Oedipus the King as a classic tragedyAristotle, in his work “The Poetics”, attempted to define tragedy. Aristotle said that the hero, or at least the main character of a tragedy, must be fundamentally good, but must bring about his downfall, because of a fatal flaw. If the character wasn't noble, for many reasons the audience wouldn't care about the person and wouldn't really notice their fall - from the street to the gutter, it's not far. In today's society, this has obviously been proven false. Modern playwrights have proven that audiences can certainly care about less prolific heroes, but in classical literature this rule remains, and all heroes of tragedy were noble and tried to do good, but unsuccessfully. Oedipus follows these rules in that he was a good, understanding, and just person, while anger and pride were his tragic flaws. Oedipus was a very good man. Oedipus solved the riddle of the sphinx and thus became king of Thebes. This suggests both good intentions and the intelligence to put those intentions to good use. Oedipus was a fool...