Topic > Tragic Heroes: Noble Birth, Fatal Flaw, and Doom

It is no different when Oedipus calls Tiresias to Thebes. When Tiresias arrives, Oedipus asks him to tell him what is happening, although Tiresias refuses. However, Oedipus pushes him to tell her out of pure frustration. “I say that you are the murderer of the king whose murder you see” (Teiresia. II. 415-416)! Oedipus is quick to respond and speaks without thinking about whether he had ever killed anyone. “You will not say slander like these twice and you will go unpunished” (Oedipus. II. 417-418). Oedipus vocalizes it without remembering. If Oedipus had thought back to the moment he killed a man at the crossroads, the murder could have been solved and the inhabitants of Thebes would have suffered less. Oedipus also reacts irrationally when Creon again suggests that Oedipus is the murdered one. He turns to Jocasta and says, “He is right, Jocasta, for I find him plotting” (“Oedipus Rex” I. 750). Once again, Oedipus believes that anyone he accuses or suggests of being the murderer, he automatically thinks is a traitor. Oedipus has a tendency to think irrationally and not reflect on his past and makes him impulsive