What makes oedipus a tragic hero?

According to Aristotle's Poetics, the ideal tragic hero was a man in whose character good and bad were mixed, but with the good predominating. This definition is usually paraphrased as "a basically noble man with a tragic flaw." Oedipus is certainly that! He's a concerned, caring king whose people love and trust him, but he has a quick, impulsive temper and fails to think in some critical situations. As a result, he commits some terrible crimes, destroys his personal world, and drags some innocent people down with him.

Most of the irony in the play is dramatic--people say in good faith things that aren't true the way they think and that elicit a shudder and an "If you only knew--!" reaction from the audience. Oedipus says in the first episode that he never saw Laius (and we think, "Oh, yes, you did!") but that one could almost consider them related, since they married the same woman, and if she and Laius had had children, they would be half-siblings to his. So, he says, he will be just as zealous in bringing Laius' murderer to justice as he would be if Laius were his own father. And we keep wincing.

However, the play is in a sense based on a piece of situational irony. As Oedipus tells Jocasta in the second episode, he went to the Delphic Oracle because he was unsure whether the people he called his parents really were, and he wanted to learn the truth. When the oracle instead told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother, he decided never to go home again and fled in the opposite direction--right toward his real parents, with the results we know.

You didn't ask about fate, but the preceding paragraph should show that Oedipus does his part to bring his fate on himself. Having just been told that he will kill his father and marry his mother, and uncertain who his real parents are, he proceeds to kill an older man and marry an older woman.

The chorus is made up of citizens of Thebes, who are devoted to Oedipus and determined to think the best of him as long as they can. When the final truth comes out, they react with the pity and horror that a tragedy was expected to elicit from the audience.

Oedipus blinds himself for a combination of reasons. Remember that in the second episode he taunts Teiresias with the latter's blindness, and Teiresias retorts that Oedipus has two good eyes but doesn't see the situation he's living in. So when Oedipus learns the truth, he feels that he doesn't desrve to have eyesight, since he didn't use it when he had it. In addition, he may feel insticntively that he can better deal with the horrible realization if he doesn't have to see it. The association between sight and knowledge is close for most people, and for the Greeks it was even closer, since the past tense of their verb for "see" meant not "saw" but "knew."

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What makes oedipus a tragic hero?

why does he blind himself? roles do the choruses assume? what makes him a tragic hero? different types of irony in Oedipus rex the play

oedipus tragic hero

Oedipus the King – Sophocles

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He tries to run from his fate, but his fate was decided already so whether he ran from it or not, it would still end up the same way.

What makes him a tragic hero is that he has a flaw. That flaw is his downfall which leads to his inevitable fall from greatness. He became leader of the place and was respected for a while, but until the news of his father coming to light, he then lost his greatness and respect from the people.

He blinds himself because no matter how he tried to run from his fate, he still ended up killing his father and marry his mother. He is punishing himself for all that has happened because of him.

Because thats how it is. Now go do your own work. We all know you are doing this for school. No one actually looks this up on their own for no reason!

Hurrah, that's what I was looking for! Thanks to author of this question.