Contrasting Portrayals of Fate in Oedipus at Colonus and Oedipus the King Oedipus’s tale of patricide and incest is fixed in the public consciousness, having been immortalized in the present era by Freud’s concept of the Oedipus Complex. Before Freud, however, much of the fame of Oedipus was due to a series of plays by the great Greek tragedian Sophocles. Instead of capturing the public’s attention with a salacious psychoanalytical concept, Sophocles enthralled theater audiences with the story of
versa. In order to draw a contrast between the differing roles of the element of determinism
On the last occasion when I had the misfortune of analyzing E. R. Dodds “On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex”, I came to the conclusion that Dodds had a lot of free time. But his question of “does the Oedipus Rex attempt to justify the ways of God to man” does indeed drive readers to question the famous piece of literature. Yet the theses he came to do not strike me as conclusive. In fact, I disagree with most of his statements. I thoroughly believe that what he labeled as “misunderstandings” are
the Oedipus Rex In "On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex," E. R. Dodds takes issue with three different opinions on Oedipus Rex. I consider the first two opinions, which Dodds gleaned from student papers, to be defensible from a close reading of the text. The first of these opinions is that Oedipus was a bad man, and was therefore punished by the gods; Dodds counters that Sophocles intended for us to regard him as good, noble, and selfless. But the play would seem to indicate that Oedipus, while
Antigone and Oedipus Rex, where it unfolds and leads to the tragedy of these characters. Although both tragedies unravel the destinies of the characters, fate and free play different roles in each poem. However, despite superficial differences between the plots, there is the irony of the futility of free choice present in both poems. These characters use personal initiatives in attempt to alter their tragedies, yet that ‘freedom’ of action is ultimately driven by fate. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus becomes
Individual Responsibility in Oedipus Rex and A Doll's House In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Ibsen's A Doll's House, the main characters - Nora and Oedipus, are both constructed to illustrate flaws in society. Oedipus' psychological evolution sees him begin as an all-powerful, righteous king, who seemingly through no fault of his own murders his father and marries his mother. His evolution ends with his self-blinding, an action which Sophocles' uses to establish the true freedom of the individual