Journal #5: How does Sophocles evoke fear and pity in the reader/audience and what significance does this have?

Pity and fear are very necessary in tragedies. Catharsis is crucial to giving the audience pleasure in watching characters suffer in the play. That way, people will keep coming back to watch it. Pity is brought about by characters receiving misfortune that resulted from a lack of judgement. Oedipus wrongly leaves his fake parents when he hears the oracle, and he kills a man that he had no inkling could be his father. The character loses his dignity, evoking buckets of pity. He fights elements that are outside his control, like the fact that he was born of different people than he thought, and loses, spectacularly. People feel pity in the play because they fear that their dignity can be taken away as well. Oedipus's fall from grace is, ironically, graceful, and deserved. A character receiving underved suffering is not tragic, it is sad. Tragedy is not about sadness.