What makes oedipus a tragic hero?
He fits Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero as a basically good, noble person with a tragic flaw. He’s a concerned, intelligent, caring, proactive leader, but he also has an impulsive temper that leads him to do violent things and brings about his downfall. We see the former quality in the measures he takes to end the plague afflicting his kingdom, finally going into voluntary exile to remove his cursed self from it; and we see the latter in his reaction to the reluctance of both Teiresias and the old servant to tell him what he wants to know, as well as in the story he tells Jocasta of how he killed a man simply for striking at him on the road, along with that man’s companions.
