Sophocles wrote the play Oedipus the King around 430 BC. It was written and produced in Athens, Greece. The intended audience of this play was Sophocles’ fellow Greeks. He wanted to reach out to all of the citizens. Sophocles shows his audience that fate cannot be overcome. In the opening of Oedipus the King the people of Thebes are suffering. Their crops and cattle are not doing well and their women are not able to bear new children. Oedipus sends Creon, his wife Jocasta’s brother, to seek advice on how to save the city from Apollo at his Pythian temple at Delphi. Creon tells Oedipus that Apollo has told him that they must drive out a pollution from their land. This pollution to be driven out is the man who killed the previous king, Laius. …show more content…
The audience would have had an idea of who the calamity would fall on from the beginning. It was known back then that a king was connected to his land and if a famine or plague were to fall upon the land it was because the king was cursed or corrupted. In this case Thebes is suffering from a famine and disease. This connection would have been made then that something was not right about the king. There are many references to eyes, sight, light, and perception foreshadowing what is to become of Oedipus. Oedipus tells Teiresias he is being blind in the mind and ears in addition to being blind in the eyes. The irony there is that Oedipus himself is being blind in the mind at the moment and later blinds his eyes and claims to wish he could do the same with his ears. Teiresias tells Oedipus outright that Oedipus himself is the killer of Lauis. His blindness to the truth is another event foreshadowing his later condition. When speaking of how he will seek out the murderer Oedipus claims he will fight in Laius’ defense as if for his father. He also places a curse on the murderer that he may “wear out his life in misery to miserable doom!” in lines 268 and 269. Both of these comments in his speech foretell later events in the play of him finding out Laius is his father and his life falling apart before him. Everything he thought he knew turned out to be a lie and his wife and mother commits suicide because she cannot bear what has come to
Several years later, after defeating the monstrous Sphinx, Oedipus is the new king, practically worshipped by the people of Thebes, and is married to Laius’s widow Jocasta. Oedipus is completely oblivious to the crimes he had committed at this point. Killing a king was considered a crime against the gods and required admittance of said crime and acceptance of punishment.
Sophocles uses foreshadowing in Oedipus to tell his own tragedy when speaking to the people of Thebes. The city is in a crisis and is suffering because of the murder of the King, which Oedipus himself killed, unknowingly. of Oedipus, and irony is shown when Oedipus suggest that by avenging Laius he will protect himself, or that by getting children upon Jocasta, the dead king's wife, he will be taking the place of the son of Laius, which, unknowingly, is himself. The irony reaches its peak when Oedipus calls on the prophet Tiresias to help uncover the murder of Laius and seek a cure to the plague; the metaphor of vision is ironic in that the blind Tiresias can see what the seemingly brilliant Oedipus has overlooked, namely the king's crimes of incest and murder. The other major ingredient of the tragic equation, the purging emotion, is worked out by Sophocles. The hubris of Oedipus is demolished when he confides in Jocasta concerning the predictions of the seer Tiresias; she tells him the story of the murder of Laius, and as she speaks Oedipus comes to recognize the scene
In the prologue of the play, Antigone, by Sophocles, Antigone and Ismene (sisters) are debating between burying their late brother, Polyneices, and the consequences they may end up facing. In Antigone’s eyes, family comes before the law of burying a traitor. When disputing between the burial, Antigone says, “...but Polyneices, who fought bravely and died as miserably, - they say that Creon has sworn no one shall bury him…” (Prologue.17-20) Antigone just wants to put her brother to peace, but Creon refuses to allow anyone who tries to ruin the well-being of his new society to be buried. She believes that Polyneices fought just as bravely as their brother, Eteocles, and his spirit deserves to be put to rest instead of lying in the public square.
In the play, Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles, an honourable and admirable Greek king named Oedipus rules the town of Thebes. He is left in mental turmoil and decay as his unknown, corrupt and immoral past is slowly revealed during his quest to find the culprit who murdered King Laius. The newly exposed past suddenly transforms his glory and respect into shame and humiliation. After he learns about his wicked past he stabs his eyes, which lead to his blindness. During the course of the play, references to blindness and vision constantly recur, giving the reader an enhanced and more insightful look into the themes of the play. Some themes that are expressed through these references include truth and knowledge, guilt, and freewill versus
Like all Greek tragedies Oedipus is set around only one setting, here it’s outside the Kingdom where the citizens of Thebes and the chorus of the Theban councillors all gather in hope of Oedipus’s wisdom. The stage is set out in a fixed stage, with the kingdom
The beginning of Oedipus the King the city of Thebes is under a terrible plague with many hardships. Its people and priest have
Oedipus the King, was written by Sophocles between C.A.496-406B.C. In this play, Oedipus is a great example of Sophocles’ belief that fate will control a man’s life no matter how much free will exists.
In Oedipus The King by Sophocles, Oedipus, the great king of Thebes, suffers a reversal of fortune when he attempts to change his fate. Oedipus is prophesied to kill his father and to marry his mother so he leaves Corinth to come to Thebes so this prophecy does not come true. As Thebes is being countered by a plague, Oedipus is trying everything he can to help the citizens. Throughout the play, Oedipus seeks knowledge about the plague later leading to his downfall. Oedipus is seen as a hero to his city due to his contributions, but he soon has a tragic ending when he seeks for knowledge.
Throughout the play Oedipus is given clues to his past and the fate that is to come, the moment that he gouges his eyes out shows these clues that he has missed. Jocasta says wildly, “In the name of heaven, don’t proceed! For your own life’s sake, stop! And I’ve been tortured long enough.” (59) This shows a moment of caution for Oedipus to not continue to seek the truth. The dramatic irony of this situation illuminates the horrors that are to come because of fate as well as Oedipus’ free will. Oedipus: “Laius was killed—I thought I caught the words—where three highways meet?” Jocasta: “So they said. That is how the story goes.” (41) Oedipus is first hearing the true story of the late king’s murder and seems to be beginning to realize that it was he who did the killing. Even though this could be his illuminating moment, Oedipus is unwilling to accept this fact and must hear
A plague has stricken Thebes. The citizens gather outside the palace of their king, Oedipus, asking him to take action. Oedipus replies that he already sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the oracle at Delphi to learn how to help the city. Creon returns with a message from the oracle: the plague will end when the murderer of Laius, former king of Thebes, is caught and expelled; the murderer is within the city. Oedipus questions Creon about the murder of Laius, who was killed by thieves on his way to consult an oracle. Only one of his fellow travelers escaped alive. Oedipus promises to solve the mystery of Laius’s death, vowing to curse and drive out the murderer.
Oedipus intelligence could not see the truth, but the blind man, Teiresias, saw it plainly. Sophocles uses blindness as a theme in the play. Oedipus was uninformed and as a result blind to the truth about himself and his past. Yet, when Teiresias exposes the truth he is in denial. It is left to Oedipus to conquer his blindness, accept the truth, and realize fate. But instead Oedipus ridicules Terirsias blindness and accuses him of being on the side of Kreon and helping him become King. He accuses Teiresias for being paid to tell a fraudulent prophecy to him. Quickly Teiresias answers him back and tells him he is BLIND, and tells him about his past of who his actual mother and father was.
The heart of the story unravels when Oedipus apparently begins to suffer a reversal of fortunes. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus is referred to by the priest as the “king of the land, [the city of Thebes’] greatest power” (16). Through all of Thebes he is thought of as a hero, a man who saved the city from the Sphinx and in his bravery has promised to find the killer of King Laius in order to save the city from doom and death. However, at the climax of the story Oedipus learns that he has been “cursed in [his] birth, cursed in marriage / and cursed in
As king of Thebes, Oedipus is a very short-tempered leader who thinks, and sometimes even rules, by the seat of his pants. When Oedipus learns of the plague over Thebes, he chooses to root out the source and eliminate the scourge over his city. This is all well and good until Oedipus starts hearing things he does not like. When Creon sends for the blind prophet Tiresias, the same prophet who told Laius and
It is quickly determined between the two men that the defilement to which the prophecy refers is the murderer of Laius. Oedipus sees it as his duty to rid the city of the villain, who the audience knows to be the king himself.
Tragedy as an element of the human experience has been the subject of many of the great works of literature written in the Western tradition. For some, tragedy embodies the highest form of humanity. It is through suffering that we are able to reveal ourselves most completely. Others see tragedy as an element of morality where we are to learn well the lessons of those who tempt the gods. The Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, outlined a theory of tragedy as archetypal drama in his classic work, the Poetics. He uses the play by Sophocles, Oedipus the King (hereafter "Oedipus"), as the standard model by which all other tragedies are measured. In Aristotle's view, a perfect