Oedipus and David Denby
Austin Do
AP English 5
9/21/2013
Oedipus and David Denby In David Denby’s great books he speaks about one of his classes on Oedipus. David Denby writes of his own life experiences and how it connected to him. He talks about this women named Rebecca who had a strong feeling about Sophocles and the tragedy that happened to Oedipus which I have similar thoughts on. Rebecca is an intense reader and can’t wrap her head around things when it comes to confusing situations. David Denby makes a good argument on whether or not Oedipus had a wrong ending in the story of Sophocles. “He didn’t know he was killing his father”. Oedipus couldn’t be held responsible for the death of his father because he never knew. The whole passage of Sophocles was to ultimately lead to Oedipus’s downfall by trying to live life and achieve greatness. Rebecca’s thoughts on this situation was that if Oedipus was being lead to make these decisions according to his fate. Then why is he the one taking all the punishment? That killing his father and marrying his mother, doing all of this unknowingly doesn’t give the right to push all the guilt and blame onto Oedipus. Sophocles gives him all this freedom to roam and go about his doing’s that in his own mind are the right things. Which in fact are the opposite because of the information that he doesn’t know. Moving forward upon what Oedipus’s knowledge is the right thing to do is actually in tern leading him to his demise. I believe Oedipus was cheated a very huge proportion due to the fact that he had no prior information about his father or his mother. About who he was and was acting mostly towards a prophecy that was fated to him. Oedipus’s life wouldn’t be a whole lot if he wasn’t trying to move up in life but how can he stand there not fighting back at the fact that the guilt and burden shouldn’t be all on his shoulders. There are many other people to blame like his father because of the actions and choices he made. His mother
AP English 5
9/21/2013
Oedipus and David Denby In David Denby’s great books he speaks about one of his classes on Oedipus. David Denby writes of his own life experiences and how it connected to him. He talks about this women named Rebecca who had a strong feeling about Sophocles and the tragedy that happened to Oedipus which I have similar thoughts on. Rebecca is an intense reader and can’t wrap her head around things when it comes to confusing situations. David Denby makes a good argument on whether or not Oedipus had a wrong ending in the story of Sophocles. “He didn’t know he was killing his father”. Oedipus couldn’t be held responsible for the death of his father because he never knew. The whole passage of Sophocles was to ultimately lead to Oedipus’s downfall by trying to live life and achieve greatness. Rebecca’s thoughts on this situation was that if Oedipus was being lead to make these decisions according to his fate. Then why is he the one taking all the punishment? That killing his father and marrying his mother, doing all of this unknowingly doesn’t give the right to push all the guilt and blame onto Oedipus. Sophocles gives him all this freedom to roam and go about his doing’s that in his own mind are the right things. Which in fact are the opposite because of the information that he doesn’t know. Moving forward upon what Oedipus’s knowledge is the right thing to do is actually in tern leading him to his demise. I believe Oedipus was cheated a very huge proportion due to the fact that he had no prior information about his father or his mother. About who he was and was acting mostly towards a prophecy that was fated to him. Oedipus’s life wouldn’t be a whole lot if he wasn’t trying to move up in life but how can he stand there not fighting back at the fact that the guilt and burden shouldn’t be all on his shoulders. There are many other people to blame like his father because of the actions and choices he made. His mother