Fall Of Oedipus Rex

Discuss whether or not a hero who is tragic by trait and definition can exist within the structure of the monomyth.

Change is inevitable. It could be in a person’s looks, personality, beliefs or way of thinking. Changes can be categorized under two main types. Changes that take place in nature we have little or no control over. We cannot, for instance, switch the time of tides, which anyway, wait for no one.

Edith Hamilton agrees that “the human mind played no part at all in the whole business” (176). Three oracles are introduced. An oracle is a communication pathway between mortals and the gods. The first oracle predicts a murder. Laius, the king of Thebes, hears the prophecy that his son will kill him. The second oracle predicts that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. The third and final oracle states that whoever can solve the riddle of the Sphinx will win the throne of Thebes and Iocaste as his Queen. These three oracles serve as the backbone of the story. Knowing these, the audience sits back to wait the turn of events. Reading the play while knowing the oracles can be compared to watching a movie for the second time: you still think the characters will make a different decision. However, these characters are the victims of fate, and their actions have already been planned out, or have they?

Sophocles indicates that the instinct to know ourselves makes up our decisions. A powerful man worries about what he does not know. Making it a struggle to break away from the unawareness of the situation. In the play Oedipus deals with this as he states, “I will speak out now as a stranger to the story,/ a stranger to the crime./ If one of you knows who murdered Laius,/ I order him to reveal/ the whole truth to me(Sophocles 247-261).” He must get the truth to stop the plague in Thebes and to save himself. Actions inevitably bring to light his fate after he “awakens” to the destruction. The image of blindness in the play is brought up later. The blind prophet Tiresias described blindness as an inability to see the truth. The king can not see and does not even know himself but still wants the truth. Tiresias implies that Oedipus is, “blind to the corruption of your life,/to the house you live in, those you live with(471-474).” Tiresias proves he is blind to his fate full of disaster. Warning him about the corrupt details of his life. It is because Oedipus lack of the knowledge of his fate limits him. He created his own path through searching and comes to realize this. His never ending search for truth is his destruction. Jocasta realizes this saying, “You’re doomedㅡ/ may you never fathom who you are(1172-73)!” Oedipus own wife knows his fate but he's still unaware. His self-recognition ruins his life. It

From the very beginning, what makes Oedipus ' actions in his quarrel with Teiresias and also throughout the play so dramatically compelling, is the fact that the audience knows the outcome of the story. We know Oedipus ' fate even before he does, and there is no suspense about the outcome itself, instead, the audience anxiously awaits Oedipus to reveal his fate unto himself in his desperate quest to rid his city of the terrible plague, or maybe even more so, to simply discover his own unfortunate tale. Oedipus is relentless in his pursuit of the truth, and his determination is commendable. There is nothing that compels him to act in this way, instead he freely chooses, with much zeal, to initiate the chain of events that will ultimately lead to his downfall. It is this interplay between Oedipus’ own free will and his fated eventuality that is the crux of the play, and constitutes the main dramatic power.

Originally, Oedipus is blinded to the truth because of his selfishness and ignorance in order to preserve his throne as king. As a matter of fact, Oedipus thought Creon was plotting against his him, he states

A feeling of fear forms in the audience because they know what Oedipus had done. The fear felt among the cast is mirrored in the audience as they wait for the truth to be revealed to Oedipus himself. Although Oedipus had murdered his father, married his own mother and had children with

The fear and dread carry on throughout the play as Oedipus goes on in search for the truth of his past. Towards the end of the play, once Oedipus finds out of his past, the audience experiences pity. The people feel bad that Oedipus had been so blind and oblivious to the truth. Accordingly, one could argue that the audience also felt

So in conclusion Oedipus the King ends up knowing who and what he is. He ends up knowing where he came from, all to end up losing in the end because he had married his mother and killed his father.It is easy to lead a life of luxury and heroic actions, but to live one thats is a lie and not realize that a person has ended up exactly where they didn't want to be is

Famed for his clear-sightedness and problem solving abilities, the great ruler of Thebes is unable to recognize the truth in the prophecy of the oracle. Oedipus’ fatal flaw is his hubris; he believes he can overpower the oracle and alter fate. The chorus asserts that “Pride is the germ of kings; Pride, when puffed up, vainly, with many things unseasonable, unfitting, mounts the wall, Only to hurry to that fatal fall” (31). The king’s ego is extremely puffed up, leading him to think that he could not be the culprit behind the unforgiving famine plaguing the city. Oedipus opts to live in a perfect world, believing that he is the savior of the people of Thebes for defeating the Sphinx, and that he has a god-like essence. The king is prideful and sees himself as almighty due to his misconception that he changed his fate. Oedipus does not recognize, however, that he indeed has fulfilled his prophecy by killing his father and marrying his mother; his will to live in an illusion led to the king’s fall after he realized his mistake in denying the prophecy. Since the truth is so unpleasant, Oedipus chooses to not recognize it and

In this piece, Oedipus and the Oracle of Delphi can be clearly seen as two completely contrasting characters. On one hand, there is Oedipus, a supposed young Prince of noble birth, heir to the throne and living in the lap of luxury, and on the other there is the Oracle, wise and perceived as elderly in her wisdom. She can be seen as humbling and mature from her experiences as prophetess, making her position even more respectable to the immature and sheltered Oedipus, who attempts to provide an offering of wealth which is seen as useless in front of the blessed prophetess of the heavens, raising her almost to a point where trivial material things do not interest her. This is due to the gods and the fates, who are frequently mentioned with references

When the priest says, “You came to Thebes, you freed us from the tax we paid with our lives to that rasping Singer...we need now the great power men everywhere know you possess. Find some way to protect us”(41-50), it exhibits how great of a leader and hero he was to the city. The deeper he searched for the man to end this plague, however, the more horrid it got. The more information he received, he began to connect the pieces from his past. Not only did he figure out the man he killed on the path was king Laios, but it was his biological father. His fear of the prophecy that the oracle told him was becoming true. play gets even more tragic as he realizes that the queen he had four children with was his mother, who kill herself before he finds the truth. Oedipus gauged his eyes outs after seeing her dead body. Oedipus was blinded from the truth his entire life. When he finally learned the truth about himself, it blinds him.

     From the very beginning of the play, we can already see that Oedipus is a great but flawed man. He proves to us

The Greek drama “Oedipus The King” evidently leads to the unveiling of a tragedy. Oedipus, the protagonist of the play uncovers his tragic birth story and the curse he had been baring his whole life. Oedipus is notorious for his personal insight that helped him defeat Sphinx, which lead him to becoming the king of Thebes. He is admired by the people of Thebes and is considered to be a mature, inelegant and a rational leader. From his birth, his story began with a prophecy that Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Through out the play numerous people, who tell him of his unknown past, visit Oedipus. Blind to the truth he casts them away until a blind man named Therisis gives a sight of truth to Oedipus. As Oedipus learns the truth he realizes the great evil his life carries. After finding his wife and also mother hung in her bedroom, Oedipus blinds himself with the gold pins that held Jocasta’s robe. Oedipus blind to the truth is finally able to see when the old blind man visits him and tells him the truth about his life. Both metaphorically and physically sight plays a significant role in understanding the irony of a blind man seeing the truth while Oedipus who isn’t blind doesn’t seem to the truth that’s right in front of him.

“Oedipus Rex” was a Greek Tragedy written by Sophocles in the fifth century BC. It was the first of a trilogy of plays surrounding the life of Oedipus. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays approximately 100 years before Aristotle even defined a tragedy and the tragic hero. Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy is “… an imitation of an action of high importance, complete and of some amplitude; in language enhanced by distinct and varying beauties; acted not narrated; by means of pity and fear effecting its purgation of these emotions” (Kennedy and Gioa 2010). According to Aristotle there were six elements to a tragedy: the plot, the character, the