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Overconfidence Killed the King

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Submitted By nates
Words 597
Pages 3
Eduardo Araiza
Joshua Cochran
Writing 102
September 29th, 2011
Overconfidence Killed the King Many of the characters throughout Sophocles’ Oedipus the King face their ups and downs. Some characters lose the trust of the audience only to gain it afterwards. However many of the characters coincide in one thing, most of the mistakes that are committed throughout the story are caused by overconfidence from the characters. This seems to correlate with real life. Humans in their daily life make many mistakes that are attributed to ego and overconfidence. Throughout the play, overconfidence is a factor that causes the downfall of many of the characters. When Creon arrives with news from the Oracle, Oedipus is very confident that it is better that the news are heard by everyone in Thebes. Oedipus doesn’t realize, however, that this action causes the beginning of his demise. Oedipus’s ego also hurts him when he pleas for Tiresias to reveal who Laius’s murder is. Tiresias mentions that although Oedipus has his eyesight, it is the same that blinds him from the truth. Jocasta is also confident that the prophecy the oracle made regarding Laius’s murder was wrong since he was killed by a band of thieves and not his son. She is proved wrong once she realizes that Oedipus is in fact her on and that he was the one that killed Laius. Pascal Mamassian performed a psychological study that showed that overconfidence can “place humans in hazardous situations,” yet overconfidence is not attributed to the task at hand, but is a “general characteristic of human decision making” (Mamassian, 601). Mamassian’s study shows that although it may seem that overconfidence comes from ego and someone’s ability at something, it really comes from general decision-making. Mamassian mentions that “overconfidence is believe to have dramatic consequences… in warfare.” (Mamassian, 601) Sophocles

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