Oedipus the King Essay

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Shah Khan
All ENG
Professor Seamans-Frizzell
9/9/14
After reading the play, Oedipus The King, I’ll have to disagree with anyone who says they’ve had a bad day. I must agree with The Norton Anthology of Drama which states that Aristotle singled out the play Oedipus The King as an exemplar of tragedy. Talk about bad luck, Oedipus’s life seemed to have set forth on the wrong foot since the day he was born. Truly a tragic destined life. Despite the adversity Oedipus endures, I believe Oedipus was a great person. Oedipus’s character comes off very intelligent, articulate and prideful. His confidence may have cost him a few hardships in comprehending the truth towards the middle of the play, but for the most part he was a king who served his people. Towards the beginning of the play Oedipus manifests his concern for his people, and the extreme measures he is willing to take to achieve peace from the curse set upon Thebes. His honesty to his people is evident when Creon, who was sent by Oedipus to find out how to end the plague, returns from the Delphic oracle and relays the news to him. Creon advises Oedipus to speak in private, but Oedipus did not want to hide the truth but rather share openly what needed to be done. In my opinion this exemplifies fair leadership. As great of a man Oedipus was, at times I found that his pride also got to him. Instead of listening to the blind prophet, Tiresias, Oedipus completely rejects the truth and concocts scenarios where Tiresias and Creon try to overthrow him. I’m assuming the irony between these two characters was done on purpose. The blind prophet Tiresias sees the truth whereas Oedipus who can see rejects the truth. Oedipus is blind even with his vision. As I mention blindness, for a play written in 429 BC, there was quite some vulgarity. Things that even I wouldn’t want to envision. Towards the end of the play as Oedipus begins

Oedipus The King

OEDIPUS REX It begins in the city of Thebes in ancient Egypt. The king and queen of Thebes were expecting a child. One day one of the oracles delivered a prophecy to the king and informed him that his child would one day murder him. Thinking logically, the king gave his newborn child to one of his servants, drove spikes into his feet so he can never come home and ordered him to be tossed into the river. The servant, however, did not throw the baby into the river, but instead left the baby in the…

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Responsibility In Oedipus The King

Oedipus: The King, by Sophocles, is a tale of a man who attempts to escape fate, but it is futile and he unknowingly murders his father and marries his mother. However, the story is also about responsibility as Oedipus must bear the responsibility of his actions in order to save his country. Thebes is suffering by the gods due to the unsolved murder of their former king, Laios, and it will not stop until the murderer is caught. Oedipus as the new king proclaims that he will find the killer and will…

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Ambiguity In Oedipus The King

fate. Sophocles, In Oedipus the King examines how Oedipus believes that he is infallible and god-like through the usage of characterization,and power and relief diction which ultimately leads to his tragic downfall. Our character is our mental and moral qualities which are distinctive to us as an individual. Oedipus’ character believes that he is infallible, he has solved the riddle of sphinx and saved the citizens of Thebes which led to him being the king of Thebes. Oedipus’ intellectual passion…

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Oedipus The King Essay

Oedipus the King In this Greek tragedy, Oedipus the King, Sophocles leaves a lot of inconsistencies or realistic problems within the whole tale completely unexplained in order to compose a process of revealing Oedipus Rex’s guilt. This leaves the Greek tragedy to seem unrealistic because with the thought of the other elements not told by Sophocles, the story is not possible. One of the realistic problems is why would Oedipus or Jocasta marry someone that was much older or much younger than them…

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Truth In Oedipus The King

As the game draws to a close, Oedipus realizes the terrible truth. Despite all his efforts - because of them, in fact - he killed his father and married his mother. The prophecy he and his father tried to escape came true. Nemesis Destiny that can not be predetermined The fate of Oedipus is foretold as a newborn, he tries to escape, but by his actions he works against his own interests.. The spectators see Oedipus, an incorrect but still great man, humiliated by fate. They regret his tragic circumstances…

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Mentality In Oedipus The King

The play "Oedipus The King" written in about 427 to 426 BC. , was one of the three major play written by Sophocles from "The Theban Plays". Although Sophocles had his reasoning to not give himself into the thought of the polytheistic belief of his time because of fear of death as Socrates, he incorporated his beliefs through his work. As himself, Oedipus ,the Theban king and main character of the play, also does not focus completely on the idea of the gods and how they themselves are the creators…

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Free Will In Oedipus The King

In Oedipus the King by Sophocles, the theme tells the reader that a person’s fate and a person’s free will both influence his or her life. To begin, one of the biggest examples of free will happens in the end of Oedipus the King. In this part of the play, the messenger had to deliver the news that the queen has died. When describing Jocasta’s death, the Messenger says, “The queen is dead...By her own hand. But you are spared the worst, / you never had to watch...I saw it all, / and with all the memory…

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Recognition In Oedipus The King

All the clues lead to the reversal of Oedipus, which is him repenting from ignoring the signs that are taken over by his own dogmatism. However, there are a few occurrences that leads to his recognition. For example there is the signs that are given to him by Tiresias and Creon and Loxias as he states, “Why, Loxias declared that I should one day marry my own mother, and with my own hands shed my father’s blood. . .” (36). This becomes ingrained onto the back of his head and the idea that he might…

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Pride In Oedipus The King

In Sophocles’ Oedipus, the King, the protagonist Oedipus faces the realization of an ancient prophecy. Based on the foretelling, Oedipus is to kill his father and espouse his mother, Jocasta. While remaining oblivious to the corruption in Thebes, Oedipus’ blindness is metaphorically linked to the ancient prophecy. Oedipus primarily relies on emotion rather than reason, and he lets his self-pride govern over his actions. Analogous to most tragedies, pride is what leads to Oedipus’ tragic downfall…

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Oedipus The King Blindness

quotation said by a South American revolutionary leader, Simón Bolívar, is a very accurate representation of Oedipus’ journey in the Greek play Oedipus the King. According to Bolívar, the characteristic that makes an individual unaware and uniformed is the distinctive feature that causes their own devastation in their life. An ignorance of the truth is one of the main themes of Oedipus the King and this is represented through the motif of blindness, due to the fact that key characters are described…

Words 1199 - Pages 5