Analysis of sophocles_oedipus_the_king_a

ANALYSIS OF SOPHOCLES’ OEDIPUS THE KING AS AN ARISTOTELIAN
TRAGEDY
Sinde KURT
INTRODUCTION
Aristotle, one of the most important philosophers of Ancient Greek philosophy and
intellectual history, is a significant scholar who conducted studies on logic, astronomy,
zoology, biology, physics, metaphysics, ethics, and politics, and systematized such studies by
classification. He drew up his ideas and remarks on art as a whole, and wrote Poetics. Poetics,
which has missing parts and only parts of which can be accessed in the present day, is deemed
to be the oldest and most significant study on art.
According to Ancient poets, the objective of tragedy is to realize “the destiny of
humans and to understand what it is.” Aristotle mainly emphasized the effect of tragedy on
people. According to Aristotle, the objective of tragedy is to purify the soul from passions
with the pity and fear it arouses, and to ensure that the individual reaches Catharsis.
Tragedy has changed throughout the centuries, and miscellaneous implementations
were addressed. However, such changes and implementations took their roots from Poetics,
and they were based on the definitions of Aristotle. Poetics is the starting point of Western
theater theory.
In his Poetics, Aristotle particularly deals with two basic notions; action and mimesis
which means ‘imitation’ or ‘representation’, especially of nature. Like his teacher Plato,
Aristotle considers art as an essential mode of mimesis. On the other hand, unlike Plato, he
fills imitation with positive significance seeing it as an innate human instinct.
In The Republic, Plato conceives mimesis as the copy of a copy (of the idea, which is
inaccessible to the artist). For him dramatic imitation is prohibited in education because it

could lead men to imitate things that are unworthy of art, and because it takes account of the
outside appearance of things only. (Pavis, 1998, s.213)
1Aristotle defines 'tragedy as an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and
possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the
different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and bringing about through pity and
fear the catharsis of such emotions'.
'A dramatic imitative representation of an action reveals the structure of dynamic
causal connections among the events that composed it. The mimesis of tragic drama can be
evaluated for their truthfulness: they show how the protagonist's (well-intentioned but
mistaken) purposes miss the true or essential ends of his action and how his 2hamartia brings
disaster' (Rorty, 1992, s.5) which is clearly illustrated in Oedipus the King.
The most tragic story in Greek mythology, among those implying that people cannot
change their destiny, is the story of Oedipus, who brought great grief to his family and city by
killing his father and marrying his mother. Therefore, it can be suggested that through his play
Sophocles shows us the tragic nature of human existence supporting the idea of mimesis as
the representation of nature.
The arts are classified as the objects they imitate: arts that imitate good and evil. In
this sense, tragedy imitates people who are better than average person, while comedy imitates
people with below-average characteristics. On the other hand, imitation is classified under
two categories in terms of wording: narrative imitation and gestural imitation. Accordingly,
1
This definition is taken from the Dover edition of Poetics, first published in 1997, is an unabridged
republication of S. H. Butcher's translation of the Poetics as originally published by Macmillan and
Co., London, as part of the volume Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art in 1895.
2
The term,generally refers to the personal flaw that brings about his/her tragic downfall. In his Poetics
Aristotle used 'hamartia' as a mistake or error in judgement.

epic narrative genre; comedy or tragedy illustrates people in action. Homer was the greatest
narrator of epic stories, while Sophocles is deemed to be the greatest in tragedy.
Chapters 3 and 4 of Poetics provide information about the source of tragedy and
comedy. Tragedy originated from Dithyramb’ songs (A wild choral hymn of ancient Greece,
especially one dedicated to Dionysus) while the source of comedy is 3‘phallic songs’. Tragedy
was gradually modernized by Aeschylus’ adding second actor, featuring dialogues and
pushing choir into the background, and by Sophocles’ adding third actor and introducing
colorful décor.
According to Sophocles, superiority brings disaster. All of his characters were
illustrated as great and virtuous people, which corresponds to Aristotle’s tradition of tragedy.
This can also be considered as one of the reasons why Aristotle laid emphasis on Sophocles’
play in his Poetics. As a result, for Aristotle, Sophocles was the best tragedy writer, because
he reflected the rules and structure defined in the Poetics in the best possible way
3
Parts of ancient Greek festivals. Ribald and scurrilous entertainments, associated with fertility cults
(Gayle, 2008, s.56). Phallic procession to a cult center,followed by a sacrifice, was a common feature
of Dionysiac celebration in the Greek countryside
(http://kjg.public.iastate.edu/370/Origins_Comedy.pdf)

Chapter One: Ancient Greek Theater and Significant Playwrights
When we analyze primitive people we see myths, and we see the rise of theater when
we review the heroic tales; however, their past and development are not clear, just as it is not
clear how they reached this supremacy. Creators of theater were civilized people living in a
great civilization, who turned writing into an art form, but they did not write the history
behind theater. In the 5th century B.C., during the most glamorous days of Athens, no-writer
wrote anything about the development of theater nor about the first plays. Maybe their
writings could not reach our day, and faded away in time, who knows. As a result, we see
Greek theater’s abruptly appearing in an astonishing integrity and supremacy. In this chapter
emergence of drama and the conditions provided such emergence will be approached, and
significant playwrights of the era will be mentioned.
Just like other arts, theater began with rituals, and turned into an art form after it
became independent from religion. In the roots of theater lies primitive people’s efforts to
symbolically represent the natural events using their own body movements. Drama, not as a
term but as a concept, has preserved its existence since the oldest times of human history.
Acting and imitation became an essential part of life from cave paintings drawn by primitive
people to the entertaining games of Middle Age people played during harvest. Imitation,
acting and improvisation are the main elements of drama.
Theater was a significant part of the life of Athenians both in terms of its religious
roots and traditions of the city. Those who made researches on the roots of the Ancient Greek
tragedy and comedy argued drama to be one of the rituals for Dionysos.
In the second half of the 6th century BCE, a new way of worshipping the god
Dionysos emerged in Athens. People called it drama, a Greek word which literally meant
something like ‘action’ or ‘performance’ (Renshaw, 2008, s.91). Also, according to Renshaw,

the worship of Dionysos contained four elements, influenced the development of drama.
These elements are choral dance in honor of the god, known as dithyrambs, cult worship of
Dionysos by two groups known as maenads 4and 5satyrs and the tradition of the 6kômos.
Dionysos is very important as a mythological God who was followed by great societies,
or in other words his believers, and for whom theater plays and tragedies were written.
Drama’s appearance should be understood to comprehend the roots and basic concepts of
tragedy clearly:
“Aristotle claimed that theatre arose out Dionysian celebrations. The serious
singing and dancing, he said, led to tragedy, the unserious to comedy and to the
‘satyr play’ or pastoral. […]Dionysian celebrants, early on, seem to have
divided into two groups, answering one another in words, music or dance and
so varying the myth narrative with elements of response, even confrontation.
Each group may have had a leader, a solo performer and an anonymous, late
writer claims that at some early stage in the development of these
performances, in the mid 500s, someone ‘climbed on the table’ and ‘answered’
the chorus.(The Greek word for actor, hypokrites, literally means ‘answerer’).
Then, the theory goes, a writer called Thespis standardized the practice of
balancing a solo performer against the chorus and drama was born”
(McLeish, 2003, s.2).
4
Maenads were women frenzied with wine who belonged to the cult of Dionysos- a figure
representing excess- which explains the presence of this young god of vegetation, wine and ecstasy.
This definition is taken from Emily J. Orlando Edith Wharton and the Visual Arts.
5
The satyrs, a group associated with Dionysos, were believed to be woodland creatures, half-human
and halfannimal (Renshaw, 2008, s.95).
6
A key element in the festivals of Dionyssos was the kômos, which literally mean ‘revel’.Men came
out into the streets of the city, drinking, singing and dancing in honour of the god (Renshaw, 2008,
s.96).

When Thespis placed an actor in front of the choir, more complex issues could be
addressed and different expressions could be tested. The serious representations were not
modiﬁed in this manner until some time later. Phrynichus was the first to unite the elevated
poetry of the Dithyrambus, and the imitative character of the Thespian chorus (Felton, 1844,
s.280).
As can be understood, there were three types of plays; tragedies about serious matters,
comedies to make people laugh, and satires ridicule flaws in individuals and society. They
were usually told in verse and people came from the all over the Greek world to watch them
(Moore, 2000, s.75). Ancient Greek theater has always been very impressive. Euripides,
Aeschylus, Aristophanes and Sophocles, playwrights of the era, defended values and courage
for centuries.
Greek drama, as usually described, includes the surviving tragedies (and satyr plays)
of Aeschylus (c. 525-456 B.C.), Sophocles (c. 496-406 B.C), and Euripides (c. 485-406 B.C.),
and the comedies of Aristophanes (c.450-385 B.C.) and Menander (c. 342-290 B.C.) ( Ley,
2012, s.5). Within these individual authors we have six or seven plays out of eighty or so by
Aeschylus, seven out of 120 by Sophocles, eighteen out of ninety by Euripides, eleven
comedies out of forty by Aristophanes, and only two comedies by Menander out of over a
hundred (Storey, Allan, 2008, s.9).
As far as we know from Aristophanes, almost 60 of the writings written by Sophocles,
Euripides and Aeschylus were satirical drama; however, only limited number of such texts
could reach today. These works were lost or completely destroyed in time as a result of
disasters such as battles, fires and earthquakes. Aeschylus wrote tetralogy or trilogy in
general, while Sophocles and Euripides liked addressing four different subjects annually.

Trilogy is a form particularly suited to recurring motifs, interlocking images, and
movement through time. The three-play sequence of the trilogy combines the tragic sweep of
the whole with the tragic compression of each individual play and is thus able to show that the
past impinges on the present and that actions have counteractions in humanity’s slow progress
from savagery to civilization (Smith, 2006, s.12). There are some basic characteristics which
can be found in Aeschylus’s plays. Firstly, Aeschylus had a reputation for visually stimulating
costumes and he was also noted for complex imaginary and diction. His drama is
characterized by prologues that are either brief or not present at all. Aeschylean choruses also
have a prominent role (Thorburn, 2005, s.18).
Sophocles, one of the three most important tragedy writers of the era, is deemed to be
the representative of tragedy in the era of grace and perfection. Titles of his known plays
indicate that the writer used Ancient Greek mythology in every possible way. Just like
Aeschylus and Euripides, Sophocles thought Troy and Trojan War to be a fruitful drama
subject. In Sophocles’s plays there is more incident than in those of Aeschylus, more
interaction of characters, and a freer utilization of lyric dialogue between chorus and
actors.(Hogan, 1991, s.7). Sophocles’ life and his general characteristics as a tragedian will be
addressed in detail in the following sections.
The first writer to address the daily life themes and conflicts created by great powers
such as love, death, and battle was Euripides. In this sense, his tragedies are not only the most
contemporary works of ancient era, but also the root of literature.
In the works of Euripides idea of fate, hitherto dominant in the plays of his
predecessors, tends to be degraded by him into mere chance; the characters lose much of their
ideal quality; and even gods and heroes are represented as moved by the petty motives of

ordinary humanity. The chorus is often quite detached from the action; the poetry is florid;
and the action is frequently tinged with sensationalism ( Eliot, 2010 s.286).
Based on his plays, it can be said that Aristophanes followed the political life of
Athens closely, constantly objected Peloponnesian War, which lasted for 27 years with
several intervals and which ended up demolishing the democracy in Athens, and as a part of
aristocracy he criticized “democrat” politicians who fanned the flames of war. Aristophanes
was considered an innovator in fourth-century comedy because of his use of colorful
language, parody, satire, exaggeration and vicious attacks on “progressive” education,
contemporary philosophy, melodrama, rhetoric, contemporary music and political corruption
(Kuritz, 1988, s.32).
The plays of Aristophanes fall into the category of Old Comedy. Whereas formality
and plausibility govern tragedy, informality and fantasy rule Old Comedy (Kuritz, 1988,
s.33). A number of features in comedy appear to have changed by the second decade of the
fourth century, so that Aristophanes’ last plays are considered to belong to the next period,
called Middle Comedy. By the last quarter of the fourth century, the style known as New
Comedy had replaced its predecessors. Just as Aristophanes is the only surviving playwright
of Old and Middle Comedy, Menander is the only writer of New Comedy whose plays,
including Samia have survived (Moore, 2014).

Chapter Two: Aristotle versus Plato
Plato and Aristotle, two great philosophers of antiquity, had something to say about
almost every subject, and both were interested in ethics, politics, science, mathematics,
geometry, among many other topics. Although their ideas were similar in many respects, they
diverged at some points, in that Plato was an idealist, while Aristotle was a rationalist. In this
section, an examination will be made of some of the basic differences between the views of
the two philosophers. The questions that are expected to be answered by comparison
considering these basic differences in the second part of the article are as follows:
 How was the concept of God discussed according to Aristotle and Plato and
what meanings did they ascribe to the notion of God ideationally?
 In which aspects and what ways did they possess differing views about art and
mimesis?
 What were their views on artist and tragedy?
Mirroring Plato’s point of view, Aristotle also believed that existence had two orders:
the physical realm and the super-sensuous metaphysical realm. In the metaphysical realm,
God is a uniqueness that is composed of absolute good, right, beauty and plurality, although at
this point it must be emphasized that Aristotle and Plato attributed different meanings to the
concept of God.
In Plato's view, God formed the various beings in the physical world from preexistent
matter. This preexistent matter was patterned by God after eternal and unchanging "Ideas" or
"Forms" contained in a supreme Idea called the "Good". These immutable Ideas or Forms
exist, Plato believed, in a transcendent realm. But they exist independently of God and are the
timeless and perfect Exemplars from which God copied the imperfect forms possessed by all
temporal beings. (Perry, 1999, p.154).

Aristotle distinguishes between the ideas that outline God’s plurality and the forms or
universals. The universals are the qualities shared by objects, whereas the forms are the
quiddities or the potentials that give beings their form in time, space and nature; in other
words, in the material realm. Therefore, in Aristotle’s philosophy, nature is the material that is
full of divine potentials. It is the reality, and its purpose lies inside an evolution reaching to
the initial reason, the God, and lies within the process of realizing itself.
In short, the ideas, as the true forms of beings that are assumed by Plato to exist in the
metaphysical world, actually exist in the sensuous world, in the physical realm. The material
and the idea (form) are inseparable from each other, and from their combination come into
being the objects and the beings. It is not possible to accept the existence of an “idea being”
that is separate from the material and object; therefore, all beings that we see and touch in the
world in which we live are real.
The mentioned difference between Plato and Aristotle is reflected naturally also in Art
philosophies. Aristotle evaluated Greek literature with a positive approach and through an
inductive method, and through these evaluations he presents his understanding of aesthetics in
his work Poetics and Rhetoric, which he has based on the elements of beauty, orderliness,
precision and symmetry. According to Aristotle, art is a form of imitation (mimesis), in that
the thing that leads men to art is his instinct to imitate and create harmony, which exists
intrinsically in the depths of his creation. For this reason, the art/artist imitates nature.
Aristotle, who shares the same view as Plato up to this point, diverges totally from his
mentor when it comes to the nature of imitation, being the characteristic of art providing
information or leading us to the reality, and the function of the art/artist.
“In his discussion of art, poetry and tragedy, Aristotle expounds on the theory
that art is representative life. It is an objective beautification of nature, the soul

of a poet glorifying its inspiration. To Aristotle, art is better than its original
subject because it transcends feelings. Because of this, the reader feels that art
is the highest or most important craft that can be obtained. . […]
In his discussion of art Plato argues that an artist is merely an imitator. He
makes likeness of which he understands nothing. To Plato, the artist can only
manufacture a poor representation of the reality which the art represents, going
no farther than what a man feels. Because of this, the reader is convinced that
rhetoric and thought is more important, more lucid than art” (Stobaugh, 2012,
p.117).
According to Plato, mimesis reflects everything, like a phenomenon that falls inside a
mirror; however, it is still only a projection (image), “eidola” is not a reality. Plato’s views on
this point are as follows: “If you like, grab a mirror, hold it towards the four directions. See,
all of a sudden you created the sun, stars, the earth, yourself, all of the items in the house,
plants and all living creatures. Yes, seemingly I have created beings; however they bear no
reality.” (Plato, Republic, 596a-597b). We understand that this projection does not create a
reality; but only imitates the existing world of the phenomena in a basic way. This in turn
proves that the artist does not give rise to a competent and successful creation.
According to Aristotle, while imitating nature, an artist does not imitate everything
that he sees like a “mirror” and everything in exactly the same as they are. He is not a mirror
that basically imitates the outer world accurately in his work. The artist carries out an
imitation under a procedural framework. In other words, the artist shall not merely depict each
person that he sees on the street, but only a specific person; he shall not only depict every
action of that person or each moment of life, but only specific actions and specific parts of
life. The measure of the artist in the mentioned choice shall be to reflect the generality and

essence of life and men. The subject of art is the experience of the soul of men who are in a
process of growth or self-development. While expressing this soul experience, the artist
depicts men either better or worse than they actually are, and this attitude lays the foundation
for the emergence of two distinct species: tragedy and comedy.
In short, while reflecting the outer world or man’s nature, the artist is not a basic mirror, as
viewed by Plato. Art is rather an act of creation, and the Artist’s role in this act is
unquestionable.
“Mimesis, for Plato, is wrong not in conception but in function and effect. The
core of this critique is contained in Book III and X of The Republic. In Book
III, PLato is concerned primarily with matters political and pedagogical. […]
In Book X, Plato returns to his attack on mimesis and poetry, no longer,
however, as a concept isolated in relation to pedagogy and politics but as a
concept in relationship to his ontological philosophy of Ideas or Forms. He
demonstrates poetry's third stage removal from the truth; poetry is nothing
more than an imitation of a corporeal imitation which is itself an imperfect
approximation of an eternal Form. Poetry in this sense is false. Also Plato
feared poetry because of its proximity to the emotions and its propensity
unrighteousness with respect to the Gods. Poetry, therefore, must be avoided
because as a mimetic art it was false in conception and dangerous in effect”
(Morris, 2005, p. 39 - 40).
Plato’s indictment of poetry has been based on (1) its intrinsic expression of falsehood,
(2) its intrinsic operation in the realm of imitation, (3) its combination of a variety of
functions, (4) its appeal to the lower aspects of the soul such as emotion and appetite, and (5)

its expression of irreducible particularity and multiplicity rather than unity (Habib, 2011,
p.14).
In Poetics, Aristotle developed a theory of mimesis that merged poetic and
anthropological perspectives to explain conceptual link between sensual appearance and
essence. He does so by thinking about mimesis more in terms of re-presentation/signification
and less in terms of transportation/presence. Even without understanding, children can learn
by acting, representing, imitating, miming what they see. (Jackson II, 2010, p.448).
Like Plato, Aristotle holds that poetry is essentially a mode of imitation. In contrast
with Plato, Aristotle invests imitation with positive significance, seeing it as a basic human
instinct and as a pleasurable avenue to knowledge (Habib, 2011, p.18).
“Aristotle regarded Greek tragedy of his time as the high point of mimesis. In
Greek tragedy human fate was staged by means of mythological stories the
point was not to imitate everyday reality, but to portray human destiny in such
a way that the observer was cleansed, so to speak. While Plato rejected Greek
tragedy because he believed that the cruelty portrayed might be incite the
audience toward "imitating" or "following" it, Aristotle actually assumed that
the tragedy would purged the audience to such a degree that they would most
definitely renounce any acts of violence. Seen in this light, tragedy had a
positive effect: by enacting violence and emotion, tragedy liberated the
audience, if only through showing the disastrous consequences of certain
actions”( Braembussche, 2009, p.17).
For Plato tragedy is a form of mimesis and is faulty because it proliferates unreliable
and untruthful entities and related to this, mimesis in tragic drama falters because it involves
what early modern writers called "personation". For him, Tragedy is dangerous (as all drama

is) because in it characters speak in the voice of others and not as themselves. The other
objection of Plato to tragedy involves the way in which it presents the gods. Because the
tragedy shows the gods as having imperfections, as involved in sometimes irreconcilable
disputes and as the source of unhappiness and injustice. Therefore, Plato argues that tragedy
ought to be rejected (Hagberg, 2009, p.162).
One of the most momentous of the changes that Aristotle introduced into his master's
vision of phenomena was his denial of the existence of genuinely irrational energy anywhere
in the universe. According to Aristotle, an irrational emotion in human experience, for
instance, is actually directed toward a true good, even if a rational man must find a
compromise between that urge and another equally good directed urge. This innovation in
theory made it easier for Aristotle to dismiss Plato's charge that tragedy since it appeals to the
lower urges, must necessarily be destructive to rationality (Gassner, 2002, p.31).
In conclusion, Aristotle and Plato hold contrasting views and ideas with regard to
matters such as the concept of god, ontological philosophy, notions about art and mimesis and
the place of tragedy in society. Aristotle's acceptance of the world as being real unlike Plato,
the importance he placed in causality and his use of science in trying to determine causes and
his generalization of knowledge have truly made him the father of modern science. While
these two great Philosophers view art as an act of imitation, they disagree when it comes to
whether art is necessary or not and its impact on society. Throughout the history of literature,
one literary movement embraced the views of Plato views, while the other supported
Aristotle’s (In a sense, they too imitated the debates of these two philosophers).

Chapter Three: Sophocles and Theatre of Ancient Greece
As mentioned previously, the rise in popularity of the theatre, which was an important
public activity in Ancient Greece, had its roots in religion. ‘Dithyrambos’ (religious songs),
sung by a chorus of 50 people at festivals organized in honor of Dionysus, are the earliest
known theatrical scripts, and over time the actor who responds to these tunes sung by the
chorus was taken to the stage. This was an invention of Thespis, the main actor (protagonist),
and was followed by the addition of a second actor by Aeschylus, and the addition of a third
by Sophocles. The greater roles played by these three actors led to a decrease in the
importance of the chorus over time, and the appearance of further supporting cast members
and figurants on the stage. Acting came to prominence when the actors added a dramatic
dimension to the narrative provided by the chorus in a recitative manner in the beginning.
This period saw many writers of tragedies and comedies produce a wealth of valuable works,
including Epigenes, considered to be the first writer of tragedies; Thespis, who is seen as the
founder of Greek tragedy; Khoirilos, who is considered to have brought the use of costumes
to theatre; Pratinas, regarded as the creator of satiric drama; and Phrynikhos, who included
roles for women in his tragedies. Also worthy of note in this era were Aeschylus and
Sophocles, who brought Ancient Greek tragedies to their peak, together with Euripides.
Aristotle sees Sophocles as the greatest of the ancient playwrights and uses his Oedipus
Tyrannus as a model of the way a play should be written (Wilson, 2006, p.671). In this
chapter Sophocles’ life, his general characteristics as a tragedian, his use of myth and his
masterpieces will be addressed.
Sophocles, one of Ancient Greece’s three most notable tragedy writers, together with
Aeschylus and Euripides, lived in Athens in the fifth century B.C. (496–406 B.C.). This was
the period of high class that gave rise to the Persian and Spartan Wars, the construction of the
magnificent Acropolis, the reflection of the ideal man in sculpture, the development of the

Greek Empire, the advancement of philosophy and science, and the finest examples of
democracy and ancient Greek drama, which is the reason for the reputation bestowed on
Ancient Greece today.
His father, Sophilus, was a wealthy industrialist who owned many slaves and operated
a prosperous weapons factory. The young Sophocles was given a good education (Magill,
2003, p.1062). His first production (and first victory) was in 468 BCE; Philoctetes was
produced in 409 BCE; and Oedipus at Colonus was produced posthumously. (Ormand, 2012,
p.3). Sophocles, through his first tragedy competition that he won at the age of 28, moved
ahead of Aeschylus, the master before him. He took private lessons in every field in which he
had an interest, and made a name for himself at a young age thanks to his healthy
sportsmanship, handsome body, knowledge of music and unique character.
Byzantine sources claim that he wrote 130 or 123 theatrical plays, although only seven
tragedies and part of a satirical play named “The Trackers” have survived to the present day.
All of his works that we have access to today are from his mature years, having been written
after the age of 48.
The second half of the Sophocles' life was dedicated to public service, both in theatre
and in government. In general several civic offices held by the mature Sophocles are better
documented than are the dates of Sophocles's extant tragedies. The most difficult extant plays
to put in a chronology are probably Aias (Ajax), datable on stylistic grounds to about 448 to
445, and Trachinai (The Women of Trachis), usually placed somewhere between 435 and 429
(Magill, 2003, p.1063).
The indefinite chronological order of the tragedy plays is as follows: “Aias”, “The
Women of Trachis”, “Antigone”, “Oedipus the King”, “Elektra” “Philoktetes” and
“Oedipus in Colonus”. Elektra is one of his most competent works in terms of structure,

although “Antigone” and “Oedipus the King” are regarded as Sophocles' masterpieces.
“Antigone” is a play that has influenced people deeply throughout the ages, and this is due in
a large part to young protagonist Antigone's personality. Antigone, who utters the words “I
have come to this world to share love, not grudges”, is a spokesman, projecting the feelings of
brotherhood and the humanism of Sophocles.
According to tradition Sophocles was originally an actor in his own plays (Storey,
2008, p.112) but he abandoned acting because his voice was inadequate, and so he made poet
and actor distinct for the first time. Weakness of voice is almost certainly an invention
designed to explain why Sophocles did not act, or why he stopped acting; Sophocles and the
other tragedians surely give up acting in their own plays because specialists could do a better
job than they would and could achieve effects that they would not (Ormand, 2012, p.29).
“Sophocles' plays give grounds for attributing to him certain interests and
attitudes. He was fascinated by the enduring question of what it is to be human
in a world that does not bend itself to support human ambitions and he was
drawn to depict the most powerful human emotions. In politics he was
evidently a patriotic Athenian (as we see from Oedipus at Colonus), and
appears to have been resolutely opposed to tyranny. Also according to
Sophocles human beings invented their own culture, for better or worse. His
treatment of the events he brings to the stage is humanistic; he generally points
to human factors as the causes of human events. In spite of humanism implied
in his dramaturgy, Sophocles was a deeply religious man, and religion in ways
that do not clear modern analogues. Sophocles was supposed to have
welcomed the healer god to Athens, and for this he was honored after death
with the title of "Receiver" (Meineck, 2007, p.7/8).

Sophokles held the office of Hellenotamias in 443/2, a treasure of the goddess Athene,
and two years later was elected as one of the ten generals, the highest elected officials in the
state. According to Perikles, Sophocles was a "good poet, but a poor general," and Ion of
Chios describes his public career thus, "he was neither clever nor effective, but behaved like
one of the nobles of old". In Rhetoric, Aristotle tells us that after the disastrous loss of
Athenian forces in Sicily in 413, Sophocles was one of the ten men who held the new post of
proboulos, created to provide confident leadership in trouble times (Storey, 2008, p.112). So
at the city’s moment of greatest need , after the disaster of 413 in Sicily, the Athenians turned
to Sophocles as one of the ten advisers empowered to see them through the crisis. After his
death they honored him with cult as a hero in his own right (Meineck, 2007, p.8).
It is claimed that Sophocles died from happiness at the age of ninety-one in 406 BC
after winning his final victory, or according to other accounts, after choking on a grape seed.
The most important stylistic innovation brought by Sophocles to the tragedy genre was
that he performed each of three tragedies, with which he joined contests, as a separate and
independent dramatic unit, rather than using Aeschylus’s comprehensive trilogy tragedy unit
he performed interdependently around a myth. Sophocles added a third actor to the tragedy.
After the first actor found by Thespis, known as the protagonist, and the second actor found
by Aeschylus, known as the deuteragonist, the third actor was found by Sophocles, and was
known as the tritagonist. Sophocles increased the number of people in the chorus from 12 to
15, developed scenery-painting and added Phrygian’s music to the plays. Sophocles had the
character of a poet who shows the ideal rather than the truth, that is, what should exist rather
than what actually exists.
Sophocles, as well as Aeschylus and Euripides, chose mythical characters from
Ancient Greece as the subjects of his tragedies, while the plays featured fast flowing plots that

developed over a very short time unit. Although the characters have well-defined relationships
with the people around them, they are presented as people who are unable to escape their
depression and intense loneliness, who don’t agree with the power they oppose, who are ready
to enter conflict and who come to a tragic end. The tragedies are fictionalized in this way. The
protagonist/s, whose character gets clearer with exact and strong lines within action integrity
in plays, become/s conscious by suffering after learning or realizing an unknown issue or
understanding a relationship. The characters in Sophocles’ plays are headed for a fall and their
behaviors are shaped by their environments as well as by their own complex personalities.
That’s why; the first writer presenting the characters with a character structure is Sophocles.
In Sophoclean dramas, the chorus supports the dramatic structure, and becomes an
organic part of the play. The speeches of the people are consistent with their own
characteristics; however this isn’t the case in Aeschylus’s play. Aeschylus’s play developed
mostly around the chorus, so the people were not able to develop sufficiently within the
course of their own speeches and actions, and they were not able to have a certain character.
By adding the third actor, Sophocles brought the characters more to the forefront; pushing the
chorus aside, and in doing so he found a balance between the chorus and main characters.
Sophocles was less occupied with religious issues than Aeschylus, and reached to the climax
through indirect means. Also, he seems to have been more sparing in the introduction of gods
than was Euripides. In his seven surviving tragedies, there are only two entrances of gods-
Athena in Ajax and Heracles in Philoctetes (Beer, 2004, p.38).
Sophocles tries to show the people as they should be, not as they really are. He is not a
realist, but his works are persuasive, as he understands people well. He uses the Attic dialect
in his plays. The conflict in Sophocles’ works is not the conflict between the character and
God, but rather between one person and another. There are fewer metaphors in his plays
compared to Aeschylus, but he has a very elegant, flexible and natural style.

Sophoclean tragedy demonstrates the power of deity over against the weakness of man
or the knowledge of deity over against the ignorance of man; it is character tragedy and shows
punishment for moral delinquencies. All these themes are important with Sophocles- fate;
divine power and knowledge, human character and its ignorance and shortcomings, as well as
its wisdom and magnificence (Kirkwood, 1994, p.11).
“Sophocles' tragic world is a world of the cities, rivers, and mountains of early
Greece, with their accretions of mythic and cultic meaning and the rich poetic
resonances that comes from a long literary and oral tradition. It is also a
symbolic space or a virtual reality in which men and women whose lives are
marked by extraordinary suffering come to discover their strengths and their
weaknesses within the framework of a human community. This tragic world
also the free space of the theater, an abstractly even arbitrarily, delimited zone
where the numinous draws close to human life and where the poet can
construct a mythically sanctioned experiment to probe the extreme possibilities
of men and women's responses and emotions in hypothetical situations of
conflict, cruelty or absurdity. Sophoclean tragedy, like all of Greek tragedy, is
a kind of poetic laboratory for exploring different and sometimes conflicting
models of moral, social, and political order, the relation between the sexes, the
limits and possibilities of human perception and understanding, and the
questions of the meaning of human life generally” (Segal, 2009, p.3).

Sophocles’ Use of Myth
The root of narrative in theatre is mythos, which constitutes the content, the main topic
and the thematic of ancient Greek tragedies. Aristotle describes mythos as “the source and
spirit of tragedy”. Action, the main driver of dramatic issues, depends on mythos. (Mythos
which means utterance, narrative, story in ancient Greece, is “fable” in Latin which also
means utterance, narrative deriving from “fabula”. A dialogue (dialogos), as opposed to a
monologue (speaking individually), is a conversation between two (duologue) or more people
(polylogue). A dialogue, as the fundamental language of a play, involves action and with the
improvement of action in the play and the formation of characters and the verbal setting of
play structure is achieved by means of dialogue. The action in the play is the action through
dialogue. An utterance is made, the action becomes verbalized, and then it is acted out by the
characters. In this regard, there is an inseparable unity among the action, the character and the
dialogue in a play.
According to Aristotle, the task of the poet is “not to say the real thing, but rather to say
the possible thing, that is, the thing that is possible according to the rules of probability and
necessity”. In short, the poet should reveal the relationship (tragic issue) between the reality
and the ideal, between the thing that exists and the one that should exist.
In ancient Greece, as the power of God was replaced with the power of money, the
divine order was replaced with class/social order, and the conflict between the divine laws in
mythos and the new laws of society started to become apparent. This directed humankind (the
tragic character) to know and understand the universe (nature and society) more by going
beyond their own position. Humankind suffered as they knew the universe (According to
Sophocles, “A person learns by suffering”), and as they didn’t know, this built fear on them

against universal existence (As Aristotle says, “Tragedy arouses mercy and fear”). Oedipus
the King is an Oedipus myth dramatized by Sophocles, the writer of tragedies.
Oedipus Rex is the story of Oedipus’ discovery, through a process of relentless inquiry, of his
true identity and of the fact that he has unwittingly fulfilled the oracles of Apollo that he
sought to avoid (Smith, 2006, p.83).
Myth is flexible, and Sophocles had the freedom to twist it into a web that
could carry a greater weight of emotion than earlier versions. Tracks left by
earlier versions of the myth show that Sophocles made two startling changes.
First, he separated Oedipus' tragedy from the larger story of Thebes royal
family. In Sophocles' more focused version Oedipus is the bearer of his own
curse - not the family curse - and the pain he takes on his own. This personal
focus is part of what gives the play its power. Democratic Athenians would
have had no tears for the demise of a royal family as such, but they could weep
for Oedipus, the Brilliant, deeply suffering individual. Second, Sophocles cast
Oedipus as the chief investigator and witness in his own case. Homer says the
gods brought the truth to light; Aeschylus probably delegates the task to a
messenger; but Sophocles puts the entire burden on Oedipus. He alone
squeezes the truth out of the frightened people who know its parts, and he
alone describes the scene of the murder (Meineck, 2000, p.6).
In Aeschylus's the Seven Against Thebes, Oedipus blinds himself. In an extant
fragment from a lost play by Euripides, however, the charioteers of Laius blind Oedipus, so
even this part of the legend was "free for variation". In Euripides' the Phoenician Women,
Iokaste does not hang herself, and that direct contradiction of Homer's account suggests the
latitude a playwright had. Oedipus journeys to Delphi, and after encountering Laius on the

road and killing him, travels back to Corinth to make Polybus a present of Laius' chariot and
horses. To bring these spoils to Corinth is to fail to avoid the place of prophetic danger. An
Oedipus who knows of no oracle or who makes no resolve to avoid Corinth and the oracle's
fulfillment is very different from Sophocles' pious hero whose acquisition of oracular
knowledge and the action he takes to avoid the prophecy cause its fulfillment and his own
destruction (Smith, 2006, p.84).
Summaries of Sophocles' Other Masterpieces
Ajax
Ajax, the earliest of Sophocles’ surviving tragedies, tells the story of the character who
gives his name to the play, which loses his honor and can only regain respect by taking his
own life. The contrasts found in Ajax, such as extremism-mildness, God-human and the
concept of the variability of fortune, are elements that are seen also in other tragedies penned
by Sophocles. Aside from these, the individual’s consistent protection of his own values, his
refusal to compromise in any situation and take no prisoners at the expense of suffering and
dying are the leading feature of Sophocles’ tragic characters.
Antigone
During the expedition launched against Thebes in the fight for the throne after the
departure of father Oedipus’, Eteocles, while defending the city, and Polyneikes, who was
among the attackers, killed each other. Uncle Kreon acceded to the command of the throne,
had Eteocles buried with a ceremony, while the other was left outdoors forever for the
suffering and torment he inflicted. The punishment for any person who did not follow his
demands was death. In response to sister Ismēnē’s silent acceptance, Antigone finds this
judgment unjust, and covers Polyneikes’ corpse due to his feelings towards his brother, based
on love and the family mission. He feel responsible to obey the unwritten laws and quickens

his death by hanging himself rather than being buried alive. After that, his lover Haimon
(Kreon’s son) commits suicide, and Eurydike (Kreon’s wife) chooses the same way out. Thus,
an irrevocable pride judgment leads to great unhappiness and nothing is gained.
The Trakhiniai (Trakhis Women) and Oedipus Tyrannus (Oedipus the King) tragedies
written by Sophocles are also follow a plot that unfolds in a sequence of fault-awareness-
suffering.
Electra
On the one hand, Electra aims to take revenge with the great love toward his father
Agamemnon (In the following years, he will be called “Electra Complex”), bearing great
resentment against his mother Klytaimnestra and her lover Aigisthos moans with the chorus
with his loneliness. On the other hand, he provokes his brother Orestes to take revenge,
convincing him as his mission, and at the same time, condemns the passive weaknesses of his
sister, Khrysothemis. Being likened to Antigone due to his defense of unavoidable and
indispensable laws and rules, and to Hamlet, based on his insistence on taking revenge,
Electra is the permanent character of this work. After Orestes kills his mother and her lover,
he tries to run away from Erinyes, and Electra’s role finishes at this point. Electra, the symbol
of feuds, has the feature of fate which is discussed in many works. In this tragedy, not only
the characters of the play, but also the “chorus”, described as the “hidden persuasive”,
whispers some administrative advice.
Sophocles differs from his contemporaries Aiskhylos and Euripides in the sense that he
draws individual experiences in his tragedies away from political-social conditions and
problems of his period and focuses on them within the universal system understanding.
However, Sophocles’ characters are never abstracted from their own society. What is
emphasized in these plays is that they are pushed into loneliness from a prominent position

due to an incident in their lives, and as a result of this, they lose their social position and
relationships.
To sum up, Ancient Greek tragedies continue to improve with Sophocles. Sophocles
made the method of theatre perfect: he increased the number of chorus from 12 to 15; he
attached great importance to décor and costume; and more importantly, he brought the third
actor to Greek theatre. Apart from that, instead of a trilogy, comprising three interconnected
dramas, he created the independent trilogy, in which each drama was an independent tale on
its own; and developed dialogue by decreasing lyricism. The action in Sophocles is dependent
on psychology; the thing that brings the play to an end is the character’s will. Sophocles is the
poet of humankind, with the main themes of his thought being the idea that happiness can be
lost at any time, the supremacy of suffering and unhappiness, the magnitude of will in
opposition to injustice and which refuses to obey it. There are two types of actor in
Sophocles’ theatre: the Oedipus type, who is doomed to infinite grief due to his pride against
the Gods and humans, and who finds the magnitude and peace he lost as he suffers; and
Antigone type, who revolts against human laws for the sake of a higher ideal. Sophocles, who
was a commander as well as playwright, is regarded as one of the most important playwrights
of ancient Greek theatre by many modern scientists, based on the innovations he brought to
tragedy.
Chapter Four: Analysis of Sophocles's Oedipus the King with respect to Poetics

Oedipus the King is one of the main scripts constituting the foundations of tragedy. It is
an unchangeable fact that for centuries, the script of Oedipus the King written by Sophocles
has been considered the perfect example of tragedy. When Aristotle related the basic rules of
tragedies in his Poetics text, he often gave examples from Oedipus. In this section, while
giving some general information about Aristotle’ Poetics work and Sophocles’ Oedipus the
King play, the intention is to answer the following questions:
What are the tragic elements described in Aristotle’s Poetics? Why does Aristotle put
forward Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” as an ideal tragedy when defining these elements?
How do these elements feature in the dramatic structure of the Oedipus script?
The subject of “Oedipus the King” can be summarized as follows:
Oedipus the King is damned by Apollo. It is learned that he is fated to marry his mother
after killing his father, and when learning this, his mother and father give him to a shepherd
with his feet bounded as an infant. The shepherd feels sorry for him, and rather than leaving
him for dead, give him to a childless king and queen. They bring Oedipus up as their own
child, but one day the Delphic oracle mentions about the curse of his fate. To prevent the
fulfillment of the prophecy about killing his father and marrying his mother, he goes to
Thebes, leaving behind the people he knows as his true father and mother. However, in
Thebes he kills his biological father in a fight, without knowing who he is. The widow Thebes
queen to whom he becomes married is actually his mother Jocaste. The plot of the play is
concluded with the facts that these truths of which Oedipus is unaware occur slowly with
increasing tension, Oedipus reveals his own identity, his guilt and the network of forbidden
relations with his own efforts and by forcing the people around him. Finally, he blinds himself
because he cannot bear what happened.

Oedipus the King is universally recognized as the dramatic masterpiece of the Greek
theater. Aristotle cites it as the most brilliant example of theatrical plot, the model for all to
follow, and all the generations since who have seen it staged - no matter how inadequate the
production or how poor the translation - have agreed with his assessment as they found
themselves moved to pity and fear by the swift development of its ferociously logical plot
(Bloom, 2006, p.71).
Aristotle presents his opinions of art in his work “Poetics”, which was Aristotle’s first
work to include the concepts of poetry and a research of the art issue in history. Within the
scope of the esthetics concept, Poetics, emphasizing the comparisons of arts and the
superiority of tragedy, puts creative imagination to the forefront, while also dealing with
reality.
Much of the Poetics is devoted to tragedy. The discussion starts from a a definition.
'Tragedy is an imitation of action which is serious and complete, and which has a certain
magnitude. Its language is well seasoned, with each of the kinds of seasoning used separately
in its different parts. It is in dramatic, not narrative, form. And through pity and fear it
accomplishes a purgation of emotions of that sort (Barnes, 2000, p.133). And Oedipus Rex
was the tragedy that most closely fit his guidelines. Oedipus is the model of the "tragic hero,"
because the concept is based on him. Because of his hamartia (mistake), he suffers a
peripeteia (reversal), which, for Aristotle, is the heart of tragedy (Thomas, 2005, p.69).Also
Oedipus Rex is a changing image of human life and action which could have been formed
only in the mirror of the tragic theater of the Festival of Dionysos. The perspective of the
myth, of the rituals and of the traditional bodos, the way of the City- "habits of thought and
feeling" which constitute the traditional wisdom of the race - were all required to make this
play possible (Bloom, 2006, p.10).

The idea of action, and the play as the imitation of an action, is ultimately
derived from the Poetics. This derivation is explained in the Appendix. At this
point the complex form of Oedipus, its plot, characters and discourses may be
understood as the imitation of certain action. The action of the play is the quest
for Laius' slayer. That is the overall aim which informs it "to find the culprit in
order to purify human life," as it may be put. Sophocles must have seen this
seeking action as the real life of the Oedipus myth, discerning it through the
personages and events as one discerns "life in a plant through the green
leaves". Moreover, he must have seen this particular action as a type, or crucial
instance, of human life in general; and hence he was able to present it in the
form of the ancient ritual which also presents and celebrates the perennial
mystery of human life and action (Bloom, 2006, p.13).
Since tragedy is a mimesis of an action and (since) it is acted out by certain people
acting and these must be necessarily have a certain kind of character and cast of mind (for it is
in the light of the that we say that their actions are of a certain kind, and according to [their
actions] they all succeed or fail); and [since] the plot is the mimesis of the action ( the putting-
together of the events) and the 'characters' are what allow us to ascribe certain qualities to the
actors, and the 'thought' (dianoia) is the places where the actors by speaking prove some point
or declare wisdom- because of all this the [the number of] 'aspects' to tragedy - [making] as a
whole that account for tragedy as a distinct [species] must be exactly six: plot and characters
and speech and thought and ‘visuals’(spectacle) and song-making (Whalley, 1997, p.21) ; the
plot is the most important: it is in virtue of its plot that had a tragedy will be 'complete' or
unitary, and it is through its plot that a tragedy will perform its purgative function (Barnes,
2000, p.133). Aristotle describes the narrative (plot) as putting events together. The narrative
in a tragedy is its most crucial element, in that a tragedy is an imitation of actions, life,

happiness, unhappiness not humans. All emotions and outcomes are based on an action; and
people possess emotions (happiness, sadness, grief, etc.) only as a result of their actions.
People’s personal characteristics determine only their qualifications (good, bad, lazy, noble,
know-it-all, etc.) Hence, imitators don’t perform the characters in order to imitate them, but
they become the characters by performing. As a consequence, the plot/narrative is essential
for a tragedy to be developed. In brief, Aristoteles says that a highly artistic work that is full
of adornments cannot be regarded as qualified if it doesn’t have a good plot/narrative.
A plot (muthos) is a formal structure, a "composition of events", having a beginning,
middle, and end, and proceeding, according to probability or necessity, from good to bad, or
from bad to good fortune (Rorty, 1992, p.361). The plot must be a self-contained narrative
and the play must have a unity. You do not make a tragedy by stringing together a set of
episodes connected only by a common hero; rather, there must be a single significant action
on which the whole plot turns (Kenny, 2013, p.351). According to Aristotle, Sophocles uses
all the requirements of a good plot in his play Oedipus the King. Sophocles’ this play is an
example of a fortunate and complex plot-structure which is designed to culminate in 'reversal'
and ''discovery', both occurring simultaneously (Bornedal, 1997, p.219).
In ancient Greece, most plays followed certain principles, which Aristotle discussed in his
Poetics. It was the structure of Oedipus Rex in particular that led Aristotle to view the play as
such a fine example of a tragedy, and his rules are largely based on this play. Essentially in
Poetics he stressed the importance of dramatic unity of action, so that the play is properly
focused and avoids distractions. Later writers elaborated on Aristotle's own ideas and offered
a rule that plays ought to possess three dramatic unities - time, place and action:

 Time. All events must take place in chronological order. The running time of
the performance must mirror the time we spend in the world of the play.
Essentially Oedipus Rex happens in real time.
 Place. The play should be set in one location, putting the focus on plot and
character development. Oedipus Rex is set in the royal courtyard, outside the
place of Oedipus in Thebes.
 Action. The action in the play must be consequential and rational. Aristotle
criticized 'episodic' plays, which consists of a series of episodes that do not
follow on rationally from one to another, requiring the audience to believe in
an unlikely turn of events or coincidence (Harvey, 2004, p.51).
“Two elements of plot identified by Aristotle as characteristic of tragedy are
both exemplified by reference to Oedipus. One is peripeteia and the example
he gives is the messenger scene: arriving with the good news that Oedipus will
be the new king of Corinth, because his supposed father has died there, the
messenger learns that Oedipus is reluctant to return out of fear of committing
incest with his mother and he seeks to allay such a worry with facts about his
infancy, facts that inexorably lead to Oedipus' discovery of his parricide and
incest. Peripeteia is not a change in fortune per se, but a startling turnabout in
events that brings about the opposite of what is what is expected. It is the
paradox contained within the change in fortune that constitutes the reversal, not
just the bare fact that a dramatic change of fortune has taken place (Sheehan,
2012).
The turning point (peripeteia) in Oedipus the King occurs according to Aristotle’s
description: the messenger from Corinth reports that Polybus, who Oedipus believes to be his
true father, has died. Oedipus doesn’t want to go to Corinth as the prophecy says he will

marry his mother. When the messenger tells him the truth in order to eliminate his fear – that
he isn’t the true child of Polybus and Merope, and that he was brought to King Corinth after
being found by a shepherd – Oedipus understands that the thing he was avoiding has already
happened, and so the news brought by messenger has a reverse impact. After that, his fortune
turns, and he turns inevitably from happiness to irrevocable unhappiness. It is revealed that
Oedipus has killed his father and married his mother, and this is inevitable. Oedipus has this
turning point. This incidence can be seen as one of the reasons why Aristotle puts forward
Oedipus the King as an ideal tragedy.
The other important element in tragedy for Aristotle is anagnorisis (recognition), 'a
change from ignorance to knowledge, disclosing either a close relationship or enmity, on the
part of people marked out for good or bad fortune' and for Aristotle, citing Oedipus, this
works best when it occurs alongside a reversal (Sheehan, 2012). Aristotle points to Sophocles'
Oedipus the King as an example of the best kind of recognition because Oedipus' anagnorisis
-his discovery of his identity and those of his relatives- and peripeteia - his self-blinding and
fall from prosperity - occur simultaneously (Winter, 1999, p.30).
As mentioned previously, Aristotle asserts that in order to establish an anagnorisis, the
most mature circumstances occur with a peripetie. The conclusion is as follows: now that the
fate of character has turned and is bringing him rapidly towards his own inevitable
destruction, there is no provision of information anymore, and the destruction/disaster of the
character hurts more due to the awareness the information brings. In ancient Greek tragedies,
anagnorisis is seen as a factor that deepens the pathos (painful action; a destructive,
distressing action) and thus contributes to the process of catharsis which is the main purpose
related to the audiences of tragedy, it is regarded as one of the fundamental elements of
tragedy. To Aristotle the combination of reversal and discovery found in Oedipus Rex is a
powerful means of arousing pity and fear (Faas, 1984, p.38).

Each identification/recognition actually states that the thing that should be known in
the beginning is noticed with a delay. A character in a tragedy cannot recognize the “true
him” that the audience already “knows”. Oedipus the King is a wise king who, by solving
Sphinx’s riddle, saves the city of Thebes, but not only does he fail to solve the riddle of his
own life, he doesn’t even know of its existence. The people on the stage begin to
know/recognize what the audience already knows, and Oedipus becomes isolated within his
lack of knowledge. His situation is maybe the most ungrateful lateness in theatre history. The
story/mythos is established so viciously that even if Oedipus undergoes an “anagnorisis” at
birth, he will be late so much because of the prophecy on his ancestry. This late information
granted to human leads to the lack of information and incapacity. In Oedipus the King, which
is a tale that contains all of the rules of a tragedy highlighted by Aristotle in Poetics, this
incapacity ascribes to a strong and popular king, and all mortals are threatened.
The unity of the story is overemphasized in Poetics, and this rule has passed into
theatrical history under the name “Unity of Action”, which means that the events gather
around a certain subject and follow each other in accordance with the rules of probability and
necessity. The event that isn’t related to the fundamental subject isn’t included as well as a
random event. In Oedipus the King, it can be seen as coincidental that he marries his mother
and kills his father, but it isn’t a coincidence. Laius knows that he will be killed by his son one
day, and so sends his son away to be killed; however the shepherd doesn’t kill Oedipus.
Destiny starts to make its own way after this point. When Oedipus learns about the prophecy
about killing his father, he takes himself far away from his father; yet there is something that
he doesn’t know – his biological father isn’t the man who raised him. In taking himself away
from the man who raised him, he meets his biological father. Herein, the writer put the actions
in order whose results are well known to him, within a consistent story, and each event
constitutes a reason for the next. If there was no plague in Thebes, the oracle would not have

spoken. After Oedipus listens to the oracle, damns the murderer of Laius and the events build
the climax following each other respectively.
The plot in the Oedipus tragedy proceeds towards the destruction scene with a series
of strong cause/effect links, and so each step taken in the plot, as shown below in Freytag’s
triangle, makes the condition worse. Each action, from the incentive moment to the resolution,
makes the return of Oedipus difficult. It is at the point of the “plague and promise of
Oedipus”, represented by the origin point of the pyramid, which, in fact, the destruction starts.
Image 1: Freytag’s Triangle and “Oedipus the King”7
7
Diagram was taken from http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/oedipusplot.html

The plot revolves around a central figure, the 'tragic hero' as he was later called, who
must be a man 'neither pre-eminent in excellence and goodness nor falling into misfortune
through badness and villainy, but rather through some mistake - a man of high reputation and
good fortune (Barnes, 2000, p.133) like Oedipus who falls from good to bad fortune, not
because of a vice or wickedness, but because of a major error (megale hamartia) (Thorburn,
2005, p. 385). The protagonist of a tragedy enjoys great success (Oedipus was King of
Thebes). He has made some 'mistake' (Oedipus unwittingly killed his father and married his
mother). The mistake is discovered, and a 'reversal' occurs (Oedipus' mother commits suicide;
he blinds himself and is banished from Thebes). By its organic unity, and its implicit
universality, the story works upon the feelings of the audience (Barnes, 2000, p.133).
The tragic hero, in Aristotle's view, must be an object of both pity and fear and in
Poetics, Oedipus is mentioned as the sort of hero who would be an object of pity and fear
(Rorty, 1992, p. 276/277). The hero must have a certain, fixed character. The representation
of character is of course to be consistent; it should be obvious that a person who is of this or
that kind will act in this or that way. A person who in every situation acts rightly will not be
tragic hero. The focus of tragedy is on what in the Ethics are marginal cases: individuals who
- perhaps innocently - cannot grasp the consequences of their acts. Oedipus is the stereotype
of the tragic hero - both morally and intellectually he is better than average, but he is also
stubborn, he does not have fully comprehension of his situation, and he is in error (hamartia)
(Johansen, 2005, p. 408).
Early critics of Sophocles' play thought that Aristotle's hamartia referred to a moral
fault (the so-called tragic flaw) in Oedipus, such as his pride, overconfidence, or bad temper.
In recent years, however critics have understood Aristotle's hamartia as an error committed in
ignorance. From the beginning of the play, Oedipus is a good man in the eyes of the chorus,
who regard him as the savior of their city. Thus the hamartia of Oedipus did not lie in losing

his temper with Tiresias; it lay quite simply in parricide and incest - a megale hamartia
indeed, the greatest a man can commit (Thorburn, 2005, p. 385).
Oedipus is proud and obstinate. His ruling passion is to discover his true
parentage which brings about his fall. Sophocles believed that when a person
of high degree becomes proud or obstinate, he commits an act of 'Hubris' and
then God sends 'Ate' upon him. He falls and learns sense by suffering. When
Oedipus comes to know that he is the son of Laius, he becomes wild with grief
and he blinds himself. Soon after, Queen Jocasta dies. In this way, Oedipus, the
great king who saved Thebes in the past and at whom people looked as their
saviour, becomes a polluted - outcast and the cause of plague raging in the city.
Thus he suffers a total 'reversal of fortune' and his plight arouses the feeling of
'pity and fear'. In the end we find Oedipus groping his sightless way into the
unknown. He is the greatest tragic hero ever produced in Greek drama (Misra,
1992, p.221).
Hubris, meaning extreme pride and self-confidence, signifies the “excessiveness” that
brings a person to their destruction at the end of a Greek tragedy. The character with hubris
overshoots the mark, puts himself in the same level with gods and claims that he does a
perfect thing for humankind. Once the character expresses this, hubris occurs. The extreme
nature of Oedipus’ curiosity to learn and his infinite trust in his own intelligence are hubris.
The fault of Oedipus was in his saying “I will find whoever he is”. In fact, this is what
Oedipus should do. He is the king, and it is what is expected from him. Yet, by saying this in
such a divine manner, Oedipus makes a mistake. Hubris symbolizes arrogance, as a character
displaying hubris commits an offense. Because of hubris, the guilty, that is, Ate, emerges.

After excessiveness, Ate, the Goddess of Guilt, arises. Once arrogance has emerged,
Ate arises automatically. Oedipus’ arrogance generates Ate in the play. That Oedipus makes a
decision and comes into action in his own way to kill Laius’ murderer in hubris is Ate of
Oidipus. We observe his excessiveness with Teresias’ warning for him. Teresias warns
Oedipus, but nothing changes. Ate’s arising states blindness, and arrogant person starts a war
against the reality and destiny, but as a result of the blinding, guilt emerges.
Consequently, the mistake of Oedipus is to assert, “I will punish whoever he is” in a
divine manner. The reason for doing this is hubris, and his action is Ate.
Nemesis is the wheel that starts to spin towards an absolute justice; Nemesis is the
result, it is the sentence that is handed down. Oedipus’ punishment is exile.
The Hubris, Ate and Nemesis trilogy make up the feeling of being controlled and
moderated. It presented this image to the ancient Greek audience.
The Greek term 'ananke' (necessity) was used by early Greek philosophers for a
constraining or moving natural force. As used by Aristotle the basic meaning of 'necessity' is
that which cannot be otherwise, a sense that includes logical necessity (Audi, 1999). In
Oedipus' story the inexorable fate, the ananke or "necessity", that slowly surrounds the king, a
fate entirely his own of his own making although he does not know that, sends shivers down
the back again and again (Doren, 2008, p.20). That is to say, we can speak of Ananke if there
is a necessity for the existence of the character. The necessity for Oedipus is that he kill his
father and marry his mother.
The best-known traditional element of Greek tragedy is the chorus -the onstage
performers of song and dance - which functions as a single voice or even a single idea in
material form (Bloom, 2007, p.17). Tragedy's quantitative elements, Aristotle says, can be
listed as: prologue, episode, exodus, choral section (chorikon), the latter appearing in its two

versions, as the chorus's processional entrance into theatre (parados) and as choral action the
orchestra (stasimon) (Billings,2013, p.24). Aristotle in his Poetics named and defined these
elements: "parados" is sung as the chorus arrives at its section of the stage called the
"orchestra"; the "stasimon" is performed while the chorus occupies the orchestra; the
"prologue" occurs before the chorus makes its first appearance; the episode; is the activity
between the songs; and the "exodus" is the activity that follows the final choral song (Bloom,
2007, p.17). For example in the "parodos" in Oedipus the King, the chorus describes that
their city of Thebes is being destroyed by a plague (Johanning, 2013, p.145) and in the
"exodus" a messenger from the house announces that Jocasta has hanged herself, and that
Oedipus has put out his eyes. Presently Oedipus is led forth. With passionate lamentation be
beseeches the Chorus of Theban Elders to banish or slay him (Sophocles, 1883, p.XV).
The chorus of Theban Elders in Oedipus the King remains closely bound up with the
concrete situation in most of its songs. In the introductory song, or parode, it begs the tutelary
gods of Thebes for help in their fight against the plague that has been afflicting the city. In the
first stationary song, or stasimon, it wrestles with the doubts and fears provoked by Teiresias,
in the third it succumbs to illusory hopes for a change for the better, and, finally, in the fourth
it laments Oedipus' fate (Pfister, 1991, p.79). Besides, the songs of the chorus become a sign
of amazing loyalty to divinity after each part, increasing our anger towards the gods in the
Oedipus the King play. The loyalty of the chorus to the king never wanes, and no confidence
is lost in the wisdom of god. The chorus doesn’t bring Oedipus against the gods, but
integrates them within the same feeling of love and respect.
Aristotle's evaluations of plot construction are grounded in his view of tragedy's
essential aim - to produce catharsis. The audience judges that the depicted events are ones that
are pitiable and fearful, and accordingly, they actually feel pity and fear, and from these there
arises a catharsis (Rorty, 1992, p.122). In Oedipus Tyrannus, the audience experience

catharsis in the Aristotelian sense "at the moment of recognition, when the chorus first looked
with horror on their blinded king." Thus, the pity and fear of the characters in the play invite
the audience to experience communally an emotional response of pity and fear themselves
(Thorburn, 2005, p.123). Catharsis isn’t a function of tragedy, but rather a “beneficial” impact
that emerges in some audiences. The argument of Aristotle that the art of poetry can be useful
for the state structure is also proved practically. Aristotle asserts that the ideal tragedy should
act according to this mission. That Sophocles’ Oedipus the King carries this feature
mentioned by Aristotle is one of the reasons Aristotle puts the play forward as an ideal
tragedy.
Dianoia, a common Greek word for 'thought', here rendered 'ideas', concerns the
intellect of a character and is ranked the third most important element in tragedy according to
Aristotle. The intellectual of a character is evident in any argument over an issue or in any
general commentary. Ethos (moral character) is expressed when an individual is forced to
make a decision on an ethical basis. While both ethical and intellectual concerns may coincide
(Oedipus' blinding of himself after learning the truth of his identity), quite often dianoia,
according to Aristotle, maybe seen by itself (Hochman, 1984, p.230). According to Aristotle,
idea is the things that are proved and stated with arguments expressed in actors speeches. It is
to be able to say the things related to the subject and things in harmony with the subject. Ideas
are the statements which prove whether a thing exists or not or reveals a general judgment.
Everything that should be revealed by means of a statement enters into the field of thought.
There are different types of thought, such as verification, refutation, awakening of feeling,
glorification or dispraise. Aristotle describes thought (Dianoia) as the ability to discuss the
things that are appropriate for conditions and that circumstances command, and states that
olitics and rhetoric perform the same function. For instance, in Oedipus Rex we can find the
debates between Oedipus and Creon on the role of leadership, between Oedipus and Jocasta

on whether or not you must believe the gods, and between Oedipus and Tiresias on the danger
of pride. Thus, thought for Aristotle really means carefully organized arguments on one or the
other side of these issues (Rush, 2005, p. 31/32). Dianoia is closely related to the fourth
element of tragedy, style (lexis), which is the literary quality of its expression (Kenny, 2013,
p.352).
The "lexis" qualities of language are always properties of small practices; they are not
conceived as belonging to the complete text. This is also the case with phenomena like
metaphor or wit, although their relation to deep structure is clear. In Greek literature we know
cases of "metaphoric cluster" and big metaphoric structures which are related also to the plot,
such as the theme of blindness and seeing in Oedipus the King (Zoran, 2014, p.87). Also
Aristotle held that the particular events designed by the language of a text exhibit a structural
pattern that in turn exemplifies a paradigmatic or universal pattern of action. The language of
Oedipus Rex, for example, gives us the story of Oedipus. The story of Oedipus in turn exhibits
a particular pattern of tragic action that we can identify and understand because of its
relationship to a universal paradigmatic pattern of action (Lundin, 1999, p.76).
Nowadays, similitude can be considered as an expression with symbols and
metaphors. At this point, the reasonability that Aristotle emphasizes has an important place in
terms of the clarity of expression. The success of verbal expression is measured by the
avoidance of clarity and superficiality. That said, it is important not to lose clarity for the sake
of the avoidance of superficiality. Sophocles, in his play, succeeded in reflecting this element
totally, as mentioned by Aristotle.
The fifth element is called by Aristotle opsis, which is literally 'visual appearance'; it is
often translated 'spectacle'. This with the sixth element, music, is what makes the difference
between attending a performance of a tragedy and merely reading it at home. 'Staging' seems

the most appropriate translation - it includes not only the stage setting but also the visible
performance of the actors. Music is only treated summarily in the Poetics (Kenny, 2013,
p.352). Also opsis is not even a feature of all poetry, but only of a dramatic poetry in
performance. Furthermore, in his animadversions on spectacle Aristotle does not have in mind
the general visual aspect of performance, but the specific exploitation of it for emotional
effect. Thus, properly used, opsis can contribute to the tragic effect of pity and fear (Halliwell,
1986, p.66). In a famous essay on Sophocles' play, E. R. Dodds wrote that 'what fascinates us
about Oedipus Tyrannus is the spectacle of a man freely choosing, from the highest motives, a
series of actions which lead to his own ruin (Thorburn, 2005, p. 385).
Conclusion
According to Aristotle, these are the six elements of a tragedy. As examined, since
Sophocles presents the elements of tragedy completely in Oedipus the King play, Aristotle
presents this play as an ideal tragedy in his “Poetics” work, and often references the play.
Aristotle first deals with the plot among all his criteria, and stresses on it. Aristotle’s
argument can be summarized as follows:
A tragedy is an imitation of an action that is dignified morally and has a certain length;
it has a language that is beautified by art. The task of a tragedy in imitating a person who is
nobler than the average person is to purify the spirit from passions with such feelings as pity
and fear.
With reference to Aristotle, we can complete the criteria that we see as inevitable for
drama art by providing a brief summary. First of all, theatre is a narrative for drama. The
theatre, actors, stage, décor, and everything else, are the mediators of the narrative. Drama art,
as is the case in each narrative, has an aim, and this aim determines the style that will be used.
That said, independent of aim and style, there are basic criteria that determine whether or not

the thing being staged is theatre. Primarily, a narrative requires an event. Regardless of the
purpose and the way a narrative is told, whether lived or fictionalized, it should use an event
as a base. At the point at which we use the event as a base, we should respond to the question
of what the event is. Herein, the event (plot) definition of Aristotle comes into play, and art
that has a plot that does not fit into this definition cannot be evaluated as drama art.
Sophocles’ work entitles “Oedipus the King” is a perfect fiction, as claimed by Aristotle.
There is no unnecessary detail. The work is based on the dramatic conflict between Oedipus
the King’s “requests” and “reality”.
Aristotle describes peripetie, anagnorisis and pathos as three elements of a tragic story
in Poetics, and all of these three elements, as we mentioned before, are presented in Oedipus
the King, as follow:
Peripetie is the reversal of actions or opinions, and this happens in line with the rules of
probability or necessity. In Oedipus the King, the shepherd comes to Oedipus in order to give
him good news, to allay his fears about his mother. Yet Oedipus’ past brings counter effects,
and the secret is unveiled. After that, the events proceed towards the destruction of Oedipus
the King, step-by-step. The curiosity that is Oedipus’ hamartia (tragic weakness) acts as a
catalyst for the fulfillment of his terrible fate.
Anagnorisis (recognition) is to pass from a lack of knowledge (lack of awareness) to
information (awareness). Aristotle considers recognition occurring simultaneously with the
turning point as an important quality of successful tragedies. The recognition for Oedipus the
King occurs simultaneously with (anagnorisis) peripetie. When Oedipus understands the
reality (when the messenger and shepherd confirm the suspicion that the oracle creates), his
fortune proceeds towards his irrevocable destruction.

After Oedipus kills the person that he does not know to be his biological father, he
becomes the king of the city of Thebes, marries his own biological mother and has four
children. This incestuous relationship must be punished in the presence of gods, and so a
plague befalls the city of Oedipus. Since Oedipus is a fair king and a man of high moral
standing (According to Aristotle, the characters in a tragedy should be noble and have higher
moral values than the average person), he begins to search the curse the curiosity which is his
hamartia, helps him pass from lack of awareness into knowing (facing with the fate and
himself). Thus, Oedipus the King doesn’t stop at the points where he should stop,
disregarding all warnings, and sacrifices his own existence to pay for the crime that he
committed unwittingly.
The Pathos (painful action) becomes concrete as soon as Oedipus extracts his own eyes,
being unable to carry the burden of the truth. The higher the severity of Pathos, the higher the
severity of catharsis, referring to the total effect of the tragedy on the audience.
For the ancient Greek audience, theatrical tragedies could be regarded as sort of
religious ritual, in that the things that should not be done are told in order not to expose
oneself to generations of damnation rather than for entertainment. In this regard, Oedipus tells
us that escaping one’s fate is impossible, and that incest is a sin that can bring about the
demise of even a strong king.
In this study, examining the dramatic features of the work “Oedipus the King” reveals
why Aristotle put forward the play as the ideal tragedy.
In the world of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, everything happens on a grand scale,
from feats of heroism to the most terrible of mistakes. It is a world of gods, prophets, kings
and plagues; a world of ancient tragedy whose stories unfold with relentless majesty and high
emotion. As the great philosopher Aristotle explained in his Poetics, the great tragedies are

plays capable of arousing pity and fear, thereby of purging those very emotions in us. Since at
least Aristotle's time, Oedipus the King has been praised as a model of the greatness of Greek
tragedy. For Aristotle the genius of the play resided in the organic perfection of its structure,
and Sophocles' characterization - remarkably complex for his time - of Oedipus (Will, 2005,
p.7). As a result, it is obvious that Aristotle thinks Oedipus Rex is in many aspects the best
kind of drama (Hiltunen, 2002). The tragedy of Oedipus is the tragedy of the human species.
This work of Sophocles determines the limits of tragedy, and it is because of this that
Aristotle explains the features of a tragedy as a literary genre with reference to the work

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