The issue of fatherhood is extremely relevant both in the play Oedipus Rex and the play Fences by August Wilson. Oedipus struggles with realizing who his father is and whether he will ever be there for him. He doesn’t know his father so doesn’t have a normal father son relationship. Troy seems to be in his children’s life but very minimally. The importance of having a father for a son deeply effects whether that son will be successful, happy, and responsible in their life. Oedipus struggles to find out who is father is and what he does, but this internal struggle will allow Oedipus to build his own future and life. Oedipus’s situation is unique because he believes one person is his actual father, when in reality he is someone else. Both of them play different roles in his life and shape him into the man he makes himself. Oedipus essentially has three father figures which differs from the one father figure in Fences whose name is Troy. Oedipus’s real father, Laius is immediately regarded as an irresponsible father figure who doesn’t care about his child’s life. He leaves him in the wilderness for the wild to take his life because he doesn’t to want to take care of him and the oracle predicted his son would grow up and kill him. This leads Oedipus to struggle mightily through his life to reach power without knowing who his father is or getting support from him. Laius could have saved Oedipus from numerous difficulties and horrible mistakes throughout his life but he doesn’t and as a result Oedipus makes terrible decisions that will affect his life in a negative way forever. As a result of Laius leaving his son in the wild to fend for himself, he leaves the opportunity for another father figure to appear. The shepherd com...
... middle of paper ...
...nately both Cory and Oedipus make it of their ordeals alive, but they are both mightily scarred for life. Oedipus physically loses both of his eyes once he finds out what he done to his real father and mother. If any of his other father figures had informed him who he was, that wouldn’t have happened. Cory has to deal with never being able to see his father again and also knowing that his father died without them reconciling their relationship. However a minor difference for Cory rather than Oedipus is he gets to sing for his father at his funeral in the end. This gives the audience hope that Cory is willing to forgive his father for what he has done. The importance of having a good father sometimes is overlooked in society; they can shape their children into good people or bad or not be there at all for them which could result in a terrible life for their children.
Oedipus made the choices in his life that brought him into contact with his parents. He also
Oedipus is pondering whether or not he could have killed King Laius, they encourage Oedipus. “But wait until you’ve heard the witness speak. Have hope,';
Oedipus at first finds the implications of killing his father and sleeping with his mother difficult to tolerate as a factual manifestation of his past. He disputes the fact that he had caused suc...
Oedipus is the main character in the play Oedipus the King. Oedipus is thought of as a tragic figure because he was doomed from birth. Tiresias, an old blind prophet, told Oedipus' parents about Oedipus' fate. He told them that Oedipus would kill his father and sleep with his mother. So, his parents decided to have him killed, only it did not happen that way. He was passed off by two shepherds and finally to the King and Queen of Corinth, Polybus and Merope to raise him as their own. Oedipus finds his way back to Thebes and on the way kills his father, but Oedipus did not know that one of the men he killed was his real father. This is the beginning of the prophecy coming true. In short Oedipus obtains the throne, Marries his mother and has kids with her. Oedipus' fate has come together without him even realizing what is going on. Eventually he is told what has happened and asks to be banished by his uncle/brother-in-law Creon. The tragedy in Oedipus' life began with his birth and the realization by his parents that his whole life was doomed.
Even though the parents attempted to stop this tragic event from occurring, there was no way to avoid it. For on his travels, he met along the road, a party of men that were traveling as well, but they could not agree on whom had the right of way. This caused a brawl to break loose and many of the men died. Oedipus realized, after speaking with Jocasta, that by this description, that one of the men in the traveling party was really his birth father as well as king, which he had slaughtered by his own hands!
...he has gained insight into his past. Oedipus’s fate is much worse than Creon’s because it results in multiple children that are products on insest. This means that terrible actions committed with ignorance by Oedipus will live on in his children.
The selfishness that Oedipus possesses causes him to have abundance of ignorance. This combination is what leads to his father’s death. After fleeing Corinth and his foster family, Oedipus gets into a skirmish with an older man. The reason for the fight was because, “The groom leading the horses forced me off the road at his lord’s command” (1336). Oedipus is filled with a rage after being insulted by the lord and feels the need to act. The two men fight, but Oedipus ends up being too much for the older man, and he kills him. What Oedipus is unaware of is that the man was actually his birth father and by killing him, Oedipus has started on the path of his own destruction. Not only does Oedipus kill his father, but also everyone else, “I killed them all” (1336). The other men had no part in the scuffle, but in his rage, he did not care who he was killing.
A vital subject in the play Oedipus the King is the relation between the characters action and fate. Oedipus had the choice to either let destiny play its course, but as seen in the play Oedipus’s chooses his own downfall, he choose free will. His persistence to uncover the truth about his past and his identity are substantial. Fate on the other hand is accountable for many other important and disturbing events in the play one being responsible for Oedipus marring his own mother. Sophocles clearly suggests that both fate and one’s action works hand on hand, it is clear and becomes difficult to judge Oedipus for incest given his unawareness.
Oedipus is a story about a few basic human emotions. Among them are rage, passion, humility, and guilt. The Ancient Greeks understood these emotions well; their society was based upon the logical emotions, but always threatened by the violent ones. Oedipus was at first told that he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Fearful of himself, he fled showing a lack of humility away from his home, thinking that his problems would be solved. Later on, he gets into a tumultuous fight with a passerby on the road to Thebes. Enraged, he kills the man and his servants; this turned out to be a big mistake. After saving the city of Thebes from the Sphinx, he marries and then passionately sleeps with the queen. Towards the end of the play, he realizes that he has indeed killed his father and married his mother, thus echoing the lack of humility that first drove him away from his adopted parents.
The play "Oedipus Rex" is a very full and lively one to say the least. Everything a reader could ask for is included in this play. There is excitement, suspense, happiness, sorrow, and much more. Truth is the main theme of the play. Oedipus cannot accept the truth as it comes to him or even where it comes from. He is blinded in his own life, trying to ignore the truth of his life. Oedipus will find out that truth is rock solid. The story is mainly about a young man named Oedipus who is trying to find out more knowledge than he can handle. The story starts off by telling us that Oedipus has seen his moira, his fate, and finds out that in the future he will end up killing his father and marrying his mother. Thinking that his mother and father were Polybos and Merope, the only parents he knew, he ran away from home and went far away so he could change his fate and not end up harming his family. Oedipus will later find out that he cannot change fate because he has no control over it, only the God's can control what happens. Oedipus is a very healthy person with a strong willed mind who will never give up until he gets what he wants. Unfortunately, in this story these will not be good trait to have.
However in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus only comes to power when his father, Laius is killed by him at a crossroad when his father refused to step aside. With his father dead and Thebes without a ruler the people gave Oedipus the throne and his mother, Jocasta hand in marriage as was custom during the time after solving the sphinx’s riddle and liberating the kingdom and earning the people’s respect. Knowing not that Jocasta and the man who was killed by him at the crossroad was his father and mother. Providing irony later as the play develops, and Oedipus comes to fruition that it was him who slew his father at the crossroad.
Oedipus finds out that he is the killer of King Laius and will become the archetypal sacrificial scapegoat for the city of Thebes. Throughout this passage from the play, Oedipus is continually gathering incriminating evidence against himself from the source of his own wife and mother, Jocasta. He discovers through her attempted reassurance that his quest from Corinth set his fate to be the killer of his biological father and the sacrificial scapegoat for the welfare of the people and land of Thebes.
Oedipus was born with a terrible Prophecy. From the start it was foreseen that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. His parents, Laius
Oedipus discovers that the child of king Laius, and queen Jocasta was sent away to die as a child. As he seeks for the reason for this child being sent away he stumbles upon the fact that the child was prophesized to kill his father and he would lay with his mother. From this he became suspicious that the child may be him. He realized that while he had been considered a hero at the same time he had been doing what the oracle told him he would do.
Poor Oedipus discovers that he had killed his father and married his mother at the climax of the play when the Shepard is questioned. He states "I stand revealed at last - cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!"³ He then finds his mother after she has committed suicide and proceeds to gouge out his own eyes with her brooches.