Oedipus Rex Sophocles is able to accomplish to achieve several objectives in his play, Oedipus the King. Sophocles magnificently retells a classic Greek tale while also describing the characters and their motives in great detail. Of the characters Sophocles naturally spends the most time characterizing the protagonist of the play, Oedipus. Sophocles conveys Oedipus' ideals, moral, and opinions about several topics throughout the play. Among the most important and prominent of his beliefs that are revealed dealt with Oedipus' value of reasoning, intellect, inquiry, and measurement.
Sophocles portrayed Oedipus as an amiable character that the Greek audience could sympathize with and perhaps even relate to. The audience saw a respectable figure, who did not seem to commit any blatant evil, come to his destruction. They saw an indubitable tragedy. Sophocles ensured that the audience would view Oedipus as a respectable and plausible hero by giving Oedipus many of the popular sentiments of the time. These ideals were brought about by a philosophy that was thriving in Greece during Sophocles' lifetime. Most of Oedipus' notions, can be traced back to either the dialectic Socrates in who appeared in Plato's several works, or Plato's student Aristotle. These notions were being circulated throughout Greece during the time period which Oedipus was thought to be presented, making them common knowledge for the audience of the time (Friedlander 7).
Of all the virtues that the Greeks, especially the Athenians held dear was wisdom...
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The Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus was written by the renowned Greek playwright Sophocles at around 404 B.C.. In the play, considered to be one of the best Greek dramas ever written, Sophocles uses the now broken down and old Oedipus as a statement of hope for man. As Oedipus was royalty and honor before his exile from his kingdom of Thebes he is brought down to a poor, blind old man who wonders, “Who will receive the wandering Oedipus today?” (Sophocles 283) most of the time of his life that is now as low as a peasant’s. Although former ruler of Thebes has been blinded and desecrated to the point where he is a beggar, he will not give up on his life and on the life of his two daughters Antigone and Ismene, and his two sons Eteocles and Polynieces who were supposed to help their sorrowful father like true sons and true men but instead they “tend the hearth like girls.”(304). Yet Oedipus still gives praise to those who have helped him, his daughters Antigone and Ismene, although he has no sight, is poor, and his life is of no meaning to him, he recognizes honor and loyalty when he sees it:
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The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
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