Oedipus The King Justice And Injustice Essay

In the story of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is the protagonist and he demonstrates a very amazing character. When it comes to justice or injustice to Oedipus he seems to lean towards justice. The king of Thebes, Oedipus, portrays his justice in different manners.

The Story of Oedipus is a tragic narrative of the life of a king whose life gets turned upside down when a hidden truth guarded by a prophecy comes out. I believe that it is not Oedipus Rex who is at fault in the story. I feel that destiny had pushed them to the ends that they all met. Throughout the play there were instances where I could see that fault could have fallen on the shoulders of Oedipus but to many times the incidences occurred that skewed my vision of what seemed to be accidental turned into destiny. Oedipus had pride above any man because he was praised for defeating the sphinx and an outstanding King of Thebes, for this allowed fate take over and destiny to preside him in his fate.

Just like The Kite Runner, in Oedipus Rex a theme of betrayal is portrayed. The main character, Oedipus, kills his own father in the beginning of the tragedy. Not only is killing someone you are close to considered a huge act of betrayal, but killing your own father is just one of the most ultimate acts of betrayal one can produce. Since Oedipus Rex is a short play, any action can be major and play a big part in the mood of the work. The killing of his own father happens right in the beginning and still occurs to be the major event in the play which causes the theme of betrayal to be prevalent throughout the whole thing. As the play comes to an end, Oedipus ends up finding out about his father and mother. Even at the end, Oedipus ends up betraying himself. He stabs his own eyes out after realizing all the horrible things he has done. “He lifted them and struck the sockets of his own eyes, shouting

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

Oedipus Rex was someone that believe that Justice was something that was needin a city in order to be a good city but Oedipus live in the city of thieves and is a place were the word justice do not exist and Oedipus didn't like that so now he want's to try and make that change and hive the city of thieves a better reputation and Oedipus he knows that is not going to be easy.

In the story Oedipus Rex, I thought it was injustice for Oedipus that he go the life he did. When he was a baby they told King Laius and Queen Jocasta that his own son would kill his own father, but what they didn't know was that he was going to sleep with his own mother, so they decided to kill his own son but one of the workers told them that they should give him away, take him to another family, so the King and Queen never have to worry when the King would be dead. So Oedipus grows up and they tell him that the family his with are his real family so gets upset and leaves the town and goes back to Thebes while his going back home he encounters the King, his father, but he doesn't know so he kills him and becomes the King of Thebes and later

Sophocles said that a man should never consider himself fortunate unless he can look back on his life and remember that life without pain. For Oedipus Rex, looking back is impossible to do without pain, a pain that stems from his prideful life. Oedipus is aware that he alone is responsible for his actions. He freely chooses to pursue and eventually accept his own life's destruction. Although fate victimizes Oedipus, he is a tragic figure since his own heroic qualities, his loyalty to Thebes, and his undying quest for the truth ruin him.

Oedipus is one character who responds to injustice from the “Oedipus Plays,” particularly in “Oedipus Rex.” The plague is put on his kingdom due to the death of the King. He did this response to this injustice by going on a journey to discover the truth and lift the curse from the city of Thebes. Oedipus is appalled by the injustice occurring, and succeeds on his journey for justice which was highly significant.

injustice is one of the many thing that humans despise about of the journey of life. It is something that cnnot be avoided, but in some ocassions desperate people tend tonfind their own justice in a worls full of injustice. In the case of Oedipus Rex, he is born into a prophecy with many flaws. He grows up not knowing the prophecy until one day the truth is revealed to him. From that day forward injustice takes part of his life.

In the play, “Oedipus Rex”, many ironies took place, as well as fate playing a huge part in the story. “Oedipus Rex” is a story about a man that tries to overcome adversity but cannot escape his prophecy. His parents took him to a hillside as an infant, sliced his Achilles tendons and left him there. A shepherd soon came to his rescue. “King and Queen of Thebes, gave their infant to a shepherd in with orders that he be left on the side of the mountainside to die” (Johnson 1205). As he grew older and much wiser, he went to see the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle informed him that his destiny was to kill his father and marry his mother. The main ironies in the play are the killing of Oedipus’s biological father, the odd relationship with his mother, and the inability of Oedipus to avoid his fate.

The biggest and most fascinating irony in "Oedipus Rex" was the king's commitment and persistence in finding and punishing Laïos' murderer, ignoring the fact that the killer was

With time he learns the meaning of justice after his journey with destiny. The masses are the ones that search for justice; therefore, making Oedipus of the unjust one in the play. The city needs to bring Oedipus to justice. Even

The pursuit of justice is an endeavor that many find to be challenging and a quest itself, as one will come across various trials and complications that may stop them in their pursuit or may mislead them. As humans, we find moral correctness and righteousness a very appealing state to be in, as justice will act as a platform to satisfy the desire for this correctness. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, we meet our miserable anti-hero, Oedipus, in his pursuit for truth and righting the wrong of the plague that is affecting his people of Thebes. As he makes efforts to solve this problem, he comes to find out that he is the source of the issue, thus exposing the tragic flaw of Oedipus and effectively making this play a very effective Greek tragedy. This pursuit of righteousness ends up being the downfall of Oedipus. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus pursues justice through his realization of his past, his interactions with various characters in the play, and comes to understand more of justice in his situation through his reactions to adversity in this play, in order to portray a questionably successful pursuit of justice.

   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.

Murray’s appreciation of the “crescendo of tragedy” in Oedipus Rex is echoed in the sentiments of another critic: In Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge, Charles Segal says that the protagonist fares well in the first series of tests, but declines towards his catastrophe in the second series: