External Conflict In Oedipus The King, The Aeneid, And Job

Great literary works tend to focus around points of conflict, of which there are two types: external and internal. I submit that all internal conflict is related to an imbalance in what I will refer to as the three sources of self, being (1) the way in which one views oneself introspectively, (2) the way in which one perceives that others view him based on their actions which affect him, and (3) the way in which one confirms that others view him based on the words they say about him. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to these three sources of self respectively as the introspective, perceptive, and confirmative selves.

In order to establish that the three sources of self are instrumental in the representation of internal conflict, I will examine three ancient literary works and identify the way in which the imbalance of two or more of them contributes to or causes internal conflict. Of the works that we have studied so far in class, those that seem to have the most apparent internal conflict are the stories of Oedipus the King, The Aeneid, and Job. I will therefore use these three works to support my claim.
Oedipus sees himself as a type of hero-king, taking it as his self-appointed duty to watch over the needs of his subjects, who he calls his children (708-709), and as a righteous ruler searching out the murderer of his predecessor Laios (711). Thus his introspective self is largely that of a caring, dutiful monarch executing the law to its fullest