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Dave Melsness

June 3, 2009

Oedipus Rex: The Tyrant is the Child of Pride

Oedipus Rex, a play by Sophocles, is an excellent example of how too much of a

good thing can be bad. Oedipus has an exuberant amount of pride, and he has reason to

be prideful. However, he has so much that it ends up being the major flaw that ultimately

resulted in his demise. As the play progresses the audience gets to see just how

dangerous too much pride can be.

In the beginning of the play, Oedipus was the ideal leader. He had strong

leadership skills, a passion for justice, was honest with his people, and was interested in

doing whatever he could to make Thebes a better place. This is where I first noticed his

dangerous pride surfacing. Early in the play the Chorus called upon the gods to descend

unto earth and end the plague that has ravaged Thebes. Oedipus is not a god, but, as a

leader he saw it as his duty to answer the Chorus’ prayers. He stated “Is this your prayer?

It may be answered. Come,/ Listen to me, act as the crisis demands,/ And you shall have

relief from all these evils” (200). At first, this seems like Oedipus is doing his duty as

king, taking it upon himself to end the plague. But, the chorus had asked the gods to end

the plague, not Oedipus. So, by taking it upon himself he is taking on the role of a god,

something that the people of Thebes do not approve of. The chorus supported this

disapproval when they stated

The tyrant is a child of pride…any mortal who dares hold/ No immortal

power in awe/ will be caught up in a net of pain:/ The price for which his

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levity is sold. Let each man take due earnings, then,/ And keep his hands

from holy things (218).

This is the first dangerous step Oedipus takes. It here that he began to let his pride take

over, and blind him from the answers he was seeking.

When Oedipus set out to find Laios’ murderer his pride prevented him from

seeing the truth. We can see this when he questioned Teiresias and later when he

questioned Creon. As he was questioning Teiresias he got all of the answers he was

looking for. Teiresias told him

The man you have been looking for all this time, / The damned man, the

murderer of Laios, That man is in Thebes. /To your mind he is

foreignborn, /but it will soon be shown that he is a Theban,/ A revelation

that will fail to please (206).

His pride would not allow him to see the truth, and listen to Teiresias. Instead he thought

that Teiresias and Creon were conspiring against him. When he questioned Creon his

pride began to show its ugly side. His questions seemed rhetorical and he asked them in a

way that made me believe he had already made up his mind and was so prideful in his

judgment that his opinion would not be changed. Oedipus asked probing, accusing

questions like:

You advised me to send for that wizard, did you not?... Why did the

prophet not speak against me then?... If he were not involved with you, he

could not say that it was I who murdered Laios (209).

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By asking these loaded questions shows that Oedipus’ pride that is preventing him

from seeing the truth is turning him into a tyrant, making up his mind on little or

no evidence and making harsh accusations.

Although Oedipus may have been getting tyrannical, in the end we learn

that he still wishes to be a good leader. When he finds out, without a doubt, that

he really did murder Laios he stays true to his word, and is exiled. His personal

pride, which is his will to serve his people, is the reason he guarantees the

punishment remains for the murderer of Laios. When Oedipus learns that his

pride is what was making him blind, he breaks down. I believe gouging out his

eyes was his way of taking away some of his dangerous pride. By being

physically blind he would not be so sure of the world around him, and maybe he

would not be so quick to jump to conclusions as he had in the past.

It was pride that caused Oedipus to be metaphorically blind. It was his

refusal to believe that he had betrayed his people before he had become their

respected and adored leader. As the play progressed the audience noticed how

Oedipus was getting continually more arrogant, and despite having all of the

evidence before him his pride still sheltered him from the truth. When Oedipus

had no doubt that he had indeed murdered his father he broke down because he

realized the real horror of his deeds and that his pride is what had caused him all

of the trouble. Indeed, too much of a good thing is never really good.