Comparing A Doll's House and Oedipus Rex Essay

   Oedipus Rex and King Lear are, as their titles announce, both about kings. These two plays are similar in theme and in the questions they pose to the audience. The kings in each play both fall from the pinnacle of power to become the most loathed of all classes in society; Oedipus discovers that he is a murderer and committer of incest, and Lear becomes a mad beggar. Misjudgments occur in both plays, and the same questions about the gods, fate, and free will are posed. In spite of these similarities, however, the final effects of these two plays differ greatly.

*INTRO*The character Oedipus in the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, and the character Othello in the play Othello the Moor of Venice by Shakespeare are both tragic characters. Oedipus ends up killing his father, and marrying and having children with his mother, whereas Othello ends up mistrusting and killing his wife. These two individuals have similarities and differences in several aspects such as the roundness of their characters, the retribution that they incur upon themselves and upon their respective wives whether directly or indirectly, and their horrors.

In Oedipus Rex and A Doll House, there are inevitable elements that contribute to each play’s tragedy. I stand strong in my belief that fate is to blame for the tragic downfall in Oedipus’ life. Nora’s act of leaving her husband and three children is not a justifiable act. Sophocles demonstrates that fate is unavoidable, thus causing fate to victimize Oedipus to a tragic end. Ibsen suggests Nora is so childish that she can’t handle a problem between herself and Torvald, causing her to renounce her husband and their three young children. Nora’s behavior is deemed unjustifiable.

Oedipus the King is Sophocles’ Greek tragedy about a hero’s demise. Unknowingly born to King Laius and his wife Jocasta, the play entails a self-fulfilling prophecy and the unravelling of the male protagonist. Originally a murder mystery, Oedipus the King gradually develops into a journey of self-discovery. The play Oedipus the King has a major reoccurring theme of the Divine and fate, and this is evident through the worship of the Greek gods, particularly Apollo, as well as the importance of the oracle’s prophecies.

As far as Ibsen is concerned, writing is a means to expose many of the discrepancies in the society. All his plays reflect the multidimensional aspects of the contemporary society. A Dollhouse is not an exception. It is remarkable for its thematic and stylistic excellence. At the same time, it is certain social issues, which are of utmost importance of the play.

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

As outlined in the proposal, Oedipus is a tragic hero even though he didn't die because of the facts described by Aristotle satisfies the character of Oedipus. In this story the character's egotism and self-centrism has caused him a different fate, drawing attention of the audiences on the issues that the human behaviors directly affect the human emotions as Oedipus blinded his eyes by himself after finding out the truth. Here the hunger for the truth overshadowed by his grandiosity as explained by Miller has made Oedipus to find out what he hadn't expected. He was just willing to help somebody but as it was overcame from his confidence and proud, the story is able to manipulate the audience's feeling and make feel sorry for the character even though it is already known to the audiences that Oedipus was wrong, as seen from his confident and proud actions. While in Thelma and Louise, the feelings generated to the audience are different. Unlike Oedipus, in Thelma and Louise the human feelings were not played ironically but instead were diverted from characters actions from one wrong action to series of others. Oedipus ends in misery and sorrow of his past but Thelma and Louise ends up surrounded by the results of their wrong activities, which they tried to overcome by running away from it rather than facing it like Oedipus. At the end too, both tragedy shows the different perspective of life. One is with full of pride and

Oedipus and Macbeth are very similar they both went to their demise trying to gain more power and taking responsibility of their own actions. They both become king and was the highest in the land, but they were not able to keep their position. They both went through many conflicts, which help form what happened to them. Internal conflicts was prevalent in both plays, along with conflicts of other people. Both plays were written to teach the audience a

exercising his free choice by making bad decisions . Oedipus certainly meets these portrayals of a tragic hero. The dialect of tragedy consists of two circles: one is a relative point and the other is impacted and the effect on its audience. Sophocles and Aristotle’s achieve that task with absolute clearness. The modern reader, coming to the classic drama not entirely to the enjoyment, will not always surrender himself to the emotional effect. He is apt to worry about Greek ‘fatalism’ and the justice of the downfall of Oedipus, and, finding no satisfactory solution for these intellectual difficulties, loses half the pleasure that the drama was intended to produce . In dramatizing stories, there will dependably blends of passionate sentiments, suspense, and fervor to discover what’s

At the end of both plays, Nora and Oedipus discover their blindness of reality and undergo an emotional breakdown that causes the audience to feel overwhelmed and piteous. Sophocles uses self-blinding, to establish true freedom of the individual while Ibsen simply creates Nora to lead a blind lifestyle that ends up opening her eyes. “Does there exist, is there a man on earth who seizes more joy than just a dream, a vision?” (Oedipus 966), both Oedipus and Nora seek to live the dream life, but realize it can’t exist. Oedipus takes the act upon himself, “You’ll see no more the pain I’ve suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know!” (Oedipus 969). In A Doll's House, Nora Helmer transforms from believing that she is happily married to realizing that she is a mere possession for her husband's entertainment, “You don’t understand me. And I have

Oedipus is a significant and noble human being, that is a King of Thebes. Due to Oedipus royal status, that tragic events that have taken place involving the welfare of his country and of the people. Unannounced to Oedipus his fate has been decided by the Gods, even before he Was born. Willy Loman is an older gentleman having trouble admitting that he is growing old. Loman is very disappointed with life after losing his job. His tragic event, unlike Oedipus does not move a nation, it only touches on his immediate household. Both plays intertwine scenes from the past and the present depicts events in a sequent that are unmatched with their chronological progression. In such a case the crisis scene, getting along later in the report is one able to redirect the play by playing out a decisive causal event for which anyone is liable. Traditional and modern characters differ in the style of words. Traditional language is primarily spoken in Latin, a language that we ordinarily do not speak. As far as Modern characters use language that is spoken in daily life. Modern drama uses symbolism to showing meaning beyond the everyday literal interpretation and expressionist as symbols for characters’ subjective emotions. Traditional plays have a five-part structure of most Greek tragedies: Prologue is the introduction of the play. Parados: is the chorus first song, offering an interpretation of the conflict learned in the Prologue. Episodia: is a series of scenes usually debates between characters, in which the action and events of the play are presented. Stasimon: is the Chorus’s interpretation and response to the proceeding act. Exodos is the conclusion scene, including the final lines of the chorus. The social background of Traditional plays was more spiritual and believing in higher Gods(deus), attending a play was more of worship for the traditional interview, then what we call

    The myth of Oedipus’s incest and parricide has been retold many different times. The basic story line has remained the same. Oedipus leaves Corinth to try to escape a fate of incest and parricide. After he leaving the city, he ends up saving Thebes from the Sphinx, becoming king of the city and in the process fulfilling the prophecy. The character of Oedipus changes in each play to help support a different meaning to the entire myth. Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine and Sophocles’s Oedipus the King are both centered on the myth, yet their themes are different. By changing Oedipus’s personality, motive, relationship with Jocasta, his mother and wife, and his character

A Dollhouse is Henrik Ibsen’s best known realistic problem play. It is about the debt a wife hides from her husband, and the escalation of problems surrounding it occurring around Christmas. The play shocked many viewers because it broke many cultural stigmas at the time. The names, symbols, and dialogue all contribute to the overall impact of the play.

In 1879, Ibsen wrote “A Doll House”. This play lets you get an understanding of what it was like back in that era. You get an eye opener to how much things for woman have changed since that era. Ibsen wanted us to understand that a woman cannot be herself in modern society since the 1879 era was and exclusively man society. He wanted us to understand how Nora, the nanny, and Linde all made scarifies for the ones that they love and over their own real wants. In “A Doll House” you get to travel through many different feelings. Throughout the play, we learn of struggles, secrets, self-deceptions and many others. Let’s breakdown the characters of this play, the plot that is going on, and how things for woman have changed from then to now.

Ibsen also employs the use of many smaller themes within his play, A Doll House. Respect and reputation, love, lies and deceit, and money are just a few of these smaller themes. Respect and reputation are something that the men of this play are obsessed with. Some of the men have good standing in society and would do anything to keep it. While other men have lost their good name and would go to great lengths to get it back. Even though the play is set in a private home, the reader knows that the public eye is constantly peeking in. Another important theme that Ibsen puts in to this play is love. He uses the