Only then can he recognize his shortcomings and failures.īy contrast, Hamlet remains painfully aware of himself, his shortcomings, and his powerlessness to right what he perceives to be great wrongs. Sophocles' hero is stoic, strong, and stubborn he seeks to bully fate and then gives in to self-destruction. Introspection is only possible for Oedipus when his blindness forces him to stop examining the world around him.
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Oedipus, the prototypical Greek tragic hero, can see nothing until he blinds himself, thereby breaking free of the human compulsion to understand forces that one should simply obey. While Oedipus only nominally controls his life, Hamlet's choices direct and ultimately destroy him. The notion that a hero must be a man of stature who is undone by some flaw in himself entirely governs Oedipus, the play's protagonist. In his book The Poetics, Aristotle based the definition of tragedy on Oedipus Rex, making Sophocles' play the archetype of the genre. The contrast between the two points of view is a note-worthy feature of any comparison between Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Though fate may ultimately win, a man must fight to the death, if necessary, in order to remain the master of his own choices - choices that ultimately decide if and how his fate defeats him. For Shakespeare - a Christian - the choice between good and evil represents man's basic dilemma for him, the human will is indomitable. Sophocles' characters ultimately surrender, after resistance, recognition, and reversal, to their destinies Sophocles' plays warn against the pride that deceives us into believing we can alter fate through human intervention. For the Greek Sophocles, fate far overpowers human will the harder a man works to avoid his fate, the more surely he catapults forth into that very fate.
Yet, each of these great playwrights espouses a perspective on the struggle born of his specific time and culture. Both Sophocles and Shakespeare would agree that the forces of destiny and choice continually vie for control of human life. At the heart of every great tragedy lies the universal struggle between the human inclination to accept fate absolutely and the natural desire to control destiny. Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.The Classical tragedians appreciated the conflict between fate and free will. Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here. If you promise to stop (by clicking the Agree button below), we'll unblock your connection for now, but we will immediately re-block it if we detect additional bad behavior.
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