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Themes of oedipus
The literary philosophies of Sophocles
Literary analysis of oedipus the king character
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Oedipus the King, was a play by Sophocles, it takes place in the city of Thebes. The city swept with a plague, it was just like the one in Athens (Kennedy 710). The plague encourages Oedipus to find and exile the man who murdered Laios, the former king. Throughout the play Oedipus portrays his ignorance and innocence, but then he begins to question his upbringings and realizes the truth about his life. “...Oedipus gets his name through a complex pun. Odia means “to know” (from the root vid-, “see”), pointing to the tale’s contrasting themes of sight and blindness, wisdom and ignorance” (Kennedy 710). This is a reoccurring theme that is shared between Oedipus and Teiresias which is ironic because Oedipus is blind to the life he leads and to his birth, he is also very ignorant and places the murder on everyone except for himself. This eventually kills Oedipus due to his self request of exile, he knows death is the only plan God has for him because all mortal punishment will not do.
Throughout the play Oedipus was blinded by the situations of his life and he never noticed the foreshadowing that occurred in each scene. This is the idea of dramatic irony, better defined as, “A situation in which the larger implications of character’s words, actions, or situations are unrealized by that character but seen by the author and reader or audience” (Kennedy 417). He is oblivious to the comments and characters around him and even with the setting. He was unable to link all of the similarities himself, he was eventually revealed his life from the Shepard and the Messenger. “ If any man knows by whose hand Laios, son of Labdakos, Met his death, I direct that man to tell me everything, No matter what he fears for having so long withheld it” (Ke...
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... to the controversy of murder and incest, that created an entertaining plot.
Oedipus the King struggled internally and externally once he discovered that he was the murderer of his own father, and that his mother was also his wife. He demanded exile and knew his death was going to be brutal, but he would not be able to live with himself and his conscious until he was dead. This play has so many intriguing symbols, themes and motifs that it keeps the reader focused at all times. His life as king was his good fortune but his painful undiscovered past led to his death, “Consider his last day; and let none Presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain” (Kennedy 752, lines 297-300).
Works Cited
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.
In Sophocles’ Oedipus The King, King Oedipus of Thebes is confronted. and strangely obsessed with the mystery of who killed Laios. former king of Thebes, for a great plague has overtaken the city of. Thebes because of this murder. During his quest for the truth, he begins to discover that the answer to his query is also the answer to another disturbing mystery about himself, who am I?
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 4th ed. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Boston: Pearson, 2006. 69-76. Print.
Here one sees that even after obtaining all this knowledge Oedipus, who does not believe any of it, goes on his journey to find Laius’ murderer. At this point one theme makes itself clear, Oedipus refuses to accept the truth in his life, and Sophocles makes it a point to bring this up several times through the use of tragic irony, symbolism, and repetition throughout the play.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2012. Print.
Sophocles has Oedipus foretelling his own tragedy when speaking to the people of Thebes. The city suffers because of the pollution of Oedipus, and irony is shown when Oedipus suggest that by avenging Laius he will protect himself, or that by getting children upon Jocasta, the dead king's wife, he will be taking the place of the son of Laius, which, unknowingly, is himself. The irony reaches its peak when Oedipus calls on the prophet Tiresias to help uncover the murder of Laius and seek an cure to the plague; the metaphor of vision is ironic in that the blind Tir...
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...
Oedipus was once an amazing king but he did not know himself. He did not know about his childhood, where he was from or even his parents. If he would have known about his horrific childhood or maybe even who his parents were, his life would have been dramatically different. He would have never known about the prophecy and no one would try to cover-up what he had done to save his dignity. Throughout this entire play Oedipus is striving to find himself, sort out the lies of the murder and learn his fate.
In “Oedipus the King,” an infant’s fate is determined that he will kill his father and marry his mother. To prevent this heartache his parents order a servant to kill the infant. The servant takes pity on the infant and gives him to a fellow shepherd, and the shepherd gives him to a king and queen to raise as their own. The young prince learns of the prophecy and flees from his interim parents because he is afraid that he is going to succeed. The young prince eventually accomplishes his prophecy without even knowing he is doing it. He murders his father and marries his mother unknowingly. While it may seem to some that Oedipus was destined to carry out his fate, it is also true that Oedipus’ personality led him to his fate.
In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, the reader finds Oedipus as an overzealous king, but one that cares deeply for the people who are under his rule. After solving the mystery of the Sphinx and under the belief that he has escaped the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother, Oedipus’ self-confidence goes into over drive. His compassion, for the pain and suffering his people are under, causes him to pronounce a curse on the murderer of Laius. Unknown to the king, he is condemning himself for the crime he committed years ago.
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.
Dramatic irony in Oedipus the King is evident throughout, which is similar to the latter play, but in a different form. In here, the irony is evident. Oedipus the King revolves around characters' attempts to change their destiny (which fails) - Jocasta and Laius's killing of Oedipus and Oedipus's flight from Corinth. Each time somebody tries to avert the future, the audience knows their attempt is futile, creating irony. When Jocasta and Oedipus mock the oracles, they continue to suspect that they were right. Oedipus discounts the oracles' power, but believes in his ability to uncover the truth, yet they lead to the same outcome. His intelligence is what makes him great, but it is also what causes the tragedy. When he ridded Thebes of the Sphinx, Oedipus is the city's saviour, but by killing Laius and marrying Jocasta, he is its affliction, causing the blight that strikes the city during the opening. Meanwhile, the characters, especially Teiresias, mention sight, light, darkness, &c as metaphors, while referring to `seeing the truth'. However, while Teiresias knows the truth and is blind, Oedipus can see all but the truth. When he discovers the truth, he becomes blind. Also, he does not just solve the Sphinx's riddle - he is its answer. His birth is mentioned throughout the play (crawling on `4 legs'), and he never relies on anybody but himself (`standing on his own `2 legs'),...
In the beginning of the play Oedipus is told about the oracle’s message on how to get rid of the plague on Thebes. He is told that the only solution is to find the murderer who killed the old King named Laius. Oedipus the hero quickly agrees to the find the murder for the sake of
Oedipus Rex is a classic example of a Greek theatre tragedy, written by Sophocles, and first performed in 429 BC. The story features Oedipus, the King of Thebes, and his story to lift the curse off of his kingdom by finding the previous king’s murderer and prosecuting him. In a crazy turn of events, it turns out that Oedipus is actually the son of the late King Laius, and his father’s killer. Due to a prophecy divulged to Oedipus’ father, Oedipus was left at a crossroads when he was a baby because it was told he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. Coincidentally, the entire time they were searching for the murderer, it was Oedipus himself who did the deed, and Oedipus who had to suffer the consequences of the preceding actions.
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.
According to Bernard Knox, “these attributes of divinity – knowledge, certainty, justice – are all qualities Oedipus thought he possessed – and that is why he was the perfect example of the inadequacy of human knowledge, certainty, and justice”. The lack of these qualities pushed Oedipus farther from the truth and closer to his great downfall. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus’ tragic downfall was caused by his alleged certainty of knowledge, his rash actions and judgment, and his unwavering sense for justice.