character, though it should be noted that he never uses the term ‘tragic hero’. As to
the character of Oedipus, it is clear that he has faults; he is quick to anger and, though
the killing of Laius (as narrated at lines 798–813) may be regarded as a justifiable
homicide in self-defence after provocation, his rash temper is apparent in his
treatment of Creon and Tiresias. But despite the choral utterance ‘pride (hybris) breeds
the tyrant’ (l. 872), Oedipus, unlike Xerxes in the Persians, in no sense merits his fall,
for he did all in his power to avoid his predicted fate. He is not the victim of a ‘tragic
flaw’ within himself - indeed the famous term hamartia is not now generally
interpreted to mean more than error. Whatever his faults, Sophocles has endowed
Oedipus with great qualities. A contrast might be made here with his counterpart in
the Oedipus of the Roman playwright Seneca (4 BC–AD65). He is a commanding
presence who exhibits a concern for his people at the beginning and the end of the
play; he is strong, assertive and single-minded in his quest for the truth, though
Tiresias, Jocasta and the shepherd all try to deflect him: ‘I will know who I am’ (l.
1085). Above all, the responsibility he takes upon himself throughout is not
relinquished after the terrible revelation. Of the blinding, he asserts: ‘Apollo has laid
this terrible agony upon me; not by his hand, I did it’ (ll. 1329–1331). The horror he
feels in his unspeakable suffering is that of a civilised sensitivity and in the turmoil of
his reactions he is able to think beyond himself to the future of his children, and to
determine his own banishment. The final words spoken to him by Creon ‘Command
no more. Obey. Your rule is ended’ (l. 1522) highlight the utter change of fortune but
are addressed to a noble spirit that is not utterly broken.
If we take Aristotle’s definition of tragedy:
Tragedy then is a representation (mimesis) of an action that is worth serious
attention, complete in itself, and of some amplitude. .. presented in the form of
action not narration; by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation
(katharsis) of such emotions.
(Poetics, 6)then the actions of Oedipus in the play, which are all freely entered into, dramatize
not merely the terrible insecurity of human happiness (the moral of the chorus at the
end) but a hopeless human struggle against an inscrutable fate. Yet though the
chorus see in the fate of Oedipus the lesson that life is nothing, in our experience of
the play, man emerges as more than ‘the vile worm’ that he is for the Psalmist in
the Old Testament. Our response to Oedipus does indeed include pity and fear,
but amongst other emotions is surely an element of admiration for his greatness of
spirit. How precisely this emotional effect might be cathartic (indeed what the
meaning of the word katharsis is) it is difficult to say. It seems that Aristotle’s theory
was designed to ascribe to tragedy a positive and wholesome emotional function
158 THE GREEKS