Using the essential elements of tragic action described in Aristotles Poetics, the text compares João Cabral de Melo Neto's Morte e vida severina to Sophocles Oedipus rex with the purpose of bringing to light the tension that exists between human necessity and human action. It is an eminently epidemiological fact that draws a link between these two works. In Morte e vida severina, the causa efficiens behind Severino's decision to migrate is a famine; in Oedipus rex, a plague afflicting the inhabitants of Thebes is the event that hastens discovery of king Laiuss true assassin. It is a reflection on the finalis and formalis causes behind Severino's and Oedipus's movements and on the essential elements of tragic action that allows a transitory falsification or, better put, a rejection of the hypothesis that Morte e vida severina is a tragedy, at least not in Aristotelian terms.