Jocasta Is To Blame In Oedipus Rex

Often the past will present answers to questions about the future as well as questions of the now, and in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’ past plays an integral role in his pursuit of righting the wrongs that are affecting him in the present. In the play, Oedipus must identify who has killed Laius in order to exile them to solve the qualms of his people, and in a dialogue with Jocasta, who happens to be his wife as well as his mother, she reveals to him details of the death of Laius that seem far too familiar for his comfort (Sophocles 27). This revelation of information acts as a catalyst that forces Oedipus to make the connection between his past and what Jocasta is telling him. This realization that he may have been responsible for Laius’ death exposes him to the weight of the pursuit of justice sometimes hold for humans. Through this dialogue, Oedipus comes to fear that he is the culprit of the scandal that is plaguing the situation, thus putting him in the position of a criminal who will face the due punishment for the crime. This internal conflict that Oedipus experiences creates and

Oedipus, outraged at the accusation, denounces it as a plot of Creon to gain the throne. Jocasta appears just in time to avoid a battle between the two men. Seers, she assures Oedipus, are not infallible. To prove her point she cites the old prophecy that her son should kill his father and have children by his mother. She prevented its fulfillment, she confesses, by abandoning their infant son in the mountains. As for Laius, he had been killed by robber’s years later at the junction of three roads on the route to Delphi.

The messenger reveals that Polybus and his wife are not Oedipus’s real parents. Oedipus was brought to palace to be raised after being found by a Sheppard. Oedipus asks that this shepherd reveal the truth to him, but Jocasta begins to beg him not to stop to try and find out the truth. The Sheppard finally reveals that Oedipus is son of Laius. Oedipus screams when he realizes the truth about his parents. A messenger says Jocasta has hanged herself, and Oedipus has chosen to stab out his eyes. Oedipus now declares he must be punished and exiled. He asks Creon to look after his daughters, Antigone and Ismene. Creon accepts the ascendency to the throne.

In the end, Tiresias explains that Oedipus is to blame for Laius’s death, for he is the murderer. Oedipus naturally denies the claim and accuses Creon and Tiresias of conspiring against him, so that Creon can gain power. Even though Oedipus is in denial, he still adamantly seeks the truth held by the shepherd. He sends for him, and upon arrival the shepherd was timid to reveal the truth. Oedipus responded by calling to the guards, “Twist his arm back, quickly! (line 1269)” In the end of this scene Jocasta, wife of Oedipus, realizes the truth behind who her husband really is, and that the prophecy had been fulfilled and runs away. Oedipus then continues to question the shepherd further because he still fails to see what is right in front of him.

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

As this drama progresses, Oedipus begins connecting the dots and restoring his vision. When Jocasta explains how her husband died to Oedipus, he says, “I have a terrible fear the blind seer can see” (823). Oedipus is now suspecting that the prophecy is true because of the similarities between Laius’ death and the man he had killed. He begins to stop worrying about his ego and

As a precursor to the story, King Laius of Thebes was told that he would one day die at the hands of his son. In an attempt to ensure this fate would not come true, Laius ordered that his and his wife, Jocasta’s firstborn child’s feet be pinned together and the child be abandoned on a mountain. Behind Laius’ back, the child was saved and brought to Polybus, king of Corinth, whose childless wife, Merope, took the child as her own, naming him Oedipus. Another fate enters into the story when the Delphic oracle tells Oedipus that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. Believing the oracle was referring to Polybus and Merope, Oedipus vowed to never to return to Crointh and instead traveled to Thebes.

Oedipus rises as a hero, but eventually loses his power when he faithfully commits to terrible deeds. Jocasta, the wife and mother to Oedipus, doubts that the oracle of Apollo is genuine. Since she and her previous husband, King Laius, left Oedipus to die in the mountains, they refuse to believe the oracle. She claims that “ ..It was fate that he should die a victim at the hands of his own son, a son to be born of Laius and me. But, see now, he, the king, was killed by foreign highway robbers at a place where three roads meet” (Sophocles, 493: 791-796). Despite Jocasta and Laius’s intentions to change their fate, the prophecy remains unfeigned. The fact that Oedipus is alive even after being abandoned, is evidence that their fates are

Did the punishment of Jocasta and Oedipus fit the crime? No because Jocasta wouldn't have killed herself and everything would be fine if the shepard would have did what he was told and killed the baby, and as for Oedipus it was his fault for killing king Laios but it wasn't his fault for commuting incest because the oracle told him he couldn't escape his fate but instead Oedipus ignored the oracle. The Shepard of King Laios played a big role in ruining everybody's life.

In Oedipus the King by Sophocles the mother Jocasta spent years married to her biological son, and bore his children. The play was written as a Greek tragedy in which the characters have a fatal flaw, and this applies to Jocasta. Right after King Laius and Queen Jocasta have their son Oedipus they receive startling news from the Oracle in which it is predicted that one day their son will rise up to kill his father, then marry and sleep with his mother. In order to avoid this King Laius decided to kill their son, and Jocasta willingly agrees. After years pass by, King Laius gets killed by a passerby, Jocasta is to marry the riddle solver, and life continues as normal. Almost all at once Jocasta’s life shatters, she finds out that her husband was killed by her son, she married her

In Sophocles’ tragic drama Oedipus the King, Oedipus, the king of Thebes, suddenly realizes that he killed his father and marries his mother. Oedipus shows great concern for his kingdom and his people, calling to “drive the corruption from the land” by bringing Laius’s murderer to justice (109). He summons Tiresias to find Laius’ murderer, but Oedipus becomes enraged when Tiresias accuses Oedipus of being the murderer. Oedipus, thinking that Creon is involved in this so-called conspiacy as well makes false accusations against Creon. Much to his surprise, however, Oedipus learns that the man he killed long ago is Laius, his father, and that Oedipus’ wife, Jocasta, is his mother, all in

In the establishment of the play, Jocasta and Oedipus seem as though they are a traditional royal husband and wife, with ordinary children. They love each other, unaware of the truth. Jocasta illustrates what she did to her son as a consequence of an incestual and sinful prophecy that her son would someday kill Laius and marry her, as told by an oracle. She reveals that she and Laius fastened their son’s ankles and left him on a mountain to die. She declares, “[...] My baby / no more murdered his father than Laius suffered -- / his wildest fear -- death at his own son’s hands” (794-796). While both

One moment, Oedipus is brimming with hope; the next, he’s sure that he is the killer of his father, King Laius. Every time Oedipus thinks that it can’t possibly be him, evidence proves otherwise. His wife, Jocasta, attempts to prove his innocence but “lets out part of the dire secret by her allusion to the ‘triple crossroads’” (Haigh). By attempting to assist Oedipus, she

Jocasta rejoices, convinced that Polybus’s death from natural causes has disproved the prophecy that Oedipus would murder his father. At Jocasta’s summons, Oedipus comes outside, hears the news, and rejoices with her. He now feels much more inclined to agree with the queen in deeming prophecies worthless and viewing chance as the principle governing the world. But while Oedipus finds great comfort in the fact that one-half of the prophecy has been disproved, he still fears the other half—the half that claimed he would sleep with his mother.

The competing representation of the god’s in “Jocasta” and Oedipus are portrayed differently in each. In Jocasta, the narrator describes that Jocasta’s motive for committing suicide was because she did not want to be the gods fool as she describes, “no longer will I be their fool” (Eisenberg 303). Eisenberg seems to blame the gods for the prophecy, which may lead the audience to believe that Eisenberg, herself, may not believe in god, or may believe that she cannot control her own life, and that god controls her life. Meanwhile, in Oedipus The King, the gods are portrayed as very brave, powerful, and strong. The citizens of Thebes look up to the gods as the chorus describes, “on their good fortune all the citizens gazed with envy” (Sophocles