Preview

The Moral Ideas Of King Oedipus The King

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
433 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Moral Ideas Of King Oedipus The King
King Oedipus is a person who is the protagonists in literature with the title Oedipus the King. One was written and was first recorded around the 8th century BC by Homer. The literature Oedipus the King is a tragedy. This literature recalled the king Oedipus was faced with the fate worse: he has to shed his father's blood, married to his mother, and he also was cursed by his curse. The author illustrates the disadvantages of the king Oedipus many kinds; however, he has been interpolated the moral ideas of the king Oedipus in this literature – the king Oedipus is a person who ashamed to sin, be remorse for his crime, be intelligent and witty.
In an article has the importance scene that shows we know the king Oedipus ashamed sin: one day
…show more content…
After the king Oedipus was known that he is a person who killed his own father, and after Jocasta decided to take her own life by hanging herself. That led the king Oedipus into guilt. The king Oedipus tore the Jocasta’s golden brooches and smote full on his own eyeballs because he doesn't want to see anything that fear and he feel guilty. Although, he well knows that he would be not visible anymore and be suffering from the injury. This show we know that the king Oedipus has shown remorse for his crime.
The king Oedipus is an intelligent and witty person. It’s said that before Oedipus came to be the king of Thebes. He must faces with Sphinx which is an undead and eats humans. Oedipus has to answer Sphinx’s riddle if he cannot, he must die. There is a lot of people must died because they cannot answer Sphinx’s riddle but Oedipus can answer Sphinx's riddle correctly. This pointed out that the king Oedipus is a person who very incisive and witty. So, I strong agree that Oedipus is the king who has a moral high ground, but the fate has dealt king Oedipus a cruel destiny. He embarked on a great sin against his parents because he hasn’t known before the king Laius and Jocasta were his

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Oedipus ascended the throne of Thebes; as to many years ago he had solved the riddle of the Sphinx, saved the city of Thebes and was welcomed as King. We see that this quality makes him an excellent ruler who anticipates his subjects’ needs. Taking up the responsibility of being a king by serving the citizens, Oedipus is adequate to the challenge, believing he can purge the land. Oedipus the King is a character that tempts fate, thinks he can change fate as a man who…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Hubris In Oedipus The King

    • 1852 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King in the 5th century BCE, in contrast with the work of the Roman Ovid. The character of King Oedipus demonstrates his attitude of overconfidence from the beginning, as he speaks to the children outside his palace and introduces himself as, “I, Oedipus whom all men call the Great” (Oedipus the King 73). As a result of this hubris, he tries to defy the prophecies given by the gods, but he goes on to follow the prophecy as it was laid out and do exactly what he was most afraid of doing (Oedipus the King 83). The Oracle of Delphi gives him the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, but his overconfidence convinces him that he can overcome this; instead of taking the advice of the prophet Teiresias, he attacks Teiresias in anger over the prophecy (Oedipus the King 80-81, 86). He embarks on an adventure towards Thebes from Corinth, and on his way, he kills an old man and marries the queen of Thebes (Oedipus the King 105), completely unaware that in doing so, he is fulfilling the prophecy. Throughout the story, his pride shines through both his actions and his attitude, as he attempts to prove that he knows more and is more powerful than the prophet, stating, “it has no strength for you because you are blind in mind and ears as well as in your eyes…You life is one long night so that you cannot hurt me or any…

    • 1852 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pride In Oedipus Rex

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The people believed at the time of Sophocles that an individual achieves his destiny as a result of his own fate. This is true in the case of Oedipus the king, whose anger; pride and blindness towards the truth bring his tragic downfall. At the start of the play, Oedipus is depicted as a confident ruler, who saved Thebes from the curse of Sphinx, furthermore, he becomes the king overnight. He declares his name gladly just as it were itself a recuperating charm: “Here I am myself— / you all know me, the world knows my fame: / I am Oedipus” (7–9). At the end, this pride becomes the curse for him (Sophocles, 1882).…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The tragic hero in the story "Oedipus the King" is Oedipus himself, and every tragic hero must have a tragic flaw; the tragic flaw for Oedipus was becoming the King when he married his mother. "Wealth, power, [and] craft of statesmanship! Kingly position everywhere admired, " stated by Oedipus, where he is in the high position of the play. Going on with the play, Oedipus discovers that his "parents" (King Polybus and Queen Merope) were not actually his real parents, making him question the King and Queen, who denies everything; Oedipus, of course, does not stop there. The reversal takes place when he hears his destiny by the oracle, leaving him to make the decision to go "to a land where [Oedipus] should never see the evil sung by the oracle,"…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The story of Oedipus Tyrannus, otherwise known as Oedipus the King or Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles; it tells the story of Oedipus, the king of Thebes who is plagued by a self-fulfilled prophecy in which he kills his father Laius and marries his own mother, Jocasta. Not only is it widely recognized as Sophocles’ greatest work, the story of Oedipus has lent its name to what is recognized in the psychological realm today as the Oedipus complex, in which a young child feels “complex emotions” relative to that of unconscious sexual desire toward the parent of the opposite sex. Oedipus as a leader, separate from his web of extremely strange familial encounters, is a point of contention. Oedipus’ role…

    • 1447 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Many people believe that this was the retribution he paid for his crime, but I would argue that Oedipus had no choice in the matter and simply had fulfilled his destiny. Oedipus does not consciously know of what he was doing at the time, and thus, his crime was not entirely premeditated. And one cannot condemn ignorance no more than one can realistically condemn good intentions, for Oedipus was both truly unaware of what he had done and of no desire to harm whom he had thought to be his…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    According to Adade-Yeboah, Ahenkora, and Amankwah (2012), “Tragedy is of action and not character as Aristotle puts it” (p. 10). Therefore, Oedipus’ tragedy deals with his ignorance and not his character. Oedipus is ignorant in the fact that he does not realize he is committing patricide or incest (Adade-Yeboah et al., 2012, p. 11). Oedipus grows up knowing two opposite people that he thought were his parents, which leads to him killing his biological father and marrying his biological mother. Oedipus then goes on to search for his biological father’s killer and soon realizes that it was he himself who committed the atrocious acts toward his family. He came to this realization after it was revealed to him by an oracle. Originally, Oedipus believes that the man he originally kills is only just a shepherd, when in return it is his biological father. According to Greenburg (2012), “Oedipus has been told, and has come to believe, that at the end of his life and in death he will have the power to protect the city that has taken him and buried him” (p. 52). Oedipus maintains the belief that things will always be the way he knew them to be and he would be in charge of the city he knew and loved. He maintains this belief until an oracle reveals his misfortune. At first, Oedipus and his wife (biological mother) refuse to believe that what they were told is true. According to…

    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the time Oedipus Rex was written, audiences saw Oedipus’s marriage to his mother and murder of his father as moral sins even though he was fated to do so. As a result of their moral code ancient…

    • 512 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    Remorse is the moral anguish, the sorrow and shame, and the regret and guilt, which may haunt even the fiercest, mightiest king. It is often accompanied with the consequences of the individual’s wrongdoing. Remorse takes a principal part in some of Greek’s classic tragedies. One could say, the tragic hero is likely to experience such feelings, likewise in the Greek tragedies Oedipus Rex, rewritten by John Bennett and Moira Kerr, as well as Antigone written by Sophocles, two characters Oedipus and Creon both display signs of remorse. Yet ultimately, it is evident through the emotions displayed, admittance of their sins, and further self imposed retribution, that Oedipus suggests a higher degree of remorse.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “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.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays