Knox, Bernard M.W. "The Oedipus Legend" Readings On Sophocles 56.2 (Sep. 2008): 85-88. Gale. Niceville High School Lib., Niceville, FL. 14 Sept. 2008 <http://find.galenet.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>. In Bernard’s critical essay, he examines the multiple elements that make up the Oedipus legend (such as novelty, myths, and plot) throughout the whole story and provides a summary of the story as well. Novelty was the major attraction of audiences for Greek tragedies. This is why the story of Oedipus is so strange and rather unusual to attract a larger crowd. According to Knox, another element of Oedipus was that of the myths. Uses of gods such as Apollo were intertwined with Greek tragedies in order to influence the audience to recognize that their will isn’t the most powerful thing in existence. When the story first begins, the background is not instantly given. In fact, the majority of the background story isn’t given until later in the middle. Irony, a major theme in Oedipus, is witnessed in multiple segments of the story. One of those examples is when the blind sight seer has more sight than the fully capable eyes of Oedipus. The dramatic irony comes into play when the audience knows what the truth behind Oedipus’ story is, while the characters are still uninformed. The ignorance of Oedipus’ parentage is what causes the dramatic outbreak. (197)…
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.…
16. Know the plot summary of Oedipus Rex. Antigone: Creon condemns both Antigone and Ismene to death. Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s betrothed, enters the stage. Oedipus the King: Oedipus naturally refuses to believe Tiresias’s accusation. After Tiresias leaves, Oedipus threatens Creon with death or exile for conspiring with the prophet. That baby was Oedipus. Oedipus at Colonus: Despite the warning, Theseus agrees to help Oedipus. Theseus does in fact return with Oedipus’s daughters shortly.…
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…
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…
As the children address Oedipus with remarks such as “You are not one of the immortal gods, we know; Yet we have come to you to make our prayer as to the man surest in mortal ways and wisest in the ways of God.” (1. Prologue. 35. 43.), the audience can understand Oedipus's role as king and the respect to his power, as with an irony on the fate bestowed upon our hero. As the fate of Oedipus is that of the tragic hero, Aristotle's descriptions of simple and complex plots within a tragedy lead to such “events that are fearful and pathetic" (Aristotle. 70). As Aristotle said that a tragedy should evoke two emotions: terror and pity, such that the audience is aroused with these feelings with the fate of Oedipus, but can relate and understand logically how such events took place.…
Oedipus, who was “sick at soul” eventually “tore the brooches from the robe of his dead wife and ground the pins into his eyes” (Bennet, Kerr, 3). As a result of this action, it is shown that Oedipus, filled with guilt and shame, imposes his own punishment on himself by abolishing his sense of sight. Through this, Oedipus clearly demonstrates how high the degree of remorse he feels is. On the contrary, when Creon becomes informed of the deaths of his own son and wife, he asks aloud “Is there no sword for me, to end this misery?” (Sophocles, 16). In this scene, Creon wishes to end his misery by killing himself as well, but as the story comes to a conclusion, it is speculated that Creon in fact, does not sentence himself to death. He imposes to only to be led away, to dwell for the remainder of his life in his own kingdom. It is here, that the true distinction between Oedipus and Creon shows. Oedipus, undeniably showing more remorse brings blindness and exile upon himself, compared to Creon, who only decides to reside within his home to live forever in sorrow. Unmistakably, through their self-imposed retributions, Oedipus demonstrates a higher level of remorse when compared to…
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…
In the play Oedipus causes some of his own suffering. Oedipus’s pride gets him into situations that cause him to suffer later on in the play. “He tore the brooches-the gold chased brooches fastening he robe –away from her and lifting them up high dashed them on his own eyeballs...”(pg.446). Oedipus finds Jocasta in her room after she hung herself and is ashamed. Oedipus has so much pride that he puts himself into denial when he is faced with any situation that can hurt his pride. To protect his pride he stabs himself in the eyes and pokes them out. After truly blinding himself he Oedipus exiles himself because he feel that he doesn’t deserve to die immediately ,he must suffer for the rest of his life. Not only does he have to deal with self-inflicted suffering but the suffering dealt by others.…
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…
“Oedipus the King” is a drama that portrays misfortune that dwells among mankind. The tragic sequence of events first starts with the birth of Oedipus. His biological parents are stricken with grief when they discover a secret that causes them to banish their son from the city of Thebes. Little did they know that, despite their actions, fate would still play out which would, in turn, cause the society of Thebes to be stricken by the plague. Although many people suffered from the unfortunate destiny of Oedipus, perhaps the person that suffered the most was Oedipus himself. Oedipus endured an unforgiving reality check after being blindsided by the current state of his life.…
When all else fails and his throne is taken out of his hands, his last hope is his children, specifically his daughters, - Antigone and Ismene. As Oedipus is dragged out of view, he exclaims,”No, don’t take them away from me,” (107). Even though Oedipus has nothing left, he still holds a place of love for his children in his heart, showing that he is not all arrogant as he seems. Furthermore, he is shown in complete sadness, being at the side of the deceased Jocasta. After barging into the room where Jocasta lay, he sees her and gives a “deep dreadful cry of sorrow and loosened the rope round her neck” (93). Believing that everything is his fault, he stabs himself in the eyes with sorrow. On the other hand, during the time Oedipus is unaware of the truth, he pledges to his people that he will most certainly catch the murderer who brought upon the demise of Laius. He acknowledges that under any circumstance the murderer will be caught, even if he/she resides in his own household. However, if with his own knowledge, the murderer stays in the house of Oedipus; “in that case he, himself, be subject to all the curses that he called down on the people” (15), This shows his determination to catch the murderer as cursing oneself is a courageous feat in that one must have complete confidence that they are doing the right thing. This act of bravery, once again, shows the genuine emotion of need to…
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.…