2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning." Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.
To bring suffering accidentally upon others is a sad thing, but to do it while trying to ease their suffering is a tragic thing. This is what happens to Oedipus in Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex", the more he tries to ease the pain of the people of Thebes, the more he harms them, which makes the work significantly more tragic.
Oedipus is told by the Oracle of Apollo that he must rid Thebes of the killer of the previous king to lift the current plague that's about. After hearing this, Oedipus begins his desperate attempt to help the people by finding the king's killer. This is when Oedipus's hamartia is first revealed. His hamartia is his disbelief, and here it is demonstrated by his disbelieving in the power of the gods by thinking he can change something set by the gods. When this play was written the Greeks believed that you couldn't defy the fate that the gods created for you, and here's Oedipus attempting just that.
Oedipus keeps seeing things skewed by his disbelief, and thus he makes his people suffer more. This is pointed out when Oedipus is told that he is the one who killed the king, but Oedipus refuses to believe that any of the men he killed could have been the king. Here Sophocles is showing the idiocy and immorality of killing a stranger. Oedipus's hamartia affects the Theban people until he finally sees the truth.
A Greek tragic figure could not overcome their hamartia, but they could eventually recognize it and attempt to minimize its influence on their lives. Once Oedipus recognizes his fatal flaw he leaves Thebes to spare the citizens. The rest of his life he tries to fix the wrong he's done, and avoid future problems.
Sophocles uses Oedipus's hamartia as a means of creating tragedy. Back in the time when this was written, the more tragic a drama was, the more people paid attention to it. That was why Sophocles made his plays so tragic. He also made his meaning very clear. The meaning was largely not to defy the gods. This was a common theme in dramas of the time and it was something that most of the original audience would pick up on right away. A slightly deeper meaning that Sophocles instilled was to keep their flaws to a minimum. He used Oedipus's large disbelief to show that.
Overall, Sophocles uses Oedipus's hamartia to show us not to defy the gods, and also not to disbelieve in the power of the gods, or we will bring suffering on those whom we most desire to keep from suffering.
Definitely a perfect example for this prompt.
ReplyDeleteYou summarize a little too much and it made areas confusing. You want to avoid making someone reread your essay because they cannot remember what point you were trying to make.
I think again, you should work on your thesis. Oedipus is a tragic figure. He is a tragic figure because of this fatal flaw. This fatal flaw is instrumental to the suffering to others and tells us (insert meaning of work) Think of your thesis as a step by step, 1,2,3 problem.
Discuss what his fatal flaw means in relation to the people and then connect it to what it meant at the time.
Don't dump your meaning on me at the end of your thesis in a paragraph randomly! Use it as a concluding statement in your intro-thesis. Then work from there.
In your thesis you should mention how it is displayed in the play that he causes the pain, it would your essay a better sense of direction. I agree with Hope that there is too much plot summary, you need to condense this into more analyzation, especially since this is such a well know story.
ReplyDeleteStating Harmatia over and over again seems kind of annoying to me, maybe change it up a bit so that doesn't detract from your point.
And as hope said you need to integrate the meaning more into the piece not just state it in one sentence at the end.