Arrogance in Oedipus the King and Job

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In this paper I will be discussing how arrogance plays a major role in literature. Before I begin one needs to fully understand what arrogance is. Arrogance is a state of mind that does not allow a person to think or hear anything of importance if it is not the same thinking or ideology as their own. Many times when a person is arrogant they are better than everyone else, ultimately blinding themselves to the true nature of the situation. In order to illustrate this I will be comparing two literary works, The Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles, and the Biblical text The Book of Job. Oedipus Rex is about a leader, Oedipus, who is on a quest to find out who killed King Laius, and why there is a curse on his kingdom. The first person he goes to is the wise man Tiresias. Tiresias tells Oedipus that he needs to look within himself in order to bring a stop to the curse in his society. Oedipus is not happy with his answer and wants to know the person who is fully responsible for this. Oedipus' arrogance prevents him from suspecting everyone, including himself, as a possible cause of the plague. The Book of Job is about a pious farmer named Job who comes across bad luck. His crops are destroyed, his cattle killed, his children murdered and his house destroyed. This came about because Satan saw how loyal Job was to God and wanted him for himself. The Lord told Satan that he could test Job, doing anything to him except kill him. Job's three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, heard about his misfortune and decided to pay him a visit and mourn with him. Job started to question the existence of God because he was so religious he couldn't figure out why the Lord had punished him in such a way. Job's friends told him the... ... middle of paper ... ...d frustration and also shows that one has done something wrong in order to face such a brutal punishment. Job, on the other hand, doesn't give himself a punishment after he realizes he was wrong. He decides that the suffering he has been through before was enough to go through and everything should go back to the way it was. I believe Job should have given himself a punishment in order to really prove that he had learned something from his experience. In my opinion Job should have fasted a certain period of time just to show that he is aware of God and sacrificing too many materialistic objects isn't always a good thing, but possibly something of a more personal nature. The only way for a person to really understand their arrogance is for someone to bring it to their attention because if one doesn't then the person will not understand that they have done wrong.

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