Throughout most famous Greek literature, a great hero usually saves the day. In the story of

As is true with characters of many other works of literature, the protagonist of Oedipus the King, must contend with the horrible reality of his past. This protagonist, Oedipus, killed his father and married his mother, and what is worse, is that he is not aware of this. Throughout the entire play, his relationship with his past is one of ignorance. His ignorance of past events is what causes the play to unfold as it does. Unaware of his own reality, Oedipus leads himself to his own demise by becoming overly confident and prideful, and by distancing himself from his supporters. Through the main character’s relationship with the past, Sophocles develops his central themes of fate, sight, and pride.

A well-written tragedy is filled with irony. Oedipus The King is a great representation of a dramatic irony play. When reading the play the audience is very much aware of the outcome of the hero’s action far before the hero

Oedipus the King by Sophocles’ is intertwined with many powerful themes and messages, establishing what real vision and real sight are. Sophocles’ play also demonstrates that sometimes in life we have to experience great loss in order to rediscover our true selves. In Oedipus’s quest for truth, lack of self-control, ignorance and tragic self-discovery prevail. Physical vision does not necessarily guarantee insight, nor impart truth. Intertwined with dramatic and cosmic irony, all of these elements contribute to the major theme of blindness and sight, depicting wisdom

Throughout the tragedy by Sophocles, the king Oedipus relies on his personal glory to attain long lasting fame and balks when confronted with anything that might shatter this perception that he is the best. While both characters have done marvelous deeds in the past, their inherent arrogance, which is part of the tragic flaw of each of the characters,

Sophocles uses foreshadowing to offer hints about Oedipus’s destiny in the play that allow audience to make reasonable predictions about what would eventually happen in the story. When Oedipus insults Tiresias because he hears that he is the curse and problem in Thebes, and he refuses to the prophecy and gets angry at the prophet, calling him a liar. However, Oedipus never realizes that Tiresias is the very one who foreshadows Oedipus’ tragic fate when he says “in thine eyes now light, but then Darkness” (line 417). The quote foreshadows that Oedipus will end up being blind although his eyes are full of light now, he will lose the light in the end. Tiresias’ words are eventually proved to be true when in the end Oedipus stabs out his eyes, being aware of his identity and his tragic destiny. It is very ironic that Tiresias, who tells the truth, is a blind man. Sophocles also uses words from Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother and wife, to foreshadow Oedipus’ upcoming tragedy. She says “and casts him to die. Through both his feet a blade of iron they drove” (Lines 720-21). The idea in this quote is that Jocasta is providing hints to the audience that Oedipus has hit part of the prophecy because he still hobbles and cannot walk like a healthy man due to his injury. Oedipus should have notice the similarities between his feet and the prophet, or maybe his hubris blinds him from seeing the truth. Throughout the play, Sophocles foreshadows in many events and gives the audience hints about

Once Oedipus was grown up, he heard about this fate and went on the road to Thebes to escape it and killed a man. He becomes ruler of Thebes when he solves the sphinx riddle and his people are in a plague and ask for his help.. “ I know; I learned of him from others; I never saw him(8)” he actually did see him because he murdered him. “ Eventually he finds out he murdered the king of Thebes. “Put your questions. I am no murderer(30)” this quotation shows the arrogance Oedipus holds within. Oedipus has always known everything and he fears this would change everything.. And this reality tears him away from all that he has believed. Oedipus’ pride forbids him from seeing the truth---that he killed Laius. This quote also relates to Creon since he did not want to admit Antigone was doing the right thing because he did not want to seem weak.

At the beginning, Oedipus is ignorant and is constantly avoids and ignores the truth in order to protect his reputation. Oedipus’ unwillingness to open his ears to the truth develops when Tiresias reveals that he killed Laius and one of his responses is, “Your words are nothing-- / futile” (416-417). Although Oedipus begged to hear Tiresias’ words, he was not willing to pay attention or open his eyes to the unfortunate idea. Oedipus pushes aside the words Tiresias says, refusing to believe that he could be the one who killed Laius, the one who must be cursed. Later, Tiresias brings up Oedipus’ ignorance saying “you’re blind to the corruption of your life” (471), and telling him a few lines later that “No man will ever / be rooted from the earth as brutally as you” (488-489). Oedipus was put in his place and blatantly told that he is ignorant but his rise to knowledge will also bring his demise. Sophocles foreshadowed using Tiresias in that way, but Oedipus was so into avoiding any confrontation with the truth at the beginning that he would respond calling Tiresias’ visions “absurdities” (494). Therefore, even though the truth has been revealed to him, Oedipus still chooses to remain blind to the truth in order to remain good in the eyes of his people.

The Greek tragedy of Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles, was able to generate such a noteworthy impact as a result of the audience’s previous knowledge of the characters and their fate. As a result of this circumstance, Sophocles was able to make a compelling use of irony and allusion. All throughout the play, Oedipus the King, Sophocles builds the entire story using dramatic irony. Despite Oedipus’s unawareness of his identity and his fate, Sophocles uses dramatic irony to let the readers know who Oedipus truly is and to foreshadow the events which unfold throughout the story. Sophocles uses many different scenes throughout the play that portray dramatic irony. Although, the three most important are Oedipus’s curse towards himself, Oedipus’s insult to Tiresias, and the fortune-teller’s prophecy about Oedipus.

Sophocles's Oedipus Rex is probably the most famous tragedy ever written. Sophocles's tragedy represents a monumental theatrical and interpretative challenge. Oedipus Rex is the story of a King of Thebes upon whom a hereditary curse is placed and who therefore has to suffer the tragic consequences of fate (tragic flaws or hamartia). In the play, Oedipus is the tragic hero. Even though fate victimizes Oedipus, he is a tragic figure since his own heroic qualities, his loyalty to Thebes, and his fidelity to the truth ruin him.

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

Sophocles was born a hundred years before Aristotle and perhaps was not aware that he wrote a near-perfect representation of the tragic form. Almost certainly, however, he was conscious of the dramatic irony he carefully intertwined throughout the plot. Dramatic irony was a tool for Sophocles to advance the notion of the tragic one step beyond the simple fate of the main character. Dramatic irony is a literary technique allowing the audience to know of the character's fate well before such fate occurs. The difference between the audience's knowledge of the tragic circumstances and that of the ignorant characters heightens the depth of the tragedy. The more significant the ultimate sacrifice which the innocent hero makes, the more powerful the message sent to those in

The famed tragedian Sophocles is known for his unique ideas and intellect. Sophocles carefully utilizes of all of his intelligence and creative ability in order to make use of illuminating moments throughout the play which allow his audience to draw conclusions about free will, fate, knowledge, and power throughout perhaps his most iconic play, Oedipus Rex. the main character Oedipus experiences an illuminating moment when he gouges his eyes out at the discovery of the truth about his actions. This illumination is expressed in order to express Sophocles’ idea that fate overpowers free will.

The play, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, bases its plot around dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is a literary device in which the audience is aware of a series of events or characteristics that the characters themselves are not yet aware of. This device was used to shape the tone of the work and furthermore the reader’s reaction to it. In the play, dramatic irony is used to tell the story and affects the reader's perception of the protagonists. These characters especially include Oedipus and Queen Jocasta. The writer depends on dramatic irony to set up the tragedy.

Psychologically, the audience feels purged, as if they had gone through these events themselves and learned the edification from firsthand experience. This is supposed to cleanse their souls. One can learn so much from others mistakes, for in which case it is understandable why tragedies were very popular back in Ancient Greece. Tragedies are a form of art that questions the role of a man in this universe. At the beginning of this play, Oedipus was very sure of who he was but at the end he has no idea and is blinded by his own ignorance of his past. According to Yue-hua, “the myth of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is revolved on the three interactive perspectives of fate, truth and self-will, making the play a most remarkable one in the fifth century Greece when all the plays focused on the manifestation of Gods’ will under which man’s behavior was undoubtedly directed. What gives the play its tragic intensity is not the horror it arouses of patricide or incest but the meaning of fate that God bestows to Oedipus in his endeavor of truth seeking. What is most important, it is the sentimental self-will of Oedipus that makes the play distinguished from other plays during the age of Sophocles’ and makes him an outstanding figure in the fifth century Greek”

In the play Oedipus Rex, we get follow the story of current King Oedipus, and his struggle to discover who killed the King prior to himself, King Laius; but in the process of trying to discover the truth, he also leads to his own downfall. Oedipus is a perfect example of how “Ignorance is bliss”, if you don’t know something, do not try to look into it. Oedipus makes the mistake of looking into something too much, and he discovers that he wife is really his mother, and that he also murdered his father. Oedipus is a great example of a “Tragic Hero”, he has good intentions of trying to save Thebes by looking for the killer, but he ends up causing his own downfall. Oedipus Rex is a warning from Sophocles stating that you should not attempt to look