If we are meant to answer your question based upon
Aristotle's definition of a tragedy and tragic hero as described in his
Poetics, then Oedipus must be the engineer of his own downfall. A
downfall that has been created by the hero himself is an important component in a
Tragedy, according to Aristotle, as it inspires great fear and pity in the audience.
The audience can see the role that the hero's nature, his tragic flaw, has played in his
demise, and sensing the inherent humanness of this, they empathize with the hero. For
Oedipus, the tragic flaw is his own hubris -- his belief that he can outwit the gods and
beat the oracles at their own game.
Oedipus learns, when he
is growing up, that there is an oracle that he will kill his father and marry his
mother. To escape this fate, he flees his home (which he does not realize is not the
home of his birth, but his adopted home) and travels far away. During his trip, he
meets a man on a narrow road. Neither of them will budge. In a fit of rage, Oedipus
kills the man, who turns out to be King Laius of Thebes, though he does not know it at
the time. He also solves a riddle and saves Thebes from a plague. In reward for this,
he marries Laius' widow, Jocasta.
Well, it only takes the
course of the play for Oedipus to discover that he could not outwit the gods. He did in
fact, murder his real father (Laius) and marry his true mother (Jocasta), all as he was
running away from the man and woman he believed were his mother and father. It was his
tragic flaw, hubris, that caused him to attempt to outwit the gods, and it also makes
him a tragic hero.
Please follow the links below for more
on Oedipus, the tragic hero and hubris.
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