The Greeks regarded pride or hubris as one of the most common and dangerous of personal flaws and this play demonstrated for them and also for modern audiences the impact of excessive pride when carried to extreme levels of power and influence, although the lessons learned in the play are also applicable to common people in their everyday lives. When Oedipus was born to the king and queen of Thebes, Laius and Jocasta, a prophet announced that the baby would grow up to kill his father and marry his. The tale of how he lost his vision and gained his sight differs in Greek and Roman tradition. The inspiration for the archetypal blind seer, Tiresias has an origin that is as variable as it is complex. The reason that Sophocles created such an ironic level of expression for the extreme hubris of Oedipus was to demonstrate to his audience that a great tragedy is always created by the inner-flaw or weakness of its main character. In the classical mythological tradition, there are few, if any, oracles or prophets whose names carry as much weight as Tiresias. He is oblivious to the possibility that the oracle’s predictions or the words of the blind prophet could indicate anything other than the elevation of his own glory and strength that his eventual tragic fall actually begins simultaneously with his rise to kingship and power, with the audience seeing the irony. The irony of Oedipus not knowing that he has murdered his own father and married his own mother and the irony that he is in fact the one responsible for the plague on Thebes and that his desire to rid the land of Laius’s murderer would lead to himself are all possible because of Oedipus’s extreme pride. A central part of the impact of Oedipus’s hubris is the dramatic irony which takes place in the play. Eventually, Oedipus says during the play that he is superior to the gods, and this is a blatant expression of his hubris:“You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers” (Oedipus, 254).īy saying this, it is clear that Oedipus considers himself even a greater power as king than the god themselves. Oedipus, a stranger to Thebes, became king of the city after the murder of king Laius, about fifteen or sixteen years before the start of the play.
It is his excessive pride that drives him to refuse to listen to the wisdom of those around him, even prophets. Even though Oedipus has been warned all along about hsi destiny, he continues to try to control fate and therefore becomes further and further entangled in tragedy.
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