Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex Fulfills All of the Requirements of a Tragedy

Sophocles has a harsh and tragic style. He is a master at dramatic tragedies and irony. Oedipus Rex is scattered with ironic and very tragic moments. He also uses the chorus as a way to comment on a subject in the play. Foreshadows using various methods. He also uses imagery, rhetoric questions and metaphors.

The main criteria set by Aristotle involves the plot and the plays main character. According to Aristotle, for a tragedy to be both successful and effective there must be a reversal, a "change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite", and there must be recognition, "a change from ignorance to knowledge" on the part of the main character. The plot should not be

Sophocles gives the readers many different views of the play Oedipus the King in which we can take and analysis accordingly to things we are most interested in. Throughout the play Oedipus personally changes. He starts off as a being a smart leader, calm, and determined, but at the end of the play it reveals how he is angry, irrational and is blind to certain aspects, which becomes his downfall.

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.

“Oedipus Rex” was a Greek Tragedy written by Sophocles in the fifth century BC. It was the first of a trilogy of plays surrounding the life of Oedipus. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays approximately 100 years before Aristotle even defined a tragedy and the tragic hero. Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy is “… an imitation of an action of high importance, complete and of some amplitude; in language enhanced by distinct and varying beauties; acted not narrated; by means of pity and fear effecting its purgation of these emotions” (Kennedy and Gioa 2010). According to Aristotle there were six elements to a tragedy: the plot, the character, the

From the very beginning, what makes Oedipus ' actions in his quarrel with Teiresias and also throughout the play so dramatically compelling, is the fact that the audience knows the outcome of the story. We know Oedipus ' fate even before he does, and there is no suspense about the outcome itself, instead, the audience anxiously awaits Oedipus to reveal his fate unto himself in his desperate quest to rid his city of the terrible plague, or maybe even more so, to simply discover his own unfortunate tale. Oedipus is relentless in his pursuit of the truth, and his determination is commendable. There is nothing that compels him to act in this way, instead he freely chooses, with much zeal, to initiate the chain of events that will ultimately lead to his downfall. It is this interplay between Oedipus’ own free will and his fated eventuality that is the crux of the play, and constitutes the main dramatic power.

Language, or diction, is fourth on the list of a tragedy major points. Aristotle points out that metaphors are the most useful form of language in a tragedy. The main metaphor portrayed in “Oedipus Rex” is that of sight and blindness. The king things he sees all but in reality he is blind to the truth. Ironically the only one who can see the truth is the blind seer Teiresias. Oedipus begins the play able to see but is blind and ends the play blind but able to see.

In the Poetics, Aristotle provides an outline of how the artist is to portray or represent the perfect Tragedy. A Tragedy, of course, was nothing more than a drama, in which the characters appeared "better" than in real life (in a comedy, they appeared "worse," according to Aristotle). Aristotle's Poetics makes several references to other dramatic works to illustrate his points, but he most commonly calls upon The Odyssey to support his argument for how a dramatic structure should be designed. However, along with the Odyssey, Aristotle extensively references Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Both poetic works were enormously popular in their time (the former had been passed down orally for generations, and the latter won the top prizes at the dramatic festivals). Therefore, Aristotle is comfortable using both to support his viewpoint concerning Tragedy and the Tragic Hero. This paper will analyze the standards that Aristotle sets out concerning the definition of the Tragic Hero and show how Sophocles' Oedipus exemplifies Aristotle's definition of a Tragic Hero.

‘Othello’ was written between 1601 and 1603. It was first performed in the Elizabethan courts during the Christmas season. The idea of a ‘perfect’ tragedy is the idea that the tragedy is faultless; it does what is expected; so makes the audience feel empathy and sympathy for the characters who suffer. There are two different types of tragedy: classical tragedy and Shakespearean tragedy. The tragic hero in this play is the main character, Othello. Othello's misfortune comes about because of his jealousy, trust, and his pride. This essay aims to look at, and compare, how Shakespeare wrote his tragedy, and how other tragedies are written. I will mainly compare ‘Othello’, for Shakespearean tragedy, and ‘Oedipus Rex’, by Sophocles, for

Over the extensive history of the theatre arts, most of the many plays and productions fall into unique categories in regards to structure. The two most simplest of the structural categories are climactic and episodic. A climactic structure, or alternatively known as an intensive structure, contains a play in which all components are restricted as the main conflict in the story commences late into the play and only a little time passes until the story occurs. Everything is restricted to a few components. There are not as many characters, scenery change and very limited amounts of action. climactic structures focuses heavily on the climax in contrast to other structures. One notable example of a climactic performance is Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. The story of Oedipus is that of tragedy and despair as Oedipus and his family are unable to escape the fate that Oedipus has had since birth. The exposition and starting action (in this case, the events that led up to him to being king of Thebes) occur before the play and is only ever talked about. The play only takes place in the castle and has only four primary characters. Ultimately, Oedipus Rex only takes place within a day and primarily focuses on the realization and aftermath of the story of Oedipus and his sins, or the climax. All these components that define a climactic structure of production are found in the aforementioned play by Sophocles, strengthening what a climactic structure is and the vast potential a climactic play

exercising his free choice by making bad decisions . Oedipus certainly meets these portrayals of a tragic hero. The dialect of tragedy consists of two circles: one is a relative point and the other is impacted and the effect on its audience. Sophocles and Aristotle’s achieve that task with absolute clearness. The modern reader, coming to the classic drama not entirely to the enjoyment, will not always surrender himself to the emotional effect. He is apt to worry about Greek ‘fatalism’ and the justice of the downfall of Oedipus, and, finding no satisfactory solution for these intellectual difficulties, loses half the pleasure that the drama was intended to produce . In dramatizing stories, there will dependably blends of passionate sentiments, suspense, and fervor to discover what’s

Tragedy as an element of the human experience has been the subject of many of the great works of literature written in the Western tradition. For some, tragedy embodies the highest form of humanity. It is through suffering that we are able to reveal ourselves most completely. Others see tragedy as an element of morality where we are to learn well the lessons of those who tempt the gods. The Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, outlined a theory of tragedy as archetypal drama in his classic work, the Poetics. He uses the play by Sophocles, Oedipus the King (hereafter "Oedipus"), as the standard model by which all other tragedies are measured. In Aristotle's view, a perfect

Throughout time, the tragedy has been seen as the most emotionally pleasing form of drama, because of its ability to bring the viewer into the drama and feel for the characters, especially the tragic hero. This analysis of tragedy was formed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and also noted in his Poetics (guidelines to drama). As a playwright, Shakespeare used Aristotle’s guidelines to tragedy when writing Othello. The play that was created revolved around the tragic hero, Othello, whose tragic flaw transformed him from a nobleman, into a destructive creature, which would inevitably bring him to his downfall. This transformation follows an organic movement of the complex plot from the beginning, middle, to the end of the drama while

In his Theory of Tragedy in the Poetics, Aristotle explains the characteristics necessary to create a good tragedy. He defines tragedy as “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude.” In other words, a tragedy must be focused and realistic. It must also evoke a “sense of fear and pity within the audience”, through its six parts, and end with a katharsis or cleansing of these emotions. The six parts of, a tragedy determines the quality and the most important parts include: plot and character. Aristotle also outlined the characteristics necessary in order to create an ideal tragic hero. Oedipus the King written by Sophocles, is an example of a perfect tragedy and Oedipus is a perfect example of a tragic hero.

Oedipus the King by Sophocles is more than just a basic tragedy. It contains a complete combination of all the features of a tragedy. I find Sophocles' King Oedipus interesting. Not because of the whole incest thing, the killing of the father, and the sleeping with the mother. I am still too naive to appreciate the significance of that. I find Sophocles' King Oedipus fascinating because as I read it with attention, I realized how amazingly hard it was to write. Even though it’s a Greek tragedy and the reading is a little hard to understand. But, once someone gets inside the story line, its captivates one’s attention. I admit I enjoy less the content of the play than Sophocles' writing skill. When to retell a well-known story, one has to make the story enough convincing without relying on the end of the story. one must dislocate the point of the story from its end to rest. By doing that the story will not lose its appeal. One has to be a creator. So, you have to twist the whole story in such an irresistible way that it is compelling despite the fact that the outcome of the story is known. How do Sophocles solve this problem? By making King Oedipus the central character and unintentionally the architect of his own downfall. The strengths that once lead him to solve the riddle later served as his own destruction. To make a story more appropriate to the stage, which is dealing with flashbacks, forward-moving energy of the story must accommodate with the backward references that