We often picture families as a group of people who care for one another. The members of this group can be blood-related, such as the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia, but can also be comprised of non-blood relations, such as Tarzan and his (gorilla) parents. Even dysfunctional families, like the Simpsons, still care for each other to some degree. It is this picture of a perfect family that makes a broken one so upsetting. Although some of the greatest dramas have come from a feuding family—Hamlet, The Lion King, and Star Wars, to name a few—the state of these families is not something anyone strives for. On the contrary, it is something most, if not all of us, wish to avoid. A broken family is a tragic situation, and Oedipus' broken…show more content… A hamartia is a fatal flaw. In regards to character, a flaw is a fault, weakness, or vice. The determination for the truth—Oedipus' supposed fatal flaw—is none of these. Longing for the truth is not a bad thing, nor does it make a character weak or immoral. On the contrary, it should be admired that Oedipus wants to discover the truth, despite the repeated warnings he receives. And though some would argue that Oedipus' fatal flaw is stubbornness, rather than determination, I would say that stubbornness implies some degree of spite. Someone is "stubborn" when they refuse to change their opinions despite good reasoning against them. Oedipus does not stop his search for the truth because he is spiteful against Tiresias or Jocasta or because either of them present good reasoning for him to stop his search. All they claim is that Oedipus will not like the truth, which is not a strong argument to stop someone from searching for it. Oedipus presses on because he is King of Thebes and his city is dying. He wants nothing more than to save his city. Accordingly, his "fatal flaw" does not exist in the way Aristotle proposes it should. What leads to Oedipus' undoing is not a flaw in his character, but a flaw in his…show more content… That is not to say a hero's downfall is not tragic, but the hero's downfall is only half of his story. It is the subsequent actions of a hero that define tragedy. A character that rises from his fall is not tragic, and while he can still end up in tragic circumstances, it is not because of who the character is, but rather the circumstances surrounding said character that defines if the story is a tragedy. In contrast, a character that cannot rise from his ashes is tragic. In Oedipus, the story ends at the downfall, leaving out Oedipus' potential to rise above it or fall farther down. His initial reaction of piercing his eyes does not count as his attempt to rise, because he is still in the state of realizing the truth. His heightened emotional state speaks nothing of his character nor of his ability to overcome adversity. All it shows is that he is human and that he has the potential to rise or fall. Briefly, a character's anagnorisis—his revelation of the truth—is only a catalyst for tragedy, and it can lead to a character's complete downfall, or his opportunity to show his true strength and rise above
