Oedipus And Jocasta Suffer Extreme Punishment

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Oedipus And Jocasta Suffer Extreme Punishment

Tania Amjad
3-3-14
Oedipus the King
2) By the end of the play, Oedipus and Jocasta suffer extreme punishments. Write an essay that evaluates the punishments and how the punishments contribute to the tragedy of the play.
Justice was served to Oedipus and Jocasta at the end of the play when they both suffered extreme punishments. By the end of the play Oedipus the King written by Sophocles, Oedipus and Jocasta suffer extreme punishments. Jocasta is the Queen of Thebes and Oedipus is Jocasta’s husband. After her first husband dies; he solves the riddle of the Sphinx and is awarded to become King. These punishments were given to them by their individual choices. The end of the play led to many misfortunes for both characters. The punishments …show more content…
Oedipus sent Creon to the God’s to ask them how to save Thebes from the plague. When Creon returned with the prophecy of the plague he told them that Laius’ murderer had to be killed in order for the plague to end. Oedipus says, “Whoever killed the king may decide to kill me too, with the same violent hand by avenging Laius I defend myself” (line 158-159). Oedipus does not know he is the murder he is giving such strict consequences resulting in death. This is fair because even though he is not aware of anything that is going on or what has happened to him he is giving honest punishments for that reason. If he believes that death is the punishment for murder of the king than he should be able to accept it since he is the murder. Oedipus as well is the cause of his blindness. When he went to Tiresias to find out the truth Tiresias told him that he was the murder. Due to his pride he didn’t believe him and was very rude to the blind prophet a mocked his blindness. Tiresias says, “True, it is no fate to all at my hands. Apollo is quite enough, and he will take some pains to work this out” (line 428-430). Tiresias curses Oedipus with blindness because he was insulting him. At the end of the book when Jocasta hangs herself Oedipus stabs his eyes in shock. This is fair because he was underestimating Tiresias he knows the truth about everything. If Oedipus was not so stubborn he would have

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