is good and right, but he has already sealed his destiny ; it s merely a affair of clip before he realizes it. An interval of clip base on ballss in which Jocasta and Oedipus have two boies and two girls together. When a pestilence falls upon the metropolis, Oedipus sends a courier to happen out why. The courier studies that the pestilence in Thebes is due to Laius slaying ne’er being avenged ; Oedipus instantly sends for the lone informant to the slaying. Then he announces the liquidator is to be condemned to expatriate upon apprehensiveness. The probe goes on and Oedipus begins to surmise himself. Finally, the blind prophesier Tiresius comes and convinces Oedipus that the prognostication has come true. He goes to his married woman, Jocasta, and tells her his prognostication. Now she, excessively, besides knows the truth and can non populate with it ; thereupon instantly killing herself. Indirectly, this is Oedipus s penalty for his tragic flaw, for seeking to evade the prognostication. The tragic hero now recognizes what has happened due to his actions and determinations ; this is his anagnorisis. This is the minute when he realizes that he has, in fact, done everything he tried so urgently difficult to avoid: killing his male parent, get marrieding his female parent, and that the liquidator of Laius he s been seeking is himself he s condemned himself to expatriate. Oedipus, recognizing how awful the wickednesss of killing his male parent and allocating

an incestuous matrimony with his female parent are, can non bear to look upon his kids. His kids are a direct consequence of his gross outing incest, the most malicious and violative offenses to be committed to the Gods and to his ego. In an attempt to cleanse himself of this, he cuts his eyes out. This is Oedipus s katharsis. He blinds himself because he was blind in his actions. Oedipus is a tragic hero because he fits the function. His tragic defect, seeking to overreach and avoid the Oracle s prognostication, brought this on. Had he went to Delphi that twenty-four hours at the hamlets, he still would hold killed his male parent, but he may non hold of all time known. If merely he wasn t so self-consumed in his enquiry of Laius slayer, he might hold lived a long and comfortable life.

In Antigone, another drama written by Sophocles, there is merely one possible tragic hero Creon. This drama is the last in the Theban Saga written by Sophocles. It begins with the decease of Oedipus two boies, Eteocles and Polynices. They both died by each other s manus, combat over the throne of Thebes. Creon is now the following in line for the throne and he takes his new reign earnestly. As the new male monarch, he wants to turn out his abilities. Creon s entire respect for the Torahs of the metropolis makes him abandon all other beliefs. This is Creon s tragic defect, his tragic flaw. His methods of implementing the Torahs are rigorous. By being overbearing and resolute, Thebans won Ts see him as a weak male monarch ; this will forestall jobs from originating. Creon feels that if person dishonors the polis in which he regulations, they must be punished. His first order of concern is to make up one’s mind what to make with his two dead nephews, Eteocles and Polynices. He resolves to give Eteocles an honest funeral because he fought on the side of Thebes. But as for Polynices, because he fought against the metropolis, he is non to be touched and to remain as he lays for the birds and rats to hold their portion of him. Creon forbids anyone on hurting of decease to give him a proper entombment ; this is Polynices penalty for contending against Thebes. Creon s rough penalty on those who disobey his Torahs causes many to fear him and make bold non travel against him. Antigone, on the other manus, holds the beliefs of the Gods in high fear. It is a direct abuse in the Gods eyes to non give a proper entombment, peculiarly for your ain blood. She believes the Torahs of the Gods should be obeyed above all others, including a male monarch s, particularly with regard to household. Antigone decides to seek to bury her darling brother and show him her regard and love. Bing a spiritual individual, she does this to guarantee his credence into Eden. Her justification for her actions after she is caught and brought to her uncle is that the sacred Torahs of the Gods are by far more of import than those set by the male monarch. Antigone holds strong in her resoluteness and refuses to endorse down even when confronted by the male monarch and sentenced to decease. Creon s anagnorisis comes when he is eventually convinced by Tiresias, the prophesier, that he is incorrect to deny Polynices a burial and to incarcerate Antigone for seeking to make what is right. It is Tiresias that tries to assist him acknowledge his tragic flaw, his belief in merely the Torahs of Thebes. But Creon is humbled and distraught in larning he was incorrectly ; this explains why his precedences are confused. When he tries to deliver himself and make what is right by burying Polynices and liberating Antigone, he doesn t think to liberate Antigone foremost and so bury Polynices. Alternatively, Creon s first action is to pacify the Gods by burying Polynices. Creon s effort to put things right is his katharsis. Then he and his boy Haemon, Antigone s betrothed, depart to where Antigone is buried. When Creon opens the cave to put her free, he finds her exanimate organic structure hanging in the air by a noose. Her lover, Haemon, unable to debar her destiny, would non last her, and falls by his ain manus. Transporting his boy s organic structure place, Creon so learns of his married woman s self-destruction, happening merely minutes before he arrived. This is Creon s peripateia, the decease of his married woman and boy, Eurydice and Haemon. If merely he had let Antigone bury Polynices, none of this decease would hold happened. Antigone s side of the struggle held a much more heavenly attack, as opposed to the mundane route her uncle-king chose to follow. In the terminal, Creon remains entirely with his city state, to keen his dearly-won mistakes ; his rueful, disintegrating diminution is his penalty.

In these two calamities, the heroes are different, but they both fit the same standards ; they have hamartia, anagnorisis, peripateia, and katharsis. Oedipus Rex and Antigone are similar because of the Gods limited function in the heroes actions and the fact that the characters of each heroic poem have a great common point in footings of their leading in state of affairss. But they differ in the order of events refering the demands of the tragic hero. Their catastrophic reigns are the merchandise of their involuntariness to divert from their self-indulgent, all-consuming omnipotence. In both calamities, Sophocles concludes that all persons are fated by the Gods, and must render their lives to higher powers.