From Epic to Tragedy: A Brief Reflection on the Role of Anger in Attic Drama

If the anger of the epic hero is, in the broadest terms, an expression and defence of his position, what then is the anger of a tragic figure?

Euripides' Medea is a kind of epic hero. Angered by a slight to her honour, she defends herself aggressively with winged word and violent action alike. This defence of honour, expressed through anger, is the central motivating element of her character, subordinating all other characteristics, most notably her maternal instincts. The fact that she is a woman is, of course, an inversion of the epic genre; her anger is not socially sanctioned, and her subsequent actions are an absolute refutation of social norms.

Sophocles' Oedipus is a figure that is not driven by anger in the same way as an epic hero. Instead he is driven by a need to serve his people, whose fate is, in the first instance, linked to his own as king. It is a profound irony that, as he pursues the truth, he finds that his own life and destiny as king is opposed to that of his people; it is only through his suffering that they will be free from plague. His courage in the pursuit of this end is delayed by his anger, particularly toward Tiresias and Creon; however, in the end his courage, his need to serve his people, and perhaps his curiosity as well, lead him to the horrific discovery of his and his family’s dark history. It is at the recognition of this past that Oedipus turns his anger inward. 

There is a kind of inversion occurring in the narratives of Oedipus and Medea. Oedipus, a man and a king, is driven by a virtuous pursuit of truth and by pity of, and deference to, his people. His anger serves principally to delay his recognition of the horrible truth that will destroy himself and ultimately his family. On the other hand Medea, a woman on the fringe of a royal family, is driven by her anger and is delayed by fits of pity and deference. In both cases both, Sophocles and Euripides are defying and perhaps challenging social norms, which would have been more likely to sanction the actions of the traditional epic heroes.