Oedipus Character Analysis

Oedipus revelation of the truth has come from his incessant probing and abusing of the truth holders. Despite this awful crime Oedipus takes responsibility and no longer wants to see, he then gouges his eyes in the final symbolism. He now has complete sight but does not wish to see anything. Did Oedipus take the necessary steps to void the prophecy? Indeed Oedipus left Corinth to attempt to resist the prophecy of the oracle, yet he makes destructive choices to kill a man old enough to be his father, them marries a woman old enough to be his mother.

Oedipus and his family take action to ensure the prophecy of him killing his father and sleeping with his mother would not come true. The play is saturated with irony. Oedipus steers himself directly into his fate after trying to avoid it for most of his life. While fate played a small role in spurring Oedipus' actions, he ultimately brought his ruin upon himself.

Oedipus' persistence lands him our criticism, at this point we cannot criticise Jocasta as she tries to help him, and warn him about what will happen is he persists. Although Jocasta tried to murder her son, Oedipus, to save her husband and herself from the terrible prophecy foretold at Oedipus' birth, Oedipus still deserves most of our criticism. He chose to murder another human being, through no fault of Jocasta's. She honourably tried to save her husband by having her son murdered although the person meant to do it couldn't go through with it.

(I, ii, 156-159). Hamlet's conscience tells him what is wrong-in this case, the hasty marriage-but he is ambivalent as to how to approach it; before he meets the ghost, silence is his method. When Hamlet meets his father's ghost however, he feels sure of himself, and knows what he must do. As a result of the dialogue with the ghost, Hamlet's conscience makes him feel that revenge is the best method to deal with the problems that face him. The consciences of Hamlet, and to a lesser extent, Claudius, affect their decisions in the play.

According to Jocasta, “Apollo said that he would die at the hand of a child-- of mine”, meaning that King Laius was warned that if he married Jocasta and had a child with her it would result in his own downfall. Laius, of course, disregards this warning, sentencing all characters to suffer for his misdeeds because he meets the conditions. Inversely, Oedipus’ punishing fate is resultant of this decision rather than of his own actions. He is the tool that must be used to bring calamity on the house of Thebes without option. On several occasions he does everything that he can to avoid misfortune, but in his attempts to avoid calamity, his resulting actions spurn on the inevitable.

Though the gods controlled the characters’ lives it had been the limited free will of the characters to choose the path that would ultimately lead to their demise. This is demonstrated when Oedipus heard that “[he] was foredoomed to make [his] mother [his] wide, and kill [his] father, with [his] own hands shedding his [fathers] blood.”(Sophocles, 1005-1007) “[... Oedipus] fled away, putting the stars [b]etween [him] and Corinth, never to see home again, that no such horror should ever come to pass. (Sophocles, 796-797). Not wanting to be a victim of his fate, Oedipus had left the home of his parents because he had not wanted to kill the people he thought to be his parents. It was his free will that had lead him to Thebes.

At this point he remembers his father and how he was killed without ever revealing his own sins and gaining redemption. I feel that Hamlet couldn't kill Claudius yet because he wanted him to be killed while committing another sin, which would send him to hell or be trapped in purgatory. He doesn't want him to escape damnation. He is waiting to catch him red handed doing something villainy. He needs his revenge to be dramatic.

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is told of two prophecies. The first prophecy is that he will kill his own father and the second is that he will marry his mother. Upon hearing these prophecies, he leaves Corinth to prevent them from occurring. By believing that Polybos and Merope are truly his parents, Oedipus believes that by leaving them the prophecy will be prevented. Oedipus’ original intention was to avoid hurting his parents through murder and incest, when in fact the prophecy eventually came true in regards to his biological parents.

Within the play comes power which bring upon madness, causing corruption. Each individual character has their own way to fight for the power they seek. Hamlet, Claudius, and King Hamlet are the ones who seek it the most in the play. Hamlet wants and feels the need to avenge his father, Claudius fights to keep the thrown away from Hamlet and to keep the truth from spilling out, and King Hamlet seeks out his sons help to take vengeance on his brother Claudius for his death. Although Claudius and King Hamlet do not become mad with power the fight for power make them corrupt and make them lose their morals and cause them to have no barrier as to what they will do to keep them from losing it.

In addition, as the play progressed, Oedipus also demonstrated animosity. When Teiresias informed him of the truth that he was the murderer, Oedipus became angry and began insulting and accusing Teiresias of Laois’s murder. For instance, when ... ... middle of paper ... ...th, causing him to demonstrate anger, violence, and impatience. On the other hand, in the play Trifles, Mrs. Hale’s secretiveness, observance, and carelessness, left a murder case out in the cold- unsolved. This illustrates how behaviors may have some affect toward people’s actions.