Differences between a tragic hero and an epic hero

A tragic hero is of dignified birth and with tragic flaws that lead to his down fall eventually and he suffers a setback of luck that is brought about by his flaws. His actions lead to a raise of self knowledge and awareness and the audience must identify with him. He is fated to make errors in his judgment and is responsible for his fall. He falls from high esteem before realizing his irreversible mistake and will eventually face a tragic death honorably (Pedrick, p.2).

An epic hero on the other hand is different from a tragic hero because his circumstances of birth are unusual. He is alleged to be the son of a god and at his birth there is always an attempt to kill him or may be kidnapped or taken away from those who protect him. He is usually raised by foster parents in a far-away land and is not aware of his childhood. When he reaches manhood he may return or go to a future kingdom and becomes the king.  He is larger than life and represents the values of a certain society and is a superhuman. This is because he is stronger, braver, cleverer and smarter than ordinary men. He is on a mission for something with great value to his people or himself. The godly world obstructs the human world and the epic hero suffers a symbolic death or has to go to the underworld (Euben, p.2).

In the story Idoepus in Sophocles, Oedipus is the main character and is an enormous king with perfect characteristics in his individual personality. He is also tragic because of a tragic defect in his ethical nature. The mixture in his character brings out his tragic experience of catharsis eventually when all his good is wasted while struggling against the bad. In his struggle, he provokes the very fate he has always struggled to escape from. His name means swell foot in Greek and he has swollen feet which is his tragedy. This is the reason why his parents threw him away three days after his birth as it was believed that he would kill his father and end up marrying his mother. He was tragic and was pitied by a shepherd that was trusted to throw him away in the mountains of Kithairon. He was saved from dying there and was given out to the shepherd of king Polybos (Petropoulos, p.4). He had the tragic mark on his feet that were swollen due to the skewer used to pin his feet by his parents. He was then raised up in Corinth and ran away from there when he heard his fate. He went to Thebes to kill his father and marry his mother. He was however a good and great king as he is very concerned with the welfare of others and even calls him his children. He has good personality with respectable moral values and is devoted to avoiding and fighting evil. His search for truth led to his downfall as this is an essence itself. He loves his people guides them to his best and worries a lot by the plague problem that causes his lack of sleep suffering for the whole society. He went to talk to people himself instead of sending messengers to them and the priest glorifies him as a wise king. He was however weak as he was unable to escape his fate. This is because he would have taken precautions not to lay a hand on men and marry an aged woman (Petropoulos, p.4).

 In Odysseus life, the hero is known for his character in Trojan War and ten years journey to go back home after the war. He had tried to avoid the war when it began because an oracle had informed him that if he participated he would go for twenty years and return as a beggar. He then pretended to be crazy and planted salt rather than seeds in order not to participate. It was suspected that he was lying and an infant was left on the fields and he avoided killing it with a plow which proved he was not mad (Dougherty, p.3). He however participated in the war as an advisor and speaker instead of a warrior and succeeded in finding Achilles and convinced him to join the war. He also tricked Clytemnestra to send her daughter to be sacrificed to the goddess to make the ships of the Greek have luck for the journey to Troy. He settled quarrels between them and spied to discover the plans of the Trojans. When the war ended he decided to go back to Ithacha but he encountered the anger of the sea god and therefore took his journey took ten years. He then went to dangerous and wondrous places and lost his companions together with treasures from Troy. He later got home after twenty years and had to defeat enemies to take back his wife and kingdom (Dougherty, p.3).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

Dougherty, Carol. The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer's Odyssey. Oxford [England: Oxford University Press, 2001. Internet resource.

Euben, J P. Greek Tragedy and Political Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Print.

Petropoulos, J C. B. Kleos in a Minor Key: The Homeric Education of a Little Prince. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2011. Print.

Pedrick, Victoria, and Steven M. Oberhelman. The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian Drama. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Print.