Responsibility In Oedipus The King

In the beginning of the play Oedipus meets Laios on a road. Both were driving chariots and neither would yield the right of way. Laios attempts to kill Oedipus’ horses but Oedipus reacts fast killing Laios attendants and his own father, Laios. Oedipus went to Thebes to help and destroy a monster and bless their town. Because of his heroic act, Thebes recalls him again to help and find the murderer who killed their king Laios and punish the man. Oedipus goes and does everything he can to get evidence and find the man who killed Laios the king: “Is this your prayer? It may be answered. Come, Listen to me, act as the crisis demands… Until now I was a stranger to this tale, As I had been a stranger to the crime. Could I track the murderer without a clue?” (Sophocles 1. 1. 204 - 209). Teiresias, a chorus of Theban, elders tells Oedipus he is the murder who killed his father and also mentions he married his own mother along with having children. Oedipus finds all of that to believe and what Oedipus does is find more people to tell him the truth. Jocaste, wife and mother of Oedipus, tells him through the play to not believe such a thing. In Act three Scene five, Shepherd the man, who took Oedipus to Corinth city’s reveals to him that everything is true. Oedipus makes the decision to gouge his eyes out making himself blind to not see the whole catastrophe. He begs Creon to send him away from Theban

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

Oedipus is innocent because he did not know the truth about his real parents. He thinks that his parents are Polybus and Merope, which in fact had adopted him when he was an infant, while his real parents are King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes (Sophocles 746-7). After King Laius and Queen Jocasta have Oedipus, they are told by an

Oedipus is a very ignorant character. The play reveals that he killed his father and slept with his mother. To make matters worse, he has no idea that he has done either of these things. As the play progresses, hints of Oedipus’s wrongdoings pop up sporadically, yet he does not catch on until the end. Other characters realize what is going on before Oedipus does. It is Oedipus’s ignorance that prolongs his search for King Laius’s killer and his realization of his

In the beginning of the story, Oedipus is very taken back by the situation. He will not accept the truth of his fate and accuses Tiresias of lying to him so Oedipus’s bother- in- law, Creon, could take the throne. Oedipus is extremely dumbfounded by this news because he had no knowledge of killing his father or marrying his mother, but what he learns later is that who he thought were his parents were not his real parents. When he finally realizes that he did in fact marry his own mother and kill his father, he accepts it and punishes himself in order to uphold his promise to his people. By this point there is no way Oedipus can escape his fate. Tiresias says to Oedipus, “No man in the world can make the gods do more than the gods will” (811). Since he did kill his father, the previous king, Oedipus has to be shunned by all of Thebes. Because there is no way of changing his fate, he accepts his responsibilities by giving himself the punishment he assigned to the murderer of Laius.

Oedipus did not know that his mother was going to be his wife. He was told from when he was only the prince of Corinth that he will end up sleeping with his mother. During the investigation of King Laius, the blind prophet is providing a detailed crime scene and interviewing the only eyewitness to his murder. In curiosity, Oedipus asks about who his biological parents are so he can finally know the truth and settle the rumors. The Theban Shepherd confirms that his parents are in fact Laius and Jocasta. Oedipus and Jocasta have not seen each other since the day he was born. Many years ago, she gave her three-day-old infant to her servant to be killed because she knew about the prophecy. Behind her back, the servant gives Oedipus to a childless royal couple living their separate lives without knowing each other. Jocasta tried to change their destiny, but their fate was already chosen for them. Regardless of Oedipus knowing that his wife was his mother, he still committed incest. “But now all god-deserted, born in sins, in incest joined with her who gave

At the beginning Oedipus is characterized as a great leader. For example, he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which is the winged female monster that terrorized the city (Sophocles 487). Here we can see how Oedipus is clever and smart. In result the people of Thebes respect him for his cleverness and reward him as King. People even look at him as being almighty when it comes to handling problems such as, when there is a plague that is killing people, animals and made women give birth to nothing. They knew he would help as long as he was aware of the situation. “We’ve come because you are the best man at handling trouble or confronting the gods” (Sophocles 487). This statement shows how people depend on him and look at him as a great leader. It also shows how he is a man of action and looks after his people as a king should. With that being said, he is told to find the killer of Laios and either banish them or kill them to stop the plague. Likewise, he did what he is commanded to do, he obeys the god and search for the killer that killed the previous king. Furthermore, he follows instruction and is concerned for himself and the people of Thebes. “My heart grieves for you, for myself, and for our city” (Sophocles 487).

In this passage Oedipus questions whether or not he is truly to blame for the murder of Laïos, but in his heart, he doesn’t think it could be his fault. Sophocles uses this moment to allow the reader to see what is really going on in the play. Because of this, the plot becomes a little clearer and we begin to see how the story will play out in the end. After making the oath to kill the man who murdered Laïos, his pride allows him to feel obligated to do what he can when he finds out that he is the reason the king is

Oedipus did not know who his real parents were. The King of Corinth was his adopted father. The king gave him the name Oedipus because his feet were swollen from his injured Achilles tendons. Oedipus’s parents were so afraid of what the oracle told them about Oedipus’s fate, they felt that their only option was to get rid of him. The irony in his abandonment was the fact that the biological parents never intended to see Oedipus again, though Oedipus’s fate was going to happen regardless of what the parents did to rid of him. Oedipus had an altercation with several men “where the three roads meet”, killing four men including his biological father. “He came to a place where three roads

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.

Conscience, in modern usage, term denoting various factors in moral experience. Thus, the recognition and acceptance of a principle of conduct as binding is called conscience. In theology and ethics, the term refers to the inner sense of right and wrong in moral choices, as well as to the satisfaction that follows action regarded as right and the dissatisfaction and remorse resulting from conduct that is considered wrong. In earlier ethical theories, conscience was regarded as a separate faculty of the mind having moral jurisdiction, either absolute or as a representative of God in the human soul.

is a trait viewed as being favorable to a character at first, but it leads to their later downfall. It was often used in ancient Greek tragedies to show that mankind was susceptible to flaw. This was present in Sophocles 's tragedy, Oedipus the King. The protagonist of the tragedy,Oedipus, was not exempt from his own flaws. Oedipus’s traits of excessive pride and desire for knowing the truth were advantageous to him in the beginning, yet were the very things that contributed to his tragic downfall.

    From the beginning of this play, Oedipus made many risky actions that will take him to his downfall. Out of empathy for his suffering people, he had Creon go to Delph as he could have waited for the plague to end instead. "Upon the murderer I invoke this curse- whether he is one man and all unknown, or one of many- may he wear out his life in misery or doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth, I pray that I myself may feel my curse.” (Sophocles, 477; lines 266-271) Other than just finding clues to the murderer of King Laius, Oedipus summons a terrible curse on them. Without knowledge of who it could be yet, he is actually putting the curse on himself. When Oedipus was told that he was responsible for the murder of Laius, he threatens Teiresias, becomes enraged, calls the old oracle a liar, and ignores everything the oracle says. “If a man walks with

Oedipus the King would not have been successful throughout centuries as a tragic play, if Oedipus were clearly responsible for his own tragedy. The play's ongoing success was do to Oedipus' innocence which immediately makes one think he can not be fully responsible and to blame. I do not believe Sophocles would have wrote the story, or I do not think people would have ever read it or studied it had it simply been a story of a criminal's retribution. Sophocles himself believed Oedipus to be the innocent victim of an ironic tragedy, and built the play around this belief. This story was destined to happen and I believe the author would agree. The story revolves around destiny, the resistance of people to it and the ultimate ending of destiny

Oedipus is a boy who was left on the mountains to die by his own parents, the King and Queen of Thebes, due to a tragic prophecy told by the Oracles of Delphi. The prophecy declares that the boy would be destined to murder his father, king Louis of Thebes and then incest with Louis’s wife, Jocasta, Oedipus mother. After being abandoned on the mountain by his wicked parents, a shepherd found this little child and takes him to the King and Queen. King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth decided that since they don't have a child of their own, it would