Pride: The Tragic Flaw of Oedipus.
The play opens with the people of Thebes stricken with plague and begging for the help of Oedipus. Oedipus is their hero, their savior, and rightly so. He saved them from the Sphinx with his powerful intellect and remarkable courage, and has continued to live his life as their honorable and good king. Oedipus is in every sense, a true hero, and a self made man, all of which is worthy of the respect and admiration of his people, and Oedipus is remarkably aware of this fact. He knows that he is wiser than most, and considered closer to the Gods than any other man. He is proud of all he has done and knows that he is capable of more. It is this swollen pride that causes his eventual downfall to be so tragic. Oedipus is a fictional character, and in the eyes of Sophocles, completely unable to defy the gods and avoid his horrible fate of patricide and incest. What makes the story tragic is not that Oedipus commits these unthinkable crimes, but that this brave, compassionate hero is striped of his dignity and confidence and transformed into an absolute wreck of a man, a lost soul. And it is his pride and strength that causes that conversion to be so terribly tragic.
A clear picture of Oedipus" character is painted for us right from the start of the play. His pride is evident in his opening lines. He refers to himself as "Oedipus, whose name is known afar" (lines 6-7). Immediately, we are shown that he thinks very highly of himself, but this pride is not unfounded. We see him act compassionately, and boldly. The people of Thebes have come to him because they believe in him as their king and trust in him as their leader. Oedipus" pride is truly warranted, but it is also no secret. We are shown his noble spirit when he addresses the priest and his people in the opening scene just after they have come to him with the news of the plague. He speaks to them with great sympathy and concern saying, "I grieve for you, my children.
