The plays Trifles by Susan Glaspell and Oedipus the King by Sophocles illustrate how uncontrolled emotions, such as fear, anger, embarrassment and can lead to bad consequences, including impulsive actions, destroying lives, and ultimately death. When reading these plays, the reader sees how detrimental negative emotions can be when it comes to the well-being of themselves and others that are in their lives. Not only can the lack of control of these emotions cause physical pain, but it can also cause emotional distress and also can cause distrust within relationships ultimately causing the relationships to be ruined. The reader is given good examples of cause and effect of how emotions can ruin a person’s life based off of how they are controlled. As humans we are all given emotions, and sometimes we are given challenges to test our emotional control, however it is only when we learn how to control them that we actually learn how to find happiness within ourselves.…
While reading the play, a first impression of Oedipus can be portrayed as a compassionate and caring ruler and person. He wants the kingdom to be well and not to suffer. He shows confidence and intelligence to the people due to his previous encounter with the Sphinx. Furthermore, Oedipus wants to learn of the cities troubles himself as he stated "it would not be appropriate for me to learn of this from any other source, so I have come in person" showing his concern for his citizens. He is already showing his interest to aid in the troubles because the people "can be confident that [he] will help...[to] assist" them in any way that he can.…
At the beginning of the play Oedipus proclaims justice for the death of Laius. Oedipus claims that he will avenge Laius’ death with the bloodshed of his killer. Being willing to fight for what is right for your people, or in this case your wife, is a more than heroic quality. Not only is he willing to fight for just but he is adamant about it. Throughout the entire play he is in search of the Laius’ killer. A hero overcomes the obstacles and brings victory out of defeat by strength of might and wisdom. Yet most of the Greek heroes had an Achilles’ heel that doomed them. Oedipus is no different. He runs away to protect those he loves, only to find he destroys those he loves as well as himself. He kills his own father with strength of might and ignores the wise warnings of Tiresias. When did he begin to realize that he was sitting on the throne of his own father, whom he had murdered? Oedipus fits the profile of a tragic hero because though he spent the whole play fighting for justice and searching for the answer he is longing for, searching for the cold killer of Laius and promising vengeance by spilling the blood of the murderer. He crumbles and becomes the fool when he finds out that his blood is the answer. In the end his people win their battle over the chaos, but he loses the fight inside himself. Oedipus realizes the metaphorical blindness that has been hindering him throughout the play and decides that the only way to make it right is to physically blind himself with Jocasta’s…
1) What were your initial thoughts about the character of Oedipus? My own initial thought about Oedipus is that he is very nice towards his “parents” because he thinks he will be saving his family and not killing his father. Then when he kills the king I was wondering why he would start a fight to the death when they could have just solved it peacefully. Then I thought he was very stuck up and spoiled because he became king for getting rid of the Sphinx and was very stubborn to his brother-in-law (uncle). Then I thought that he needs to stop talking and listen to his own thoughts and think everything threw.…
Oedipus blinds himself in shame, accepting full responsibility for poising the city and willingly takes the punishment of exile. In the end, Oedipus’ arrogance led to his downfall. He lost his wife, his eyesight and his kingship. He uncovered the riddles of his life and found out that he was the boy who was the subject of the prophecy. His intelligence, egotism and arrogance led to this finding which caused him losing all that he had. The resolution of his life puts Oedipus above any other tragic hero. He unravels his life in a way that pushes the limits of agony a human can take and there he finds incomparable greatness of…
This instantly places him right on top and boosts him up to fulfill the Kings position. His intuitive instincts and drive to put together his life signified him as a man always on a hunt. These qualities where huge attributes to his life however, he also had many negative traits which would end him. He was a man with a huge temper which leads right to his downfall. Since his temper is what ultimately killed his father, it was obvious that it would not stop there. His lack of emotion and sensitivity to these killing sprees was a sign of a broken man unwilling to wear his heart of his sleeve. A man of pride. This follows even more problems for Oedipus as time continues. He refuses to listen to Teiresias, the blind seer of Thebes. He is informed about his future and is taking back by all that makes sense to him now. He is left alone to figure out what to do next. Instead of handling the situation calmly and effectively, he goes out on an rampage and seeks to kill his wife/mother for not telling him to the truth. Once he arrives, he instantly finds her hung by her own hair. This forces him to completely lose his right state of mind and punishes himself by gauging his…
A tragic hero is defined as “a [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake” (“Aristotle”, n.d.). Therefore, a tragic hero has some sort of tragedy that surrounds their life. A tragic hero also makes dramas more interesting and makes readers think. Dramas sometimes either exemplify or refute Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero. Oedipus by Sophocles exemplifies Aristotle’s definition in four different aspects. The first aspect involves both Oedipus’ ignorance and knowledge of his life situations, the second involves his hamartia, the third involves the actual plot itself, and the fourth involves the characterization of…
I saw Oedipus with likeable motives, but his choices purged my emotions for Oedipus. He craves knowledge until he is so disgusted that he sees Jocasta’s suicide and gouges out his own eyes. In the beginning, Oedipus was full of potential but destined to commit evil. The play spirals downwards as Oedipus learns more of his history. Oedipus the King is a moving tragedy. The play follows all concepts written in The Poetics concerning tragedy. The audience is brought to a holistic catharsis, a spiritual revelation, that will help he/she be honorable, more useful and responsible citizens. Like the sudden flip of the face-down card, the audience abruptly disregard their hope for Oedipus realizing his doomed…
The main concentration of Oedipus was preventing his downfall in the story, but due to his inner blindness and the rest of his character flaws he was unsuccessful in this journey, which is the reason that Oedipus was a static character throughout the whole story. He has various flaws, which always started multiple conflicts in the story, all of which gradually directed him to his downfall in the plot of the play. All of the shortcomings of Oedipus are the reason for his quick, horrific downfall from his kingliness into poor, ever-wandering blind man he has become by the conclusion of the story.…
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex revolves around the story of Oedipus, who now is King of Thebes, searching for the murderer of the past king. The tragedy is not so much that Oedipus is the murderer and committing incest with his mother. After all, he was fated to do so, and Oedipus commits these crimes unknowingly. The real tragedy of Oedipus is his trying to defy his destiny and compounding the troubles with his pride. Oedipus has the chance to stop the search for the murderer before the investigation starts. Even blind Teiresias, who tells Oedipus that he is the guilty party, wants Oedipus to stop although Teiresias can see the outcome and knows Oedipus' destiny. It is Oedipus' pride that, in telling the members of his court that he will search for the murderer, leads him down the ever narrowing path to the truth and his pride that will not allow him to stop the search.…
In Oedipus Rex a man blindly searches for the truth not knowing that it will be the cause of his own despicable fate. He finds out the to end the plague he has to find the former king's killer. He fights with Tiresias,the seer and says Creon is plotting against him. He fights with Jocasta about the past and current “coincidences”. They both realize the truth and Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs his eyes out. Creon becomes king and agrees to take care of Oedipus’s daughters, Oedipus is banished. Throughout the whole play Oedipus struggles with seeing and realizing the truth.…
In Oedipus the King Oedipus was a very strong willed confident man. He was a great leader, though at times he showed hubristic characteristics. He like to brag that “[everyone] knows [him], the world knows [his] fame,” (Oedipus the King. 7) and that he was the greatest person. He also thought the he was the most powerful man. These hubristic characteristics are what arguably led to his downfall. This was Oedipus’s tragic flaw. He was not humble by any means in this first book, but in the second book that all changed. After Oedipus could see the truth, and realized that his prophecy of killing his father and having children with his mother came true, he blinded himself. He wanted to escape what he could see (metaphorically) so he blinded himself (physically). In Oedipus and Colonus, Oedipus was old, weak, and weary. He was humble and pitied himself. He had to rely on his daughter, Anitgone, to guide him and care for him wherever he went after his exile. He has faith in the gods and realized that they are always watching you and know if your faith has faltered. In the first book he thought that he could prove the oracle wrong and show that the gods were not always right, but in trying to outrun his prophecy he caused it to happen. He changed drastically mentally and physically because of this. He lost all of his pride and was only full of pity. Also, he gouged his eyes out to try to escape seeing the truth.…
The entire story of Oedipus is built around a central ironic theme. The king's world is one full of ironies, most of which are cruel. His life begins in exile, because his father fears a prophecy, one in which his son would kill him and marry his wife. It is this…
What makes Oedipus so relatable, is the unavoidable uncertainty of life. The story begins with a man who has been told by Gods that no matter what, he will kill his father and marry his mother (x). He then goes into battle, killing a man, and then he returns home to his wife. Later in the story, it is revealed that Oedipus did not grow up with his biological parents, something Oedipus seemingly never considered. Soon after, his wife finds out and simultaneously discovers that her husband was given the exact prophecy as an infant as her late son was, and then was never seen by his parents. Appalled after putting this knowledge together, she exits quickly…
When Oedipus brings Tiresias to the palace, he reveals another side of Oedipus’s personality. At first, Oedipus seems like the faithful king, as he blamed Tiresias for treason and said that he was “Unlawful, unfriendly too to the state that bred and reared you- you withhold the word of god.” (Line 367) This allegation may appear out of good will to save the city of Thebes, however his strong desire to know continued to build up and eventually he snaps. Tiresias accuses him as the murderer of Laius and finds this outrages. Tiresias´s accusation stirs up Oedipus’s anger and brings out his inner child. He denigrates Tiresias, which is something a child would do and not an honored king. At the breaking point, he mocks Tiresias, saying, “ You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf – senses, eyes blind as stone!” (Line 423). At the beginning it seemed unlikely that such a kind king as Oedipus would be a murderer. As the readers are exposed to Oedipus’s more aggressive side it becomes believable that he could have killed Laius. They learn that Oedipus is not really the king that they thought he was, because of Tiresias.…