Therefore, Oedipus’ strong desire to seek the truth is what leads him to his ironic downfall. Sir Tyrone Guthrie makes sure that everyone who has information belonging to the murder of King Laius or Oedipus true parents comes to Oedipus rather than him seeking the information. This shows how all the answers are being fed to Oedipus but he does not make any sense of it. Creon foreshadowed Oedipus downfall when he explained that “time alone shows a just man, though a day can show a name” which led to Oedipus gauging out his eyes for the wrong doing he did (Guthrie, Oedipus Rex, 33:13). Sigmund Freud would recall this from his patients having unresolved feelings for their parents that led them to get sick or self-inflict themselves, like Oedipus, as punishment. Though, Freud’s patients have also “…imagined themselves killing
Although Oedipus’s fate was already determined, he is not just a mere puppet of the gods, meaning he can control his own life. Before full knowledge of his unintentional incest, he tries to flee town in order to avoid marrying his mother. By doing this he is taking matters
Oedipus Rex is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles around 400 BC. The play is about the king of Thebes, Oedipus and his discovery on how fate is inevitable. In the play, Thebes is under a curse because their last king was murdered and no one knows who the murderer is. Oedipus takes it upon himself to discover who had killed the king and in doing so he discovers that the murderer is indeed himself. He learns this through a prophecy he had heard that stated: he would kill his father and marry his mother. Which occurs when he kills a traveler on the road and marries the queen of Thebes, who is his biological mother. In the play, Oedipus is a man full of hubris as the reader observes him denying the truth, time and time again until the evidence is undeniable. The other characters in
He constantly tries to outwit the gods and their celestial will. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus does everything he can to help Thebes and its people. He sends Creon to the oracle to get advice from Apollo. Creon then brings back news that Apollo says to get rid of the chaos and products left behind from king Laius’ death, and because Oedipus honors the gods, he vows to find Laius's murderer and punish him for his doings (Fitts and Fitzgerald 6). The reason Oedipus leaves his home and comes to Thebes is to escape the prophecy made by the oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He trusts and honors the gods until he is accused of being the man who does this terrible things. He becomes so focused with trying to find the man who killed the king that he stops listening and respecting the gods and all of the people trying to make him understand the truth. His relationship with the gods overall falters because like many others, he respects the gods, but eventually, he begins to try to figure this mystery out by himself instead of understanding his fate given to him by the gods (Fitts and Fitzgerald 34). All of these characteristics provide examples of how his fate is
In Aristotle's work, the tragic hero can get caught up by hamartia which ends up leading him to his downfall. In Oedipus the King, which is a tragic play that is written by Sophocles it shows King Oedipus having many different flaws that are under the protection of hamartia that include madness, stubbornness, and pride that soon that end up leading to his final death. Oedipus shows an attitude of stubbornness during the progression of the play. Oedipus' stubbornness is uncovered early in the play when Tiresias who is a prophet of Apollo, mentions to Oedipus to terminate the investigation of Laius' killer. Oedipus quickly disagrees with him, he wants to find the man who murdered Lauis and brought the plague upon Thebes. Oedipus states, "By all the gods, do not deny us what you know. We ask you, all of us, on bended knees." Tiresias' persistence to withhold the truth is demolished by Oedipus' stubbornness and madness. Tiresias surrenders to Oedipus' stubbornness and states the truth which outrages Oedipus; "...The murder of the man whose murder you pursue is you." Oedipus stubbornness is so overpowering that he disregards Tiresias' bluntness without even a slight thought. Oedipus' statement, "To your heart's content. Mouth away!" which obviously shows his stubbornness when he disregards Tiresias' prophecy and regards it as gibberish. Oedipus' stubborn persistence will ultimately lead to his mother's death. At the end of the play Oedipus becomes aware that he was adopted and instantaneously investigates his origin. Jocasta, Oedipus' wife hesitantly encourages Oedipus to end his identity search, fearing that Oedipus would learn of his shameful sins of killing
Oedipus was a powerful man that had his life ruined by his excessive pride and selfishness. The same qualities that helped him to rise and become the king of Thebes also caused him to feel a lot of pain. He lost everything that he had gained in a short period of time. Oedipus learned that having power was not all that he thought it was. His life had been a lie and he actually didn’t know anything about the place he was born until he was instructed to save it. Oedipus himself caused his downfall with his selfishness and pride.
In Sophocles play Oedipus the King, Sophocles depicts the horrible fate of Oedipus, a pompous, arrogant young ruler. The story begins in the Greek town of Thebes. A plague has descended upon the Thebians causing death and famine throughout the land. Oedipus, being the heroic king, takes full responsibility to find out the cause of their aliments. While working to discover the source of the plague, Oedipus stumbles upon the tragic truth of his heritage and the horrifying implications of his appointment to the throne. Unfortunately for Oedipus, everything ends in tragedy. With the suicide of his mother/wife and the self-inflicted blindness followed by exile from Thebes, Oedipus paved the path to his own
Oedipus is the former king of Thebes, he has an unfortunate prophecy that seems to be the stem of his psychological problems. His prophecy states that he is destine to kill his father and lay with his mother. Oedipus tells me that after hearing this he fled what he thought to be his home country to save himself and his parents. He unknowingly fled to Thebes, his actual home country, kills his birth father, solves the riddle of the sphinx granting him the title of King and sleeps with his birth mother unknowingly. I have been studying this patient through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and I have found his psychological state very unstable.
Oedipus was the King of Thebes who is investigating to find the murder of their friend Lais. The citizens were begging Oedipus to lift the plague and save their city Thebes. Oedipus sent Creon out to try to figure out some deals on the murder of Lais, but little did Oedipus know that he himself killed Lais. If they find the man who murdered Lais this will end the plague. Oedipus then comes to find out that he is one of the suspects of Lais murder. When Oedipus was a young boy, that he is destined to kill his father and marry his own mother Oedipus’s later find out that his father is Lais. His real parents abandoned him, so the shepherd gave Oedipus to Lais and Jocasta. Oedipus then realizes he was the person to kill his father Lais. He also
As he searched out his past, Oedipus met his downfall, unable to accept how the prophecy came true in the end. This prophecy stated that Laius, the king of Thebes, would have a son who would kill his own father and marry his own mother. When Oedipus realized that he had killed his father, Laius, and married his mother, Jocasta, he created the consequences of his actions. The fatal flaw that orchestrated his downfall was hubris, which then resulted in being brash and stubborn. Oedipus was prideful of being Thebes’s savior and the fact that he was portrayed as a good king that could provide the people’s needs. However, when he found out that he had fulfilled the prophecy, he felt that he was unworthy of his position and did not deserve to
Oedipus The Rex was a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles first performed in 429 Bc. Oedipus was the king of Thebes and his first goal of the story was to find out who murdered Lauis. Oedipus summons an oracle who he demands to tell him who the killer is. The oracle replies that he does not wish to tell the king anything, outraged the king demands an answer. The oracle tells Oedipus that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus is outraged naturally at his apparent future and mocks the oracle for being blind, then the oracle says he is blind. Throughout the play we see that Oedipus is a great guy well loved by the people of Thebes. He is very intelligent, a natural leader but unfortunately is fatally flawed. His hamartia is that he can not simply let things go in life which ultimately leads to his own ruin and others he loves. His ruin in life comes when he has the sudden realization of what he has done. He does fulfill his prophesy of killing his father and having sexual relations with his mother without even being aware of the situation. No great person would ever want to ruin their
This triggered his frustrating, inequitable fate to arise, which made him fit Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero. Oedipus’ only problem wasn’t just that he couldn’t control his temper; he also was full of himself, in other words, Hubris. Hubris is a tragic flaw in which he or she has excessive pride. When Oedipus believed he could overcome fate, he showed excessive pride when he commented, “Ah! Why should a man respect the Pythian hearth, or give heed to the birds that jangle above his head?” (50). He thought he overcame his fate when Polybos died, so he said there is no reason to follow or believe any of it. Greeks, like Aristotle, believe fate is unavoidable and it can’t be changed; so, when Oedipus truly believed he could defy his prophecy, that was highly frowned upon. Oedipus’ fate consisted of killing his father and marrying his mother subsequently having kids with her. On his way to Thebes, he killed King Laius out of rage at the crossroads and all of the witnesses except for one, who got away. Not thinking anything of it, he takes over the throne after defeating the Sphinx and marries Jocasta, who bore his four children. If Oedipus was smart, to avoid his fate, he could have just never wed or kill anyone; his fate couldn’t have been avoided because of his temper and just plain stupidity. Hamartia is the tragic flaw which causes the downfall. Oedipus showed no control when
Oedipus the King is a tale that starts out with the city of Thebes suffering from a drastic plague and their king, Oedipus wants to find out why. Creon is sent to find the reason why the plague is occurring, and sends Tiresias to tell Oedipus the oracle. The oracle says that the murderer of Laius must be found and punished. This caused Oedipus to proclaim that he would do everything so that he could to find the murderer. Tiresias says that the murderer is Oedipus, but Oedipus is quick to disagree. Oedipus came to the towns of Thebes because of a prophecy that was given to him. He was told that he was to kill his father and even sleep with his own mother. Once the story comes to an end, the
Oedipus the King is perhaps one of the most famous and influential of Sophocles' plays. It is a tragic play which focuses on the discovery by Oedipus that he has killed his father and married his mother. On the surface of this drama there is, without a doubt, a tone of disillusionment.
Oedipus the King is a tragedy that displays irony throughout the play. In the play, King Laius and his wife Jocasta learn that in the prophecy their newborn son, Oedipus, will kill his father and marry his mother. In order to prevent the prophecy from occurring, they decide to bind and tie his ankles and then abandoned him. When Oedipus grew up, he eventually learned about this prophecy and decided to leave his parents. What he did not realize was that the parents who raised him were not his biological parents. On his voyage to Thebes, Oedipus ended up in a chariot accident