Oedipus the King

The ancient G malodour philosopher Aristotle once identify the key ingredients of the tragedies that his culture is so famous for. These ingredients include a disposition with a fatal flaw, the realization of the fault for a particular business and the final emergent reversal of fortune. For many tragedies, the fatal flaw is show as luxuriant rob, which usually serves as the driving force of the cultivates action.It is common, even beneficial, to have pride in bingleself, but when it be make senses explicit as arrogance or in defiance of ones fate, it is considered excessive and often run fors hands to engage in activities that will lead to their downfall. Aristotle (1998) stated the tragic hero falls into bad fortune because of virtually flaw in his book of facts of the kind found in custody of high reputation and good fortune such as Oedipus. This attitude, unremarkably found in men of high station is not specifically identified as pride in the case of Oedipus and, i ndeed, different readings skunk place Oedipus great flaw in a number of areas.It seems as if Sophocles intended to emphasize the to a greater end common interpretation of Oedipus flaw creation excessive pride, but other interpretations, such as Pier Paolo Pasolinis 1967 film Oedipus Rex, present other possibilities as the main character is brought finished the three primary elements of tragedy. In some(prenominal) the fulfill and the film, Oedipus is quickly show to have a fatal flaw. In the play, the action opens as Oedipus is approached by plague-stricken masses asking help from him as king.He responds to their appeals saying, What means this reek of incense everywhere, / From others, and am hither come, myself, / I Oedipus, your world-renowned king (4-8). In this statement, Oedipus pride in his social position is clear. In the film, though, he is seen as slenderly insecure, even as a child when he cheats at a game, and accordingly as a haunted man with a eager mystery sea ring his dreams, both showing him to be a man of buddy-buddy passions. Throughout the remainder of the action in the play, Oedipus personality clearly reflects excessive pride in his ability to force things his way.When Oedipus learned of the prediction that he was doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, he was full of self-pride to defy the fates and leave Corinth. The film depicts this as a heart-wrenching decision to neer go near his parents again in order to save them followed by a time of desperate world(a) through barren wastelands. darn both versions indicate extreme passion involved in the sidesplitting of Laius and the claiming of Jocasta, the Oedipus in the play greets his subjects with almost concealed disdain and the Oedipus of the film greets them with grieve and deeply shared concern.While Sophocles sets his character up to battle pride, Pasolini prepares him to come face to face with the consequences of passion. It is easy to see the irony in both play a nd film that if Oedipus had not been so determined to escape and hold open the prophecy, he would have not unwittingly fulfilled it. This is foreshadowed by Creon in the play just before the rectitude of the story is realized. Creon tells Oedipus, You are unconquerable / obviously unhappy to concede, / and when you lose your temper, you go too far. But men like that find it most difficult / to tolerate themselves (814-819). In this one short statement, Jocastas brother sums up the entire tragedy. He points to Oedipus will power and pride in being unwilling to consider the possibility that he might be the murderer he seeks. As a firmness of purpose of his own impatience and driving desire to exploit honor and win pride to his name, Oedipus becomes excessive in his proclamations regarding motives and punishments to be handed down and thus suddenly realizes that he cannot escape the horror of his crimes.This horror is demonstrated in the film to great effect as the confused Oed ipus slowly becomes overwhelmed with the possibilities, last screaming out his confession in a now-customary burst of passion. By the end of the story, Oedipus has come to realize that everything he has done has only served to bring him closer to his evil destiny. In the process of essay to avoid fate, he has committed some of the greatest sins imaginable to him defiled his mothers bed, murdered his father and spawned monstrous children born of incest.Rather than face the truth and unable to take the severe wound to his pride, Oedipus stabbed out his eyes with broaches and walked away(predicate) from Thebes forever, thereby sealing his doom through further prideful actions. The sudden reversal of fortune has Oedipus walking away from Thebes a blind, homeless friar rather than the respected king he should have been based upon his more noble qualities. While this is a surprise, it is nevertheless a logical manageable conclusion to the events that have taken place.This concept is brought out to greater extent in the film through the change in setting. Pasolini begins and ends the film in a contemporary setting to when the film was made. While the play suggests that Oedipus went wandering into the desert a self-blinded beggar man, the film indicates that he has been wandering a tortured individual for much longer than a normal lifespan. Thus, the elements of true tragedy are carried throughout both play and film to slenderly different interpretations.In both, a fatal flaw within the character of Oedipus drives his actions that eventually seal his own doom. Seen as it is throughout the various elements of the holy tragedian format of first demonstrating a noble characteristic to tragic proportions, then becoming aware of it and then suffering as a dissolvent of it, it cannot be missed that Sophocles was trying to illustrate to his audience the dangers of an absence of unimportance and common sense when he highlighted Oedipus excessive pride.Pasolini seems to have been more raise in warning his audiences about the sins of excessive passion. This is, in some sense, what Aristotle was trying to communicate regarding the purpose of tragedy, which he describes as an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude in language embellished with each kind of delicate ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions (Aristotle cited in Friedlander, 2005).By illustrating the various things that can go wrong when one believes they have no flaws, Sophocles and Pasolini hoped to encourage a closer connection with truth as a means of avoiding Oedipus fate. Works Cited Aristotle. Critica Links. (1998). The University of Hawaii. May 21, 2007 Pasolini, Pier Paolo (Dir. ). Edipo Re. Perf. Silvana Mangano, Franco Citti, Carmelo Bene, Julian Beck &038 Ninetto Davoli. Arco Films, 1967. Sophocles. Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra. Oxford Worlds Classics. Ed. Edith Hall. Oxford University Press, 1998.