How Does Oedipus Suffer

In the three Stories Oedipus, Othello, And Challenger deep They all displayed how reaching out for help can benefit you or how not reaching out can hurt you. The three Characters Oedipus, Othello And Caden all showed how they needed to seek help and how it benefited them getting help or how it hurt them to not get the help they needed. In Oedipus Oedipus never got the help he needed, Oedipus talking about the murder he says “ Let the man drag out his life in agony, Step by painful step” (sophocles). This is exactly what Oedipus put himself through because he did not reach out for help, If he had gotten the help he needed and was offered maybe his journey would not have ended so tragically.

Luckily for Oedipus, he has both. Though he is portrayed as a great king, he can also be seen as prideful and easy to anger. Knowing the truth of King Laius’ death, Tiresias councils Oedipus not to search for Laius’s killer, which only provokes the king’s anger. After quarreling back and forth for quite some time, Tiresias finally reveals what he knows in an enraged outburst. “I charge you, then, submit to that decree you just laid down: from this day onward speak to no one, not these citizens, not myself.

Oedipus’ fatal flaw, which is his temper, is revealed upon his arguments with Teiresias and Creon, and then of course, when the mystery is actually solved.

At the beginning of the play, Oedipus uses verbal violence to threaten Tiresias. A plague has struck the city of Thebes, and Oedipus learns from Kreon that the plague will only end when the murderer of Laius has been caught. When Oedipus asks Tiresias for help, Tiresias initially refuses to share what he knowns and instead comments about Oedipus’ inability to see the truth. However, Oedipus becomes infuriated and insults the blind prophet. “Now I see it all. You helped hatch the plot…with your own hands…Old man. You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf- senses, eyes blind as stone” (103-104). The quote is an example of verbal violence because Oedipus curses and insults Tiresias, accusing the prophet of conspiring against him with the help of Kreon. Tiresias then introduces another riddle, telling Oedipus that the murderer of Laius is both the father and sibling to his incestuous children, and also the son of his beloved wife. When Oedipus mocks Tiresias for answering only in riddles, Tiresias responds with, “Ah, but aren’t you the best man alive at solving riddles?” (105). As described here, Oedipus presents himself as extremely confident in his ability to untangle puzzles, but this ultimately leads to his own downfall. Given these examples, it is evident that Oedipus’ use of verbal violence against Kreon and Tiresias accurately illustrates his

The characters in the play Oedipus The King, by Sophocles, respond to suffering in a variety of ways. Characters like Tiresias respond altruistically to protect others from the truth, other characters similar to Oedipus tend to approach these situations with gall and are hasty with allegations, and the remaining characters respond like Jocasta with disbelief and extremity. Ironically, although suffering is painful and destructive, the way the characters dealt with suffering brought each of them to find the true value of clarity and healing that can be found when suffering.

Is Oedipus fated to suffer? Will be what happens in life is " [a] attempt to justify the ways of God to man?" (E.R. Dodds 35). Is Oedipus the King ‘’ a tragedy of destiny’’ (Dodds 35) an example of what can happen in life?

Throughout the play Oedipus is driven by many factors to find the killer of King Laius, and while on that mission, he inquires much about his past and himself. One of his main strives is to find out his true identity. The city of Thebes is struck by a plague due to the death of King Laius. The Oracle of Delphi states that in order to rid of the plague, Oedipus has to commit himself to finding the murderer of the dead King Laius. Oedipus shows allegiance by going on a

He finds the murderer of Laius as he vowed to and drives him out, but it would surely have been better for Oedipus to stay ignorant of the truth. Tiresias and Jocasta both warned him away for his own good, but the nature of fate and destiny in Greek tragedy ensures that they could not have done anything to stop him. Oedipus’ success in discovering Laius’ killer was ordered by the gods. He only started his search for justice when Creon came back from Delphi with the news that the murderer must be punished to drive out the plague. Because of this command from Apollo as well as Oedipus’ own drive to seek justice, his success was

First, Oedipus understands that injustice is put on his kingdom. innocent people who did not harm or have any part in the murder of the King are being punished. “For you, for loyal Thebans, and for all who find my actions right, I pray the favor of justice, and of all the immortal gods"(Sophocles 15). Oedipus knows that this curse is not fair and he is determined to find the murderer. “Apollo, when we sent to him, sent us back word

I killed them all. Ah! If Laius is this unknown man, there’s no one in this world so doomed as I” (Sophocles, 45). This evidence manifests Oedipus’ act of greatness, as he does not attempt to conceal his crime or hesitate to find out more about the incident. Oedipus does not think about hiding the truth or deny killing the king, even when Jocasta pleads for him to stop investigating the incident.

At the beginning of Oedipus Tyrannos, we can see Oedipus true nature, as he is extremely confident of himself, sure about who he is and where he comes from. One of the most repeated themes in this play is blindness. The word “blindness” is used as a metaphor rather than its literal meaning, it can be found multiple times throughout the play. Sophocles here makes sure that Oedipus suffers because he doesn’t actually know who he really is, and almost avoided finding out the truth, if it wasn’t for his arrogant nature. Despite how ugly the truth may sound, despite Jocasta begging him to forget about it, and continue living without knowing the truth. Oedipus condemns himself by finding out the truth. His blindness seems to be the cause of his downfall, if he would have been more

At the beginning, Oedipus is ignorant and is constantly avoids and ignores the truth in order to protect his reputation. Oedipus’ unwillingness to open his ears to the truth develops when Tiresias reveals that he killed Laius and one of his responses is, “Your words are nothing-- / futile” (416-417). Although Oedipus begged to hear Tiresias’ words, he was not willing to pay attention or open his eyes to the unfortunate idea. Oedipus pushes aside the words Tiresias says, refusing to believe that he could be the one who killed Laius, the one who must be cursed. Later, Tiresias brings up Oedipus’ ignorance saying “you’re blind to the corruption of your life” (471), and telling him a few lines later that “No man will ever / be rooted from the earth as brutally as you” (488-489). Oedipus was put in his place and blatantly told that he is ignorant but his rise to knowledge will also bring his demise. Sophocles foreshadowed using Tiresias in that way, but Oedipus was so into avoiding any confrontation with the truth at the beginning that he would respond calling Tiresias’ visions “absurdities” (494). Therefore, even though the truth has been revealed to him, Oedipus still chooses to remain blind to the truth in order to remain good in the eyes of his people.

In this quote Oedipus wants to remove all of the entities that a human needs to live and prosper away and basically wanting the have the murderer exiled. Oedipus seems to believe that he exists as a godly figure and that he has all power to rid this person of necessities like holy water, shelter, and prayer proving his arrogance throughout “Oedipus the King”. Therefore, this quote reiterates the unmistakable reality of Oedipus’ obliviousness to the actuality that he can remain the only true culprit according to the prophecy. Oedipus deliberately tells the people of Thebes to exclude him from all these religious matters. Nonetheless, Oedipus does not realize this because in his arrogance Oedipus remains certain that he by no stretch of the imagination could have conducted such a ferocious act upon King Laius of Thebes for no apparent reason at all.

Through the course of the play Oedipus is the detective, the judge, and the jury. He investigates, decides a verdict, and carries out his own punishment. When Tiresias arrives at Thebes Oedipus questions him looking for answers. Tiresias is a blind man, who ironically can see the future and truths of people’s lives. It is Tiresias who is the first person to tell Oedipus that he has killed his own father. He tells Oedipus “you do not see the evil in which you live.” Oedipus doubts Tiresias’ ability to see the truths because of his physical blindness and states, “ You

Pain is now and forever. Everyone suffers for one reason or another and it is this suffering that pushes people to completely change in order to catalyze themselves from the agony, but what if the catalyst is the cause of the suffering in the first place? While Oedipus struggles through his pride, Sophocles seeks to dive into the deeper meaning of life and addresses up the question, “Is ignorance the ultimate cause of human suffering?” which, through the plot of the story, Sophocles attacks the blindness people cast upon themselves so that they can hide from the darker aspects of the world when truly, they are only inviting more agony into their lives. His antidote is also his poison.