Summary of Oedipus The Kings by Sophocles

Summary of Oedipus The Kings by Sophocles

Oedipus is in a series of tragic events throughout this play. A couple of days after Oedipus was born, he was left on a mountainside to die. The reason for this is because an oracle predicted that he will grow up to be the murderer of his father the King. Oedipus did not die as he should have, instead Oedipus was found and taken to the nearby city of Corinth. This is where Oedipus was adopted as the son of the King and Queen. Many years later, Oedipus seeks counsel from the same oracle that predicted his fate. The oracle does not tell him the identity of his true parents, instead tells him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To ovoid this prophecy, he ran away from Corinth back to Thebes. Oedipus reaches a place where three roads meet, which is called Davlia. He comes across a chariot that was carrying King Laius. He did not know that this was his father and the King of Thebes. They begin to fight over who has the right to go first, and in self defense he kills King Laius; unknowingly fulfilling part of the prophecy. When he gets closer to Thebes, he is stopped by a Sphinx that has to give everyone that travels to Thebes, a riddle. If the travelers were unable to answer the riddle correctly, they would be eaten by the sphinx. Oedipus was the only one that could answer the riddle correctly. The sphinx was amazed that he answered it correctly, so she threw herself off the cliff and killed herself. The people of Thebes were very grateful, in that sense they appointed Oedipus as King and gave him the recently widowed Jocastas hand in marriage. The people of Thebes believed that the King was murdered while trying to figure out the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle. The second par...

... middle of paper ...

...im pass by and if his pride did not get in the way. He would have never married his mother because his father would have still been alive and maybe would have found out who his father and mother were. All of this would not have happened if the herdsman had just left him on the side of the mountain. Since the herdsman did not do that, the blame mostly comes on Oedipus. He could have just stayed with his Corinth parents, but he was scared that he would kill his father, Polybus, and marry his mother Merope. Since he left Corinth, that really did happen, he just did not know it until it was too late. His pride also played a very big role in what happened to him, if he was not that prideful, things could have been different. Even though there are some people who also contribute to his exile, it mostly falls upon Oedipus. He set out to find his fate and his fate found him.