The role of Hamartia in Oedipus Rex Literary tragedy has roots that extend two and a half millennia into the past, but throughout this story the distinctive characteristics of the genre have remained the same themselves. At the heart of the tragedy is the uncertainty about the cause of the tragic situation. The main candidate for an explanation of this cause often comes under the name of hamartia, a Greek word that translates to "a flaw of character", "an error" or "a mistake". However, the most common conception (or misconception) of this notion is that it implies "a moral or intellectual weakness," a view that often leads scholars to view hamartia as the answer to questions about tragic flaw. Care must be taken in making this assumption since no element of the tragedy has an easy explanation and since the exact nature of the hamartia itself is impossible to pinpoint. In this spirit of uncertainty and as an Aristotelian conception of the "ideal" tragedy, Oedipus Rex revolves around precisely such an elusive "why". This comedy, like all tragedies, challenges our notions of cause and effect: no single action or fault of the hero could have justly thrown him into the intense shame of incest and parricide. In the relentless search for what might have caused this fall, one line of thought places the responsibility for the story of Oedipus on the heavy hand of fate. If this theory is believed, his entire life can be seen as a confirmation of a prophesied destiny, just as reading the text is the fulfillment of the story we already know. If a prescribed destiny dictated the king's actions, or if he earned this destiny with the wrong life foreseen by the gods, an analysis of Oedipus' behaviors can suggest why he was forced to f... middle of paper... .. It is possible to define Oedipus' defects as an object of Sophocles' exploration. Perhaps the great tragedian also tried to illustrate the consequences of such behaviors by associating them with a condemned individual. While it is difficult to imagine Sophocles offering a lesson similar to that of Aesop, Greek tragedies have always served a civic function for the audiences who gathered to see them. It may therefore be reasonable to believe that this drama was intended to highlight the sins that could lead to the ruin of the ancient world, and even to warn against them. The unpredictable influences of fate and divinity certainly played a role in Oedipus' decline, but an equally significant contribution to the tragic situation came from his own failures. Works Cited: Sophocles. “Oedipus the King”. Bedford's introduction to literature. 5th ed. Ed. Michael Mayer. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin. 1999.