Oedipus ● Oedipus continues to make accusations and says he’ll have Creon killed. ● Jocasta, Oedipus’s wife and Creon’s sister, comes in. She is horrified at her husband and brother’s fighting, and also at the death threat. ● Jocasta and the Chorus urge Oedipus to listen to Creon’s honest appeals and spare his life. ● Creon storms off. ● Jocasta asks Oedipus what’s going on. He explains he’s been accused of killing Laius. He leaves out the "you might be my Mom" part.

● Jocasta responds that such prophecies are ridiculous. As an example, Jocasta says that her son by Laius was prophesized to kill his father, but that they killed the child as a baby to prevent it. Plus, Laius was killed by foreign highway robbers, none of which could possibly have been his son. ● Oedipus, hearing the story, flips out. Suddenly, he worries that he might be the murderer after all. He asks Jocasta lots of questions about the murder’s whereabouts and other details. ● Confused, Jocasta reveals that one of Laius’s servants survived the incident at the crossroads.

● Oedipus insists that the servant be summoned for questioning. ● Oedipus tells Jocasta that as a child, a man once told him that his mother and father were not his real parents. It was also prophesized that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. ● Oedipus also reveals that he killed several men in a small incident at a crossroads. He hopes to find out from the servant whether the King’s murderers were many or just one man. Oedipus says "One man can not be many." ● He’s saying if it was a sole murderer, that will confirm his guilt.

Oedipus' Hamartia ● Scholars have been talking smack to each other for centuries over an essential question: what is Oedipus's hamartia, often called a tragic flaw? ● Aristotle in the Poetics states that every tragic hero is supposed to have one of these, and that the hamartia is the thing that causes the hero's downfall. ● Aristotle also cites Oedipus as the best example ever of a tragic hero. ● Why then is it so unclear to generation after generation, just what Oedipus's hamartia is?

Theory # 1: Determination ● If Oedipus wasn't so determined to find out the identity of Laius's real killer he would never have discovered the terrible truth of his life. ● Is this truly a flaw, though? ● Another way to think about this: Oedipus is really exemplifying a prized and admirable human trait: determination. ● The reason Oedipus is dead set on solving the mystery is to save his people. It seems like Oedipus is doing exactly what a good ruler ought to do.

Theory #2: Anger ● Oedipus has a temper. Imulsive anger led to him unknowingly kill his father. The killing of his father is an essential link in Oedipus's downfall, making his violent temper a good candidate for a tragic flaw. ● Oedipus has a pretty good case for self defense. There he was – a lone traveler, minding his own business. Then, out of nowhere, a bunch of guys show up, shove him off the road, and hit him in the head with whip. If we were Oedipus, we'd be angry too.

● Killing all but one of them seems like an overreaction to modern audiences, ● Oedipus's actions not as radical to ancient Greek audience. They lived in violent times. A man had the right to defend himself when attacked, especially when alone on a deserted road. ● We see Oedipus's anger when he lashes out at both Creon and Teiresias; this time he just talks trash – no ninja-style violence. ● These angry tirades don't do the most important thing for a hamartia to do – they don't bring on Oedipus's downfall, they don't cause anything else to happen. ● Anger in no way causes Oedipus to sleep with Jocasta, which is an important part of his downfall.

Theory #3: Hubris ● Hubris = excessive pride. ● No denying that Oedipus is a proud man. ● Saved Thebes from the Sphinx. If he hadn't come along and solved the Sphinx's riddle, the city would still be in the thrall of the creature. It seems that Oedipus rightly deserves the throne of Thebes ● Oedipus's greatest act of hubris is when he tries to deny his fate. Oedipus tried to escape his destined fate

● Ironically, it was by trying to avoid this fate that led him to kill his real father Laius and to marry his mother Jocasta. ● It's undeniable that by trying to avoid his fate Oedipus ended up doing the thing he most feared. This is probably the most popular theory as to Oedipus's hamartia. ● BUT what else was Oedipus supposed to do? Should he have just thrown up his hands and been like, "Oh well, if that's my fate, we should just get this over with." ● Is it really a flaw to try to avoid committing such horrendous acts?

Theory #4: We've got hamartia all wrong ● Though hamartia is often defined as a tragic flaw, it actually has a much broader meaning. ● It's more accurately translated as an error in judgment or a mistake. ● You can still call it hamartia even if the hero makes these mistakes in a state of ignorance. The hero doesn't necessarily have to be intentionally committing the so-called "sin."

● The word hamartia comes from the Greek hamartanein, which means "missing the mark." ● The hero aims his arrow at the bull's eye, but ends up hitting something altogether unexpected. ● Oedipus is the perfect example of this. The target for Oedipus is finding Laius's murderer in order to save Thebes. He does achieve this, but unfortunately brings disaster on himself in the process. ● Oedipus aim's for the bull's eye but ends up hitting his own eyes instead.