Oedipus Rex Rhetorical Analysis

Oedipus is extremely upset in this paragraph. You can tell because he is using words like weep, bitterness, and brilliant rites unfinished. This reinforces the reversal by stating about how he is extremely upset by the suicide of his mother/wife. He this follows this by saying his goodbyes to his loved children and lives out his life where Oedipus’s mother and father wanted him to die. He now has to live with this heart tearing truth.

Oedipus’ foolish decisions ultimately lead to his downfall in the play. Oedipus chooses to kill Laios. He chooses to marry Iocaste. He chooses to forcefully, and publicly, assume the mission of discovering the identity of Laios’ murderer saying ironically, “I say I take the son’s part, just as though I were his son, to press the fight for him and see it won,” (633). He proceeds on this mission and chooses to ignore the warnings of Creon, Iocaste, Teiresias, the messenger, the shepherd, and anyone who attempts to stand between him and the truth; and, he chooses to blind himself. In the end, Oedipus’ most foolish choice prevails throughout the play; the choice of illusion over reality ultimately costs him his life.

Oedipus doesn’t realize the personal consequences his hunt for the murderer will have for him, and his loyalty to the truth is based on his ignorance. His pride, ignorance and unrelenting quest for the truth ultimately contributed to his destruction. An example is when Oedipus was told [after threatening Tiresias], that he was responsible for the murder of Laius. He became enraged and called the old oracle a liar. However, Oedipus thought he could outsmart the gods, but in fact, his every action moved him closer to the prophesy becoming a reality. Upon discovery of the truth of his birth from the herdsman, Oedipus cries, “O god all come true, all burst to light!/O light now let me look my last on you!/I stand revealed at last cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands”. (631). Oedipus knew that his fate had indeed come to pass and feels cursed by it. Oedipus was guilt, of killing his father and marrying his mother. He punishes himself for the sins he committed by gouging out his eyes. The true sin is when he attempts to raise himself to the level of the gods by trying to escape his fate. Oedipus is accepting the full burden of his acts and knows that he must be punished for his sins. Therefore, this last act of gouging out his eyes was the result of Oedipus’ free will and his tragic fate came about because every sin must

However despite Oedipus’ best efforts and reassurances, he was unable to avoid the prophecy that he was destined from birth to fulfil. Oedipus eagerly attempts to discover the truth, acting determinedly and scrupulously exposing himself to the reality. When Sophocles states “Laius was murdered, but not by his own son” it shows an example of dramatic irony. What the characters easily accept is that the Gods have already decreed their fate even before they were born, and that the possibilities to overcome their destiny are inexistent. For example, Oedipus was condemned such a miserable destiny because his father, King Lauis, went against the God’s will, by having a male child. This concept was readily accepted in an ancient Greek society where it was believed that gods constantly interfered in the lives of humans, making them do whatever they thought was right. This shows their powerless and vulnerable position compare to the mighty Gods. “Thou hast no power // o’er me or any man who sees the sun” is said by Oedipus to show that no human being can have control over him, but only the God’s.

Finding out who his true father is seems important for someone who has just been told he will kill his father. Nor is Oedipus particularly intelligent about the way he conducts himself. Even though he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents, he still does kill a man old enough to be his father and marry a woman old enough to be his mother. One would think that a man with as disturbing a prophesy over his head as Oedipus would be very careful about who he married or killed. Blindly he pursues the truth when others warn him not to; although he has already fulfilled the prophesy, he does not know it, and if he left well enough alone, he could continue to live in blissful ignorance. But instead he stubbornly and foolishly rummages through his past until he discovers the awful truth. In this way, Jocasta 's death and his blindness are his own fault.

When the Greeks received bad prophecies, they often tried to avoid their fate through actions of their own. When Laius hears that his son will kill him, he tries to avoid it. He, along with Iocaste, pins their child’s legs together and gives him to a messenger to be disposed of on a mountain. However, out of pity for the boy, the messenger gives the baby to a shepherd of a nearby town, Corinth. Thus the boy grows up to become Oedipus. Later in his life, Oedipus learns

This denial causes him to make decisions that only lead to his downfall and further deterioration. He himself leads to his own downfall through his foolish beliefs. To further, Oedipus makes more destructive decisions when he summons the Sheppard to reveal who the murderer of Laius is. Oedipus says, “I must pursue this trail to the end, till I have unraveled the mystery of my birth” (Sophocles, 113), illustrating his mental deterioration considering that this obsession to deny his position as the murderer is consuming his life. Oedipus forces the Sheppard to tell the ill-fated truth and is told: “I hadn’t the heart to destroy it, master” (Sophocles, 118), demonstrating that Oedipus was the cursed baby who was sent to his death, but as fate had planned, Oedipus lived. Not only did he live, he went on to accomplish each revelation the Oracle declared he would. At the end, once the truth has been revealed, Oedipus reaches his breaking point and cannot bear the truth. His mental deterioration from discovering the truth consequently influences him into literally blinding himself, resulting in his downfall. These examples establish how Oedipus’s internal madness played the role of influencing him into believing he could alter the will of the Oracle. He displayed madness when he continuously denied the truth despite the evidence that went against his beliefs. He was blinded by madness into

The tale of Oedipus and his prophecy has intrigued not only the citizens of Greece in the ancient times, but also people all over the world for several generations. Most notable about the play was its peculiar structure, causing the audience to think analytically about the outcomes of Oedipus’ actions and how it compares with Aristotle’s beliefs. Another way that the people have examined the drama is by looking at the paradoxes (such as the confrontation of Tiresias and Oedipus), symbols (such as the Sphinx), and morals that has affected their perceptions by the end of the play. Nonetheless, the most important aspect is how relevant the story is and how it has influenced modern ideas like that of Freud and other people of today.

There was an oracle told to Oedipus when he was younger that he would kill his father and wed his mother. Jocasta tells Oedipus that prophets are not correct all the time. She went on to tell him that she once bore a child to Laius, and Apollo told them that this child would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. At that point Oedipus was scared because of the oracle told to him when he was younger. It is ironic that Oedipus could have this much guilt placed on him in this short amount of time. He replied to her, "As I listen, my queen, my thoughts went reaching out and touched on memories that make me shudder..."(lines, 759-760). Oedipus has just reacted to what Jocasta, his wife/mother, has told him. He is terrified because he believes that he may have been the one who killed Laius. Oedipus goes on to ask Jocasta multiple questions about who, what when and where this all happened. After every answered question Oedipus reacted with more and more grief. Every question showed more and more evidence that Oedipus had been the murderer of Laius. When the messenger

When demanded the answer as to who the murderer was,Tiresias told Oedipus that he, was the “defiler of this land,”(30).Essentially, Tiresias was telling Oedipus that he was the unclean that needed to be driven out of the land. Angered, outraged, and confused, Oedipus could not accept this truth of hearing he was the murderer, and further insulted the blind prophet.Similarly, Oedipus’s pride falsely led him to think that he could escape his fate that he was told about in the prophecy. While in Corinth, Oedipus went to a shrine of Apollo, where he was told a prophecy in which he would marry his mother, have unnatural children, and murder his father. “The oracle of Phoebus Apollo said that I/ Must kill my father, lie with my mother. /This drove me out of Corinth. I regret nothing - /I have married happily, raised a family, known the sweetness of power” (61). Oedipus believed that since he escaped his “parents” from Corinth, he escaped his fate and was free of murdering his father and marrying his mother. Because he did not believe in oracles nor know Laius was his father, he was certain at this point that he indeed was not king Laius’s murderer, despite Tiresias’s words. As the tragedy unfolded, it showed further evidence that he had fulfilled the prophecy. Oedipus’s pride, which was once seen as favorable to him, destroyed him in the end.

The hubris of Oedipus is demolished when he confides in Jocasta concerning the predictions of the seer Tiresias; she tells him the story of the murder of Laius, and as she speaks, Oedipus comes to recognize the scene and circumstances of the regicide as being the same as those encountered on the road to Thebes. The full hypothesis of his doings come to him and he cries out to Jocasta, “Oh, it is all clear as daylight now (Knox, 54).” However, when he faces the shepherd who had found the child Oedipus, and who now reveals that the child was the same infant who was cast out to the wolves by Laius; Laius had feared the fulfillment of a prophecy that he would die by his own son's hands, and Oedipus now sees that the prophecy has indeed come true, for he has killed his own father and committed incest with his mother. He then blinds himself, as if to acknowledge the charge of the blind seer Tiresias that he was blind in his pride. “Oh God! It has all come true. Light, let this be the last time I see you. I stand revealed -born in shame, married in shame, an unnatural murderer.

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 did not have a fair start in life. His father, Laius, heard prophecy that Oedipus would one day kill his father and sleep with his mother. In order to prevent this, Laius gave Oedipus to a shepherd to be killed. Fortunately, through a string of events, Oedipus's life was saved, and he even went on to become the honored king of Thebes. Despite this feat, Oedipus still managed to make several decisions that ultimately fulfilled the original prophecy told to Laius, and inevitably sealed Oedipus?s fate.

Oedipus is ashamed of himself and unsatisfied with his situation, even though it is not his fault. The gods wouldn’t have made the prophecies come true without the help of the oracle, which delivered the prophecies to Oedipus’ parents. It is obvious that the gods were planning to this fate before Oedipus’ birth, because through the oracle, they announced the two prophecies while Jocasta was pregnant. Above that, the gods didn’t mention Oedipus’ blindness in their prophecies; but instead, they mentioned only Oedipus’ shameful crimes that involved both the father and the mother. The purpose of this was to make both parents agree to kill their child, for Laius didn’t want to be murdered by his son, and Jocasta didn’t want to marry her son. This fear of terrible destiny led the parents to kill their child. On the other hand, if Laius and Jocasta hadn’t known about the prophecies, they would’ve kept the child, and thus he would know his parents, which makes it impossible for the prophecies to come true.

Oedipus tells the Chorus that he is trying to compromise with them to find the killer. This reveals that he is a decent king by also rewarding those who have answers to his questions. The way Oedipus handled the situation is relatable since most people supply people with money for information on murders/ missing people.