Preview

Oedipus The King Jocasta Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
659 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Oedipus The King Jocasta Essay
In the year of 430 B.C., Sophocles wrote a tragic ancient Greek play entitled Oedipus the King; which is concerning a righteous king who is on the hunt for the killer of the former king. Amidst this time, the entire country is plagued by famine and death while awaiting a curse from the God’s to be lifted. While searching for answers, the king’s wife, Jocasta, appears in the story line only to leave me thinking that she is the true embodiment of being a hapless, unfortunate, and ill-fated character.
With a grim fate and a hopeful heart, Jocasta commits the act of infanticide that is the start of the prophecy. Jocasta and her late husband are taking part in this unforgivable act against humanity due to a prophecy which not only damns the couple’s lives but their child’s life …show more content…
Subsequently, she is slamming the word of the God’s in the climax of the play because she does not yet realize the truth behind her happiness. Thereafter, she in enlightened to the fact that she has created her own despair and that the God’s words were true. Successively she starts talking to Apollo, who is the God of truth and wisdom, to be enlightened as to why her doom is happening. She promptly ends her conversation with Apollo and runs into the palace to end her foreordination by hanging herself with the bedsheets of her sins.
In whole, the story of Oedipus the King was a trying story of the human condition and the anthropological fact of human blindness to their own destruction. Personally, I enjoyed the tragic play. I think that is an accurate, yet slightly dramatic, depiction of the things that people in a society will do to save themselves. I think that in every person there is a problem they are ignoring or trying their hardest to run from; but in reality, it is always the problem they are running from that is their
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Oedipus Rex Critical Lens Essay
    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Oedipus Rex Critical Lens Essay

    The ability to see is a much more complex ability than just the physical attribute. Most individuals have the ability to see physically but are blind to the reality of certain circumstances. In the play, “Oedipus the King” by Plato, Oedipus, the tragic hero, is not a blind man but cannot see the reality in the outcome of trying to escape his given fate.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tartuffe Gender Roles
    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Tartuffe Gender Roles

    Jocasta was the queen of Thebes and the wife of King Laius. Jocasta and Laius received a prophecy that lauis were to be kill by his own son. This what cause Jocasta and Laius to pierce and bind their only child ankles and abandon him on the mountainside to die. Jocasta were often criticized for her distrust in the prophecies, and did not believe in the prophecy receive about their son. Jocasta thought that her child, she abandon were dead and her husband kill by thieves. Eventhough, in the play Jocasta express disapproval of the prophecy, but she pray to Apollo, giving offerings, and asking for protection. Jocasta compare to other characters in the play is seen as a hypocrite, and it seems she's not easily…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus The King Literary Analysis
    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Oedipus The King Literary Analysis

    In the study of Greek plays, one tries to recreate for an experience, to recapture something of what is meant to those for whom it was written. We know more about the life of Sophocles than we know do about the lives of any other Greek playwright, but this still is not a lot. Sophocles’ work has been said to be the pinnacle of Greek tragedy. Oedipus the King is something like the literary Mona Lisa of ancient Greece. It presents a nightmare vision of a world turned upside down; a decent man, Oedipus, becomes the king of Thebes, whilst in the process unknowingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. As scholars, we are bound to relate this story through history, to ask what the writer really meant, how…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Sophocles Oedipus The King
    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Analysis Of Sophocles Oedipus The King

    Sophocles’s use of both plot and character within his classic tragedy “Oedipus the King” portray the religious and ethical views of the Classical period of Ancient Greece to such an extent that Knox goes so far as to say that “the audience which watched Oedipus in the theatre of Dionysus was watching itself.” Marlowe uses similar tools of character construction and plot in “Dr Faustus” to reflect the beliefs and moral attitudes held in Elizabethan England. The playwrights both use the conceptions of their protagonists to present contemporary beliefs; for example, the initial portrayal of the characters of Oedipus and Dr Faustus demonstrate ideological characteristics of a man within their respective contexts. On the other hand, with the…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus The King: A Tragic Hero
    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Oedipus The King: A Tragic Hero

    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…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus The King: A Tragic Analysis
    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Oedipus The King: A Tragic Analysis

    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…

    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tragedy In Oedipus The King
    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Tragedy In Oedipus The King

    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…

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Story of Oedipus: Book vs. Movie
    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Story of Oedipus: Book vs. Movie

    The adaption of the tragedy Oedipus The King to cinema is a big leap in the history of film making. However, there are certain aspects of the movie that could have been beter adapted. The main reason why these points have been missed may be due to the fact that Pier Paolo Pasolini meant to make a movie that carried a myth of the past to today and even tomorrow by starting the movie in Italy and carrying it to the past. What really bothered me while watching the movie was that Oedipus is too young compared to what we see in the tragedy and even more disturbing, he does not act like a king that he is presented to be in the tragedy. I am not criticizing the way how he acts before becoming a king because in my opinion that part of the tragedy is well adapted to the movie but the way how he behaves afterwards is not a good adoption of the text. The reason why I make this claim is because the king sounds more caring in the text. This change is not well demonstrated in the movie. Moreover, the costume that the king wears should not be presented that way. In my opinion Oedipus should have had a more glorifying costume than Creon but that was not the case. Another aspect of the tragedy that was not in the movie was the real reason why Oedipus was named after which is the club foot. It was missing in the movie. According to the tragedy Oedipus should have been nailed at his foot at birth and that is why he is given the name Oedipus which means swollen foot. Apart from these, I believe that the story was told in a way that it could not be told any better. Some may say that the story does not match the tragedy due to the lack of following the same storyline but in my opinion that is why it is a movie and not a demonstration of the tragedy…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus The King Analysis
    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Oedipus The King Analysis

    Any great story has its critics ready to critique every great detail of a story. Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is no exemption. Oedipus the King was written around 430 B.C. so this play has had plenty of time to be critiqued. Not only has this Greek tragedy been around for so long, but it is considered a masterpiece; it only makes sense for something very famous to be criticized even more.…

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus The King Research Paper
    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Oedipus The King Research Paper

    Oedipus The King is most likely one of the greatest tragedies ever recorded. This play tells the story of the great downfall of a once honored king who by the end of the story, becomes a great curse. This is mainly due to his great sense of pride. It was believed by the Greeks that people with this immense pride thought that they were above the gods. Aristotle believed that the protagonist of every tragedy must have some type of tragic flaw that will eventually lead to his demise. To Oedipus ,of Oedipus The King, pride is his tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. Some examples of his pride taking over him were: when he correctly answered the Sphinx’s riddle, when he abandoned his adoptive parents in Corinth, and when he killed Laius in the crossroads.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jocasta And Odepius Research Paper
    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Jocasta And Odepius Research Paper

    The relationship between Odepius and Jocasta is an interesting one. Both Odepius’ lover and mother gives Jocasta an interesting role both in the story and in Odepius’ life. Odepius enters the story as someone of low social standing but rises quickly to take the king’s empty throne and marry the queen of Thebes. As the plot develops readers see Jocasta take on different roles in Odepius’ life. Once the story comes full circle and both Odepius and Jocasta see what they have done, and the children that they have created together in incest Jocasta cannot live with herself. She has prayed to the gods and offered incense in an attempt to calm Odepius’ spirit and nothing works. Culturally, Jocasta did everything right throughout Odepius’ journey to…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Lesson 1 Personal Response
    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Lesson 1 Personal Response

    Cassandra has a gift of prophecy. She brought by Agamemnon as a slave. She predicted that she will be dead but still goes to Agamemnon’s homeland fully aware what waits her there. Cassandra is the only person who clearly sees what is going on but tragically because of the curse nobody believe her. She is a victim. She accepts her destiny. She suffers in her life and sees death as an end of her pain.…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Women in Oedipus
    • 1954 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Women in Oedipus

    The main female character from Sophocles’ play, King Oedipus, in fact the only female character present, is Jocasta. Jocasta is the wife of Oedipus. She is exposed as a compassionate, competent and loyal woman to her husband; telling him “I will do nothing other than you wish”. This is, of course, when she is unaware of the truth regarding Oedipus.…

    • 1954 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus Essay
    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Oedipus Essay

    "What walks on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, and three legs at nightfall." This was the riddle posed by the Sphinx who at the time was destroying the city of Thebes. The riddle was solved by none other than Oedipus who was made king for ridding the city of the Sphinx. Ironically though, Oedipus in his life comes to embody the riddle of the Sphinx and its soulution. Firstly, the Sphinx is percieved as a curse on Thebes and Oedipus also becomes a curse by the end of the play. Secondly, Oedipus's physical health embodies the riddle. Thirdly, Oedipus's emotional state also resembles the riddle. Lastly, the events of Oedipus's life relate to the theme of identity in the play.…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Jocasta In Oedipus
    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Examples Of Jocasta In Oedipus

    Although some may consider Jocasta to be a perfectly evil woman, she is merely misunderstood in her attitude towards the gods, her role in Oedipus’s suffering, and the treatment of those she loved. Attesting to the fact she fits the Nurturer/ The Good Wife/ The Martyr archetype.…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics