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Character of king Oedipus
Impact of Oedipus the king
Impact of Oedipus the king
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1. In the opening scene, what does Oedipus reveal about himself in speaking to the people of Thebes? What type of leader is he? What is his attitude toward and relationship with the community? Use quotes to back up your points.
In The opening scene the town of Thebes has been plagued with hunger, diseases and death. Oedipus reveal about himself that the responsibility of solving the problem is up to him as king of Thebes. He takes on the situation with the eagerness and belief that he is the one person that can purge the land by punishing the person that killed the previous king in order to get rid of the plague that consumed the people. Oedipus as a leader poses characteristics of intelligence, responsibility, and energetic. Which are
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“The Greek word is miasma pollution. This pollution comes from the stain of his father’s blood on Oedipus’ hands. The Greek considered miasma palpable and contagious.” Therefore the disgust of nature produced by the murder of Laios by his son Oedipus is indicated in a plague where the basic progression between generations is stopped. The plague is spreading throughout Thebes causing fruits and grain to harden in their protective sheaths. Children are also being born stillborn from the mother’s wombs (Sophocles 115.100-101). A disease of hunger nothing grows, no wheat, or fruit nothing grows bigger than a seed. The woman also bear dead things and all they do is grieve. The cattle also wither, stumble and drop to the ground, flies simmer on their swollen tongues, the plague spreads everywhere, a stain seeping through the streets, the fields and the homes of Thebes (Sophocles 36-42.14-30). The plague in Oedipus the king is a punishment from Apollo as a result of religious pollution. The symbolic meaning of the plague is the disease of Oedipus killing his father Laios who was king of Thebes and unknowingly marries his mother after Laios’ death. It impacts Oedipus because as King of Thebes the people in which he rules over are suffering and dying due to the plague which consume the town he does not have the power to solve things. …show more content…
He is also considered a great well-known blind prophet of Apollo whose mind remains unshaken” (Homer 10.540-542). Tiresias gift of prophesy allows him to see the true character of people as well as allow him to predict the future. In the play Oedipus the king they think of him as being a “godlike prophet who speaks with the voice of god. He, only he, knows truth. The truth is rooted in his soul” (Sophocles 297-322.409-411). According to Mythology.net Tiresias plays an active role in the tragic events that unfolds regarding Laius and Oedipus the king. After Tiresias is killed by Apollo with an arrow at Tilphussa. His soul entered the first level of Hades immediately. He is visited by Odysseus in Homer the Odyssey. Tiresias informs Odysseys how he should continue his voyage to Ithaca and how to get past Charybdis and Scylla (Mythology.net 2014). In Oedipus the king, he reacts to Tiresias at first inviting as well as seeking his help in healing the town. He wants Teiresias to tell him what the cause of the plague is that infest the city of Thebes and save the town. Oedipus tells Teiresias “only you, my lord, can save us, only you can defend us. Apollo told our messenger did you hear? That we could be saved only by tracing down Laios’ killers, only by killing them, or sending them into exile. Help us, Teiresias” (Sophocles 297-322.416-420). Here we can see that Oedipus
As Oedipus becomes king, his selfishness only grows, as does his denial. As the king, he gained the burden of Thebes whenever a problem arose. To find a way to rid his city of the plague, he sent Kreon so that he would have some answers and be able to place the blame on something or someone.
Oedipus becomes a more admirable character by the end of the play then during the prologue of the play. This is because his history is reveled and his fate seems to be less of his fault and more of something that was doomed to happen to him, also by his drive to help the city of Thebes shows that he cares for the city and his ability to accept his fate but to try and help others from suffering.
This shows his compassion and determination for the city, and that the people of Thebes believe in him to save the city. As the story moves on, his short temper is revealed. Tiresias won’t tell him the truth so Oedipus taunts in for being blind showing Oedipus true colors. Oedipus believes that Tiresias knows more than he is saying; Oedipus is using him as a witness to the murder and looking for clues to solve the crime. “For the love of god, don’t turn away, not if you know something.
The king was someone who the people of Thebes turned to when they needed help, "find us strength, rescue!" p. 161. Oedipus had set himself high social expectations after helping free Thebes "from the sphinx". Oedipus was admired as being "best of men" p. 161, and therefore socially the citizens would have expected him to help them when they needed it. Oedipus was kinder to the citizens and more open with them than was generally expected from a king, "my children" p. 162. He spoke to them directly and not through a messenger, showing the closeness between the people and their king, "Here I am myself..." p. 159.
From the opening dialogue we sense the character of Oedipus. When confronted by his subjects praying for relief of the plague he reacts kingly and graciously, saying, “I am king, I had to come....How can I help?...Ask me anything. Anything at all.” He obviously cares for the people in his kingdom, but he goes on to say how he pities “these poor shattered people of [his].” The pity he feels is rooted not only in his love and sympathy, but his arrogance as well. Perhaps this attitude is duly deserved, for Oedipus had solved the Sphinx’s riddle, an apparently heroic feat, and was seen to be “greater than any man”, but the leader that he had become still possessed the hubristic tendencies which doomed him from the time he fled Corinth.
the play, Oedipus is faced with the truth and fails to acknowledge it. He is first told by the drunk at the party, but he dismisses it as just something said by an ignorant drunk. He then visits the oracle and is told his fate determined by the gods and believes he can escape it by fleeing to Thebes. On his way, he carries out the first part of the fate by killing his father. He then makes it to Thebes and marries Jocasta, unknowingly fulfilling the fate.
The beginning of the play opens up with the dilemma of the plague as explained before. Creon, Oedipus's brother in-law (which turns out to be his uncle), comes from the oracle with the advice to end the plague. He explains the previous leader, Laius, had been murdered, and they haven't found the murderer. More importantly, was the way Oedipus handled the situation. He
What would you do if someone told you you would end up killing your father and marrying your mother when you grow up? You would do anything to keep that from happening, wouldn’t you? Oedipus did in Oedipus the King by Sophocles. Unfortunately, Oedipus fails in avoiding his fate. Faced with a choice between pursuing the truth which everyone tells him would lead to his destruction or accepting a life without knowing any better, Oedipus chooses self-knowledge over self-deception. This makes Oedipus a perfect example of a tragic hero. In Greek drama, a tragic hero is a protagonist of a noble birth who possesses a tragic flaw that leads to his down fall but shows the courage to accept responsibility for his own actions.
Prompt: How does Oedipus see himself? How do others perceive him? Explain how the author uses this juxtaposition to communicate a theme? In “Oedipus The King,” Sophocles uses a variety of themes, and one of them is Oedipus’ own self-discovery. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus is considered the hero, the person who would take the city of Thebes away from the plague.
Plagues were destroying the town, the women give birth to stillborn children, this is what sparks Oedipus to journey and find out the cause of these plagues and problems. “Oedipus: No, I’ll start again—I’ll bring it all to light myself! Apollo is right, and so are you, Creon, to turn out attention back to the murdered man. Now you have me to fight for you, you’ll see: I am the land’s avengers by all rights and Apollo’s champion too” (lines 149-155). The example shows that Oedipus desperately wants to save the town and the inhabitants of Thebes. All his work is in vain because he is blind to the fact that he is the cause of everything wrong with
This shows that he is not a purely evil character because he is saving a life and looking after others besides himself. However, running from what he believes is his fate causes him to run into his real fate which leads to his downfall as a leader. On the other hand, it causes Oedipus to take the position as king of Thebes. Being leader of the city, he is forced into
The priests of Thebes have come to Oedipus to stop the plague that is killing the people of Thebes. They revere him for his knowledge, since he solved the riddle of the Sphix many years before and became the king. As the reader is introduced to Oedipus, they are given many facts about his life so that they become familiar with this man who has done great things. But Oedipus learns from his brother-in-law, Creon who he had sent to Delphi, that Apollo has placed this plague upon Thebes until they "Drive the corruption from the land, don't harbor it any longer, past all cure, don't nurse it in your soil - root it out!" ¹ Oedipus swears an oath before the priests and the chorus (which represents all people of Thebes) that the murderer would be found and driven from the land.
The myth of Oedipus is one of a man brought down by forces aligning against him. Over the years, different playwrights have interpreted his character in various fashions. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus is a man who is blind to the path on which his questions take him and exemplifies the typical tyrannical leader in ancient times; in Senaca’s Oedipus, it is the fear of his questions that give Oedipus a greater depth of character, a depth he must overcome if he is to survive his ordeal.
Oedipus was a victime of fate, his futur was foretold by an Oracle, he had no way of knowing that his wife was his mother nor that the stranger he killed was his father. Oedipus could not prevent his own downfall. Oedipus was the king of Thebes, he became king when he cured the city of a deadly plague. He cured the plague by solving the riddle of the mythical creature, the Sphinkx. Now the city is suffering from another plague and as king Oedipus must solve the riddle of this one.
Oedipus and Tiresias, characters of Sophocles' play "Oedipus Tyrannus," are propelled to their individual destinies by their peculiar relationships with truth. Paranoid and quick to anger Oedipus, is markedly different from the confident and self-assured Tiresias. In the dialogue between the two men, Oedipus rapidly progresses from praise of Tiresias as a champion and protector of Thebes in line 304, to blatantly accusing the blind prophet of betraying the city in line 331, to angrily insulting him in line 334. Rather than be intimidated by the protagonist's title and temperament, Tiresias draws strength from what he knows is true and is able to stand his ground.