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Connect oedipus to human condition
The relevance of the play Oedipus the king to the society
Connect oedipus to human condition
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Every society his made its mark on history in one fashion or another. Some do so through war, others through technology. However, They are also identified based on their religious views, often being either Polytheistic or Monotheistic. All cultures have found creative ways to tell stories, which often offer some sort of moral lesson. One of the more popular ways of delivering this message has been through plays. Theatre, having its start in Greece, has always been able to represent cultures beliefs; during Antiquity, Oedipus the King represents the polytheistic religion of the Grecian era, while Everyman represents the monotheistic religion of the Middle Ages.
Oedipus the King was written during the reign of the Greeks, who were a polytheistic people. Lawall et al. writes,
Not only did the great characters of the epic serve as models of conduct for later generations of Greeks, but the figures of the Olympian gods retained, in the prayers, poems, and sculpture of the succeeding centuries, the shapes and attributes set down by Homer. ()
The Greeks believed in many gods and oracles. The oracle in Oedipus the King is the oracle of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun. Oedipus the King represents Antiquity best because it encompasses the polytheistic beliefs of the time. It is important to understand the beliefs of the time in order to understand what gave the people hope and motivation to perform all deeds.
Oedipus reassures his people that he is doing everything possible to save them by consulting the gods. Sophocles writes, “I sent Creon, my wife’s own brother, to Delphi – Apollo the Prophet’s oracle – to learn what I might do or say to save our city” (80-82). To the Greeks there is no higher power than the gods; oracles were ...
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...ntroduction. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1-12. Print.
Lawall, Sarah et al. "The Middle Ages." Introduction. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1143-145. Print.
Sophocles. "Oedipus The King." The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 612-52. Print.
Savoie, John. "Abraham and Oedipus: paradigms of comedic and tragic belief." Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 65.4 (2013): 228+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Thomas, Helen S. "The Meaning of the Character Knowledge in 'Everyman'." Mississippi Quarterly 14.1 (Winter 1960): 3-13. Rpt. in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol. 87. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Undoubtedly there has been a tremendous amount of speculation and dissection of this play by countless people throughout the ages. I can only draw my own conclusions as to what Sophocles intended the meaning of his play to be. The drama included a number of horrific and unthinkable moral and ethical dilemas, but I believe that was what made the play so interesting and that is exactly the way Sophocles intended it to be. The play was obviously meant to entertain and portray the author’s own insight. The underlying theme to the play is that no man should know his own destiny, it will become his undoing. This knowledge of things to come was presented to both Laius and Oedipus in the form of prophecies well in advance of it coming to be. The prophecies told of things that were so morally disturbing that they both aggressively did everything in their power to try and stop them from coming true. The story begins with Oedipus at the height of power as King of Thebes. His kingdom has encountered rough times and he has sent his nobleman Creon to seek help from the god Apollo to restore his land. Creon tells Oedipus that he must find the murderer of the previous King Laius and by finding this man and banishing him, his land will be restored. The murder occurred some time ago and King Oedipus sends for the seer Theiresias with his powers of prophecy to aid in the search for the murderer. Sophocles cleverly projects his feelings on wisdom and knowledge through Teirsias when he says “Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise!”(23) Teirsias knows that this terrible prophecy has already been set into motion and the damage has already been done. There is really no point in telling it to Oedipus because it will only cause more harm than good. Oedipus provokes Teirsias into telling him the prophecy, “ Í tell you, king, this man, this murderer-he is here. In name he is a stranger among citizens but soon he will be shown to be a citizen true native Theban, and he’ll have no joy of the discovery: blindness for sight and beggary for riches his exchange, he shall go journeying to a foreign country tapping his way befor him with a stick.
Oedipus is a ‘good king,’ a father of his people, an honest and great ruler, while at the same time an outstanding intellect. . . . He even shares the thro...
Aristotle defined a tragic story as the adventure of a good man who reaches his ultimate downfall because he pushed his greatest quality too far. Sophocles advocates the definition in the tragic play Oedipus Rex. He develops the play with the great polarities of fame and shame, sight and blindness, and ignorance and insight to show Oedipus’ experiences in search for knowledge about his identity. Through his search, Oedipus pushes his quest for truth too far and ultimately reaches his doom. Oedipus’ reliance on his intellect is his greatest strength and ultimate downfall.
The ancient Greeks were fond believers of Fate. Fate, defined according to Webster’s, is “the principle or determining cause or will by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as the do.” The Greeks take on Fate was slightly modified. They believed that the gods determined Fate: “…fate, to which in a mysterious way the gods themselves were subject, was an impersonal force decreeing ultimate things only, and unconcerned with day by day affairs.” It was thought that these gods worked in subtle ways; this accounts for character flaws (called harmatia in Greek). Ancient Greeks thought the gods would alter a person’s character, in order for that person to suffer (or gain from) the appropriate outcome. Such was the case in Oedipus’s story.
Since the beginning of time epic tales have been passed on from generation to generation as a form of entertainment. Even though each epic is different in its plot, every epic has certain features in common. The prime example of their similarities is their main character, the hero of the epic. The hero's behavior changes from the beginning to the end of the tale. Since the plot revolves around the epic hero, in most cases, they are made to seem God-like, or larger then life, in their capabilities and strengths. The hero constantly has to conquer major obstacles to achieve their initial and final goal. Usually the hero is tremendously suspicious of other characters intensions. Also, this character usually demonstrates examples of hubris throughout the tale, which ultimately makes his journey more difficult. The epic heroes differences vary but in the epic tale, The Odyssey written by Homer, and the Greek drama, Oedipus The King written by Sophocles, the differences is what makes Oedipus fail and Odysseus succeed. In both these tales, the powerful gods enormously affect their decisions and the consequences they eventually have to face.
In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles uses a philosophical sense to portray a theme of human will versus fate. Choragos explains to Oedipus that he does not know who the murderer of King Laius, the previous king of Thebes, is. Choragos asks the oracle if it can tell him where to find the murderer. Oedipus responds saying, “But no man in the world can make the gods do more than the gods will” (Sophocles, Oedipus Rex.1.1.267-268), which one can infer that the Greek gods, whom the characters in Oedipus Rex believe in, are very influential in Grecian every day life. Oedipus is stating that the Greek gods have the power to do whatever pleases them and may not grant a wish if one asks. Later on, Oedipus meets with Teiresias, a blind soothsayer who tells Oedipus that Oedipus himself is the murderer of King Laius. Oedipus does not believe Teiresias and alludes to him that he cannot hurt him. When Teiresias responds saying, “True: it is not from me your fate will come. That lies within Apollo’s competence, as it is his concern” (Sophocle...
Oedipus was filled with hubris, and this angered the gods. He believed he was more than a man. These beliefs caused him to ignore the limits he had in being a man. Oedipus needed to look at Teiresias as a window to his future. Oedipus believed that he could take on the Sphinx and rid Thebes of the plague. The plague was the god’s example of the fault of human condition.
In the play, Oedipus the King, blindness is used metaphorically and physically to characterize several personas , and the images of clarity and vision are used as symbols for knowledge and insight. Enlightenment and darkness are used in much the same manner, to demonstrate the darkness of ignorance, and the irony of vision without sight.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, and Oedipus Rex all center on morality in terms of each character’s social behavior from the beginning to the end of the story. Gilgamesh, Achilles, and Oedipus are three central characters that embody strong qualities of strength, however carry different experiences of morality. Furthermore, all three characters hold different moral codes that are dependent on their ability to resolve the unique situations that they are in. Nevertheless, morality has ultimately impacted the character’s perception of their role in society in terms of whether or not their actions benefit someone or something. This paper will be examining the morality of the three main characters as they undergo major character transformations
Many times humans do things that contradict another thing they do. An example of this is one thing may be good but also bad at the same time. A person who has done this more then once is Oedipus in the writer Sophocles plays. Sophocles uses imagery like light verses darkness, knowledge verses ignorance and sight verses blindness.
In Ancient Greece the existence of gods and fate prevailed. In the Greek tragedy King Oedipus by the playwright Sophocles these topics are heavily involved. We receive a clear insight into their roles in the play such as they both control man's actions and that challenging their authority leads to a fall.
“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of Thebes with a dreadful plague. Fundamentally, by utilizing fate, prophecies, the oracle of Apollo, and the plague, the gods played a significant role in the destruction of Oedipus and his family.
This essay will illustrate the types of characters depicted in Sophocles’ tragic drama, Oedipus Rex, whether static or dynamic, flat or round, and whether protrayed through the showing or telling technique.
The priests of Thebes have come to Oedipus to stop the plague that is killing the people of Thebes. They revere him for his knowledge, since he solved the riddle of the Sphix many years before and became the king. As the reader is introduced to Oedipus, they are given many facts about his life so that they become familiar with this man who has done great things. But Oedipus learns from his brother-in-law, Creon who he had sent to Delphi, that Apollo has placed this plague upon Thebes until they "Drive the corruption from the land, don't harbor it any longer, past all cure, don't nurse it in your soil - root it out!" ¹ Oedipus swears an oath before the priests and the chorus (which represents all people of Thebes) that the murderer would be found and driven from the land.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross, in Death and Dying, discusses the stages one goes through when he or she comes to terms with his or her own fate. These stages include Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and the medieval morality play, Everyman, by and anonymous author, both the title characters travel through these stages throughout the plot when they come to meet their fates or misfortunes.