Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Critical analysis of the moral dilemma of oedipus the king
The characterisation of Sophocles's king Oedipus
The characterisation of Sophocles's king Oedipus
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Were we to temporarily embrace the theories of Freud in our analysis of Oedipus Tyrannus and subsequent plays, we would find ourselves with an incestuous protagonist, so mad in his quest to power that he seeks to kill his father and will stop at nothing to achieve this. It is where Freud misconstrues the very essence of the play that the audience is intended to find its meaning. Were Oedipus aware of his actions throughout the course of the story there would have been no story. Never once was he in the conscious pursuit of his father’s death or mother’s marriage bed, and upon hearing of his own actions falls into crippling despair. The difference between what Freud theorizes of the King and what it is believed Sophocles intended of him, is the simple possession of knowledge, and the repercussions, both good and bad, it carries.
Oedipus, in his great glory, infinite wisdom and kind, genteel treatment of his subjects goes his entire life without making a decision for himself. His very existence has been set up by the Gods, a plaything, an example. Even still, he spends his life searching for answers, leaving home and using his extensive intelligence to eventually save a kingdom, of which he has no inclination is his own, and become a king. What possesses this man to follow the path of knowledge as it leads him from commonplace royalty to ultimate greatness and then to the darkest despair? Under the umbrella of human weakness it’s actually two traits that compel Oedipus to so gallantly follow the pursuit of knowledge, the sin of ego and the humanism of fear.
While these two personality traits don’t necessarily go hand in hand there are multiple instances where ego steams from fear or fear from ego. Throughout the story they bec...
... middle of paper ...
...abs his own eyes out. The message is clear. He did not see what was in front of him the whole time, so desperate for the absolute knowledge, the knowledge of the Gods and greatness, that he had refused to recognize the evidence right before his own eyes. It is the knowledge that he does not deserve to know anymore that forces Oedipus to tear his eyes from his head. He had overstepped his boundaries and he was repaying the Gods. He was setting the example.
Oedipus is the ultimate anti-thesis of himself. He is brilliant and naïve, wanderer and King, blind and seer. But in the end, despite the flaws, despite the greatness, he is human. And the great Greek Gods wanted men to remember that, to stay in their place. The taste of glory, whether consciously or not, became too compelling for Oedipus. Human weakness, in his pursuit of the truth, proved to be his downfall.
Oedipus's pride leads to the story's tragic ending. He is too proud to consider the words of the prophet Teiresias, choosing, instead to rely on his own investing powers. Teiresias warns him not to pry into these matters, but pride in his intelligence leads Oedipus to continue his search. Oedipus thinks he can change fate. He just tries to ignore it, because he counts on his own ability to root out the truth. Oedipus is a clever man, but he is blind to the truth and refuses to believe Teiresias's warnings. He suffers because of his hamartia. I t is this excessive pride fuels his own destruction. I would just say Oedipus is a tragic hero.
Oedipus can be argued to be a sympathetic ruler of his people, "my heart must bear the strain of sorrow for all." (4). He shows a strong desire to rid the land of its despair. Yet as the reader captures a more in-depth glimpse into Oedipus' soul, we find him to be a jealous, stubborn, "blind", guilty, and sinful man. Oedipus' character outwardly seems to want nothing more than to find the guilty persons involved in the murder of Laius, yet when given obvious clues he turns a blind eye, not wanting to know the truth behind the prophecy.
All three opposing arguments show a different side of Oedipus than that of arrogance. Oedipus’s actions were that of comfort, not arrogance, that led him to blind himself and leave in exodus. Oedipus’s main intentions were to prevent the pain of sight. “I do not know how I could bear the sight. Of my father, when I came to the house of death” (Sophocles, Exodos 143-44).
Ironically, he initially became a King by solving a riddle and now he is trying to solve another to try and maintain his image and control his destiny. “Human happiness is built on an illusion” (Dodds 27). This quote is a good connection to the role of Oedipus, because while attempting to keep the Kingdom under control and keep his image unharmed, he is left in the dark by ignoring the signs. The irony of ignoring the past continues when “Creon brings the information that there will be no relief until the murderer of Laius is expelled from the city… [And] the murder mystery slowly becomes a quest for Oedipus ' identity” (Derrida). Building upon the investigation, Oedipus grows a keen interest for who he truly is. Is there any truth to the prophecies that which he and Jocasta have seemingly forgot about? At this point, it seems as though Oedipus must finally face his fear and discover the truth that he has been avoiding for so long. The only way for Oedipus to find out the lies he has been living is to seek for the only witness of his father’s murder, a shepherd. Only until Oedipus threatens to kill the shepherd does he tell the truth and reveal the tragic events which have been avoided for so long. In this moment before certainty of the past is brought to light, the relationship between self-control and self-image is linked and soon to be changed
Oedipus the King is a great epic, written by Sophocles that discusses Oedipus’ journey to find his own identity. Most importantly, this epic challenges even the noblest of human beings by portraying a theme between personal convictions versus the force of fate. Throughout his journey, Oedipus encounters these challenges through several oracles, in which he has a difficult time interpreting and accepting. Nevertheless, King Oedipus, being a man with great curiosity and determination, seeks for these answers and makes an attempt to alter his own fate. Consequently, Oedipus fails, and is met with the horrific events that he was so determined to escape from.
Oedipus the King conveys many lessons that are relevant to people living today despite the fact that it was written by Sophocles twenty four centuries ago. Oedipus is a child destined to kill his father and marry his mother. During his life, he makes many mistakes trying to avoid his fate. These mistakes teach us about the nature of humans under certain circumstances. Oedipus possesses personality traits which causes him to make wrong decisions. Attributes like arrogance and his inability to make calm decisions in certain scenarios due to his anger causes his downfall. Oedipus’ excessive pride, like many people today, was an important factor that brought him grief. Oedipus’ lack of patience caused him to make hasty decisions which lead him to his greatest agony. Oedipus’ massive ego turned into excessive vanity, this was the first step to his downfall. Oedipus talks to Creon about the murderer of Laius. He declares, “Then I’ll go back and drag that shadowed past to light… but by myself and for myself I’ll break this plague” (Sophocles, 11). Oedipus is saying that he will be the on...
Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (19621960). The Ego and the Super-ego. The ego and the id (pp. 19-20). New York: Norton.
Poet and Scholar Robert Graves wrote in 1995, “Myth has two main functions. The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as ‘Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?’…The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs.” Oedipus the King written by Sophocles in 430 B.C. focuses around the second function that Graves noted. The play has been around for centuries, has evoked psychological theories, and will remain a classic. Sophocles has managed to touch on social, ethical, psychology, and more importantly philosophical issues in one play. Perhaps one of the most popularly known psychologist, Freud, was able to develop the theory that every child has a desire to sleep with their mother and kill their father. This is called the "Oedipus Complex". Oedipus the King tests all psychological boundaries for the reader by evoking self identification through the tragic concept of fate and using the literary tool of the chorus to internalize all of the emotion.
Oedipus is a hero, as defined by Johnston. According to Johnston, ‘a hero is someone who confronts fate in a very personal manner and whose reaction to that encounter serves to illuminate for us our own particular condition’ (Johnston, Part 2). Oedipus definitely confronts fate in a personal manner. Among other things, he challenges the mysterious qualities of fate by pursuing the Shepherd despite warnings from Jocasta (Sophocles, 71). Oedipus follows through on confronting fate with his individual approach of uncompromising persistence and integrity (Johnston, Part 3). Even at the end of his downfall, Oedipus maintains that Kreon should banish him and that he must obey the curses he himself ordered for the murderer of King Laios (Sophocles, 89-90). Despite being so broken and publicly shamed, Oedipus still persists with his former way of interacting with fate : noble defiance (Johnston, Part 3). Although this quality itself is admirable, Oedipus takes uncompromising to the extreme, losing insight on everything else. Oedipus becomes ignorant to his surroundings, leading to his downfall (Johnston, Part 3). Oedipus’ story also challenges the fundamental belief that life should be rational and just. (Johnston, Part 3) His story illuminates that fate is arbitrarily cruel and will sometimes pick the gre...
Initially, Oedipus is a confident leader who believes he is educated and knows the truth about himself and the land he presides over, Thebes. This is because he was proclaimed the most famous man alive as a result of his answering the Sphinx’s riddle to save Thebes from a tragic epidemic. However, at the beginning of the play there is another plague causing grief to the members of Thebes, and Oedipus goes so far as to say that he will stop at nothing to rid Thebes of this pollution. He states, "Each of you grieves for himself alone, while my heart must bear the strain of sorrow for all--myself and you and all our city’s people. No I am not blind to it," (p.4). Yet in essence he is blind to it because he is the indirect cause for the epidemic in Thebes. Oedipus finds out that the cause for the Epidemic is that nobody came forth as an avenger in the murder of King Laius. Oedipus then states, "I shall not cease until I bring the truth to light. Apollo has shown, and you have shown, the duty which we owe the dead," (p.5). This is ironic in that Oedipus vows to make the truth come to light so that everybody can see it, including himself. Moreover, th...
Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother, with whom he produces four children. These are terrible crimes, impious, immoral and illegal. However, the fact that he carries these out in ignorance, not conscious of his own actions, attributes them to severe misfortune and a cruel fate. He even tried, in vain, to avoid the completion of this destiny, leaving his believed home city of Corinth upon hearing it told to him at the Oracle of Apollo ("I heard all that and ran" 876). Thus, when it is revealed to him, this sudden revelation of his crimes within one day leads him to blind himself so that he can no longer see what he has done ("Nothing I could see could bring me joy" 1473). The blinding was not required by fate and is indeed self inflicted but he believed that it is just punishment for what he has done, and by doing so he regains some control over his fate ("hand that struck my eyes was mine...
The myth of Oedipus is one of a man brought down by forces aligning against him. Over the years, different playwrights have interpreted his character in various fashions. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus is a man who is blind to the path on which his questions take him and exemplifies the typical tyrannical leader in ancient times; in Senaca’s Oedipus, it is the fear of his questions that give Oedipus a greater depth of character, a depth he must overcome if he is to survive his ordeal.
When he discovers what he destined to do, he tries to avoid it because he realizes the tragedy of the prophecy. During Oedipus’ rule of Thebes, he was a benevolent king who only wanted to do the right thing for his people. Near the beginning of the play, Oedipus displays a large amount of care for his citizens: “I grieve for these, my people, far more than I fear for my own life.” (Sophocles 159). However Oedipus’ benevolence is set aside for his other ambitions, like discovering his past. When Oedipus discovers what really happens, he becomes distraught, and eventually punishes himself in many ways, but in doing so also reveals that he cares about doing what is right for his people, his children, and for
Oedipus Rex, an ancient Greek tragedy authored by the playwright Sophocles, includes many types of psychological phenomena. Most prominently, the myth is the source of the well-known term Oedipal complex, coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s. In psychology, “complex” refers to a developmental stage. In this case the stage involves the desire of males, usually ages three to five, to sexually or romantically posses their mother, and the consequential resentment of their fathers. In the play, a prince named Oedipus tries to escape a prophecy that says he will kill his father and marry his mother, and coincidentally saves the Thebes from a monster known as the Sphinx. Having unknowingly killed his true father Laius during his escape, he marries the widowed queen of Thebes, his mother Jocasta. Many events in the story should lead to suspicion of their marriage, but out of pride and ignorance Oedipus stubbornly refuses to accept his fate. Together, these sins represent the highest taboos of Greek society, revealed by Socphocles’s depiction of the already pervasive story. Before the Thebian plays, the myth centered more around Oedipus’s journey of self-awareness; meanwhile, Sophocles shows Oedipus’s struggles with his inevitable desire toward his mother throughout these stages of psychological development.
Oedipus was willing to die to uncover the truth. Closure was needed for Oedipus the individual and Oedipus the king. Despite this need for closure, Oedipus remained blind to the clues in his path, plainly dismissing the ideas of other characters. Oedipus’ passion for knowledge was at least as strong as his blindness to the clues in his path. This blindness can be attributed to his pride. This pride gradually developed from h...