The Greek drama “Oedipus The King” evidently leads to the unveiling of a tragedy. Oedipus, the protagonist of the play uncovers his tragic birth story and the curse he had been baring his whole life. Oedipus is notorious for his personal insight that helped him defeat Sphinx, which lead him to becoming the king of Thebes. He is admired by the people of Thebes and is considered to be a mature, inelegant and a rational leader. From his birth, his story began with a prophecy that Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Through out the play numerous people, who tell him of his unknown past, visit Oedipus. Blind to the truth he casts them away until a blind man named Therisis gives a sight of truth to Oedipus. As Oedipus learns the truth he realizes the great evil his life carries. After finding his wife and also mother hung in her bedroom, Oedipus blinds himself with the gold pins that held Jocasta’s robe. Oedipus blind to the truth is finally able to see when the old blind man visits him and tells him the truth about his life. Both metaphorically and physically sight plays a significant role in understanding the irony of a blind man seeing the truth while Oedipus who isn’t blind doesn’t seem to the truth that’s right in front of him.
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
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus faces a terrible tragedy mostly caused by his own insecurities. Sophocles literally shows us the human nature for always wanting to know more information about ourselves no matter the cost. Had Oedipus not cared about what was being said about him and left well enough alone he could have avoided his whole predicament and lived a happy life with his wife and children.
Fate the un-avoidable Throughout the vast history of literature, various concepts have come and gone. The idea of fate or fatalism has been a concept that has survived the test of time. Numerous characters have succumbed to the power of fate and the character of Oedipus from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is a prime example of the vast power of fate within literature. Sophocles effectively depicts the wrath of fate as he portrays how Oedipus fell victim to fate and his efforts to disregard fate were futile. Once again fate manages to triumph and displays no character whether king or slave can avoid its gaze.
Character Analysis of Oedipus: Oedipus the King Oedipus the King is a Greek tragedy play written by Sophocles, and it made its first debut
One of the greatest and most important tragic themes in Greek tragedy is known as hamartia; a personal blunder or unsettled personality trait that the protagonist possesses, that eventually leads to his ruin or death. This personality defect, also known as 'tragic flaw” is uniquely present in all of the
Oedipus as leader is rather outstanding. Right as we are introduced to Oedipus, we are presented with his sense of justice and caring for his people. He is also very respecting towards all the towns people. For instance, when Creon returns from his encounter with the Oracle, he tries to be discreet, asking Oedipus if he wants to receive the news privately. Oedipus judiciously responds with the following: “Speak before all! My heavy load of care, more for their sake then for my own I bear” (Sophocles 4). In other words Oedipus is saying that he doesn’t want to hear the news privately, rather publicly because he rules for his people not himself. Another great characteristic of that Oedipus possesses are his tactful and quick responses to problems.
Oedipus the King is a poem that is very heartbreaking and cruel because of the many things that happened to Oedipus had nothing to do with him. He was not responsible for anything bad that happened to him in his life and I feel like his life was already planned out from before he was even born. His life was not fair because he did not even take any decisions for himself about how he wanted to live and was treated like a puppet. So many horrible stuff were happening around Oedipus and he had no idea about any of them. They are all very wicked and twisted stuff that no one would even dare to imagine them or think about them. Oedipus did not have a tragic flaw because everything was already predestined to happen and nothing would change even if he wanted to do something about it. That is what makes this poem even more tragic because he did not have any control about his own life or even about himself. This poem is about a king that falls in love and even marries his own mother without knowing that she is his mom and kills his dad without knowing he is his dad. That was all part of a curse that was told to his dad. The curse said that the child of Laius and Jocasta was destined to kill Laius and marry Jocasta.
Through history, everyone is trying to rise to the top. However, the ones at the top are not always the most suitable. This becomes evident in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, where Oedipus becomes the ruler of Thebes after defeating the Sphinx. Throughout the story, Oedipus fails to meet the characteristics of a good leader, including: humbleness, selflessness and patience.
Oedipus Rex, an ancient Greek tragedy authored by the playwright Sophocles, includes many types of psychological phenomena. Most prominently, the myth is the source of the well-known term Oedipal complex, coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s. In psychology, “complex” refers to a developmental stage. In this case the stage involves the desire of males, usually ages three to five, to sexually or romantically posses their mother, and the consequential resentment of their fathers. In the play, a prince named Oedipus tries to escape a prophecy that says he will kill his father and marry his mother, and coincidentally saves the Thebes from a monster known as the Sphinx. Having unknowingly killed his true father Laius during his
In this article, Pucci analyzed the role of the father figure in Oedipus’s life and how it relates to his character and actions throughout the play. Superficially, Oedipus is a noble and intelligent, but underneath, Oedipus has many problems ranging from ignorance to “parrincest” (142). The father figure plays the
The story of Oedipus is a perfect example of family secrets and mysteries that lie within a society. No matter which era or generation, there will always be similar stories and events like Oedipus. Mankind is fascinated by mystery, and when is specific to their families, the urge and curiosity to get to the bottom of things will always be present. The basic questions of who am I? And where did I come from? Will always be the driving force behind any individual in the search for the truth. The story of Oedipus can be seen both as tragic as well as heroic in some of his actions, ignorance cannot be used to excuse a crime but it can make it unintentional.
There are many facets of personality of a minor character that authors may utilize to supply contrast to the main character of their work. Some of these contrasts are extremely noticeable and some are not. One such facet is with the use of a neutral character; to not only showcase
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
The Unfortunate Fate of a Tragic Flaw An individual’s strengths can eventually become their greatest weaknesses. A tragic flaw 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.