Similarities Between Oedipus The King And The Truman Show

Oedipus and Pentheus are both tragic Greek characters who help create their own endings. Through their character's flaws and blindness to what is going on around each of them, the story develops. The only consistent character in both plays who is able to understand past and present dangers is Teiresias, the blind prophet.

As prophets are the messengers of the gods, contesting with Tiresias is tantamount to defying the gods themselves. As king, he feels that he has the power to determine truth, and that he has supreme power over the city. He accuses Creon of conspiring with Tiresias, and threatens to exile or even kill him. Before Oedipus was the accused, his status as king gave him confidence and leadership, which are attributes that were productive in solving the mystery. After he was accused of murdering the former king, this status became a negative and caused him to be too overwhelmed with his power to identify the truth. This is also the point at which he stops trusting the divine ability of prophets. His mother Jocasta seems to stop trusting prophets at this point as well. She began to tell Oedipus not to listen to Tiresias, even though she proved at various points earlier in the story that she believed in prophecies. She pretentiously conveys a disbelief in prophecies as she speaks to her son and husband: "Fear? What should a man fear? It's all chance, chance rules our lives. Not a man on earth can see a day ahead, groping through the dark." She realizes that she failed in preventing the predetermined fate, but attempts to maintain the stability and reputation of the royal family by hiding the truth. The family would inevitably be destroyed, however, as was the will of the god Apollo. The inferiority of the family's political power compared with the divine power of

Even though he is given the truth about his past, he is unwilling to hear it because of his pride. Here, Oedipus is given the chance to stop and turn back this quest, because in the end the murderer he must face in the end is himself. Instead, he begins to have self doubts about himself, which damages his pride, and continues on his journey into his past to restore his hurt pride. His pride forces him not to believe the truth, and so it leads toward his own undoing. Oedipus pride pushes him forward, shedding some light on the grim truths of his dark past. Finally, when faced with his wife Jocasta, she begs him not to continue with this mad quest, knowing that there will be nothing good for them in the end. Jocasta states “For God’s love, let us have no more questioning! Is your life nothing to you? My own pain is enough to bear” (Sophocles 1003-1005), realizing that Oedipus may be the murderer of her husband Laius and that the prophecy that the oracle said many years ago may finally come to light and be true. Oedipus however refuses to listen to her insistent pleas, and so gives up the last chance for him to turn back. Oedipus could have easily stopped here and listened to Jocasta but as Arthur Miller states

Considering King Oedipus’s self-inflicted blindness and Hamlet’s overwhelming thirst for his own stepfather’s blood, it seems that both men have lost their minds. However, these men are not truly mentally unhinged, but rather incredibly devoted to their religious ideals. Hamlet, a Catholic, believes that his actions will determine his afterlife; the way he acts, though crazy, is an attempt to please God and avoid eternal damnation. King Oedipus, a follower of Apollo and the Greek gods, acts irresponsibly and makes rash decisions because he believes that his fate is set in stone and that his actions, no matter how extreme, can not change his destiny. Hamlet and King Oedipus are similar in that their impractical actions and decisions stem

Oedipus only had to open his eyes and realize what the blind prophet was saying described him. Then, he wouldn’t have went down the way he did. When Oedipus finally came to realization, he figured out he had killed his father, married his mother, and also had kids with her. He was in complete shock. At the moment Oedipus found out about his real self, he says “My god it’s all true. I killed him...I made love to her...and raised a family that never should have been born. I can no longer bear to see the light” (Oedipus the King 62). With this, he stabs out his eyes in horror. Not only was Oedipus blind to the fact Jocasta and

Finding out who his true father is seems important for someone who has just been told he will kill his father. Nor is Oedipus particularly intelligent about the way he conducts himself. Even though he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents, he still does kill a man old enough to be his father and marry a woman old enough to be his mother. One would think that a man with as disturbing a prophesy over his head as Oedipus would be very careful about who he married or killed. Blindly he pursues the truth when others warn him not to; although he has already fulfilled the prophesy, he does not know it, and if he left well enough alone, he could continue to live in blissful ignorance. But instead he stubbornly and foolishly rummages through his past until he discovers the awful truth. In this way, Jocasta 's death and his blindness are his own fault.

Moreover, Sophocles’ insightful word choice is used to further explore the themes of free will and fate. While Jocasta is trying to convince Oedipus to go no further in his quest to learn his lineage, she tells him in her dialog, “You’re doomed --/may you never fathom who you are!”(4-5). Sophocles’ choice of the word “doomed” is again a word implying an inescapable fate. However, since Jocasta knows the prophecy has already been fulfilled the ill-fated future that she foreshadows is Oedipus’ tragic fall. Thus it is of significance that with her next line in the script in response to Oedipus calling to a servant to fetch the shepherd, Jocasta says to Oedipus, “Man of agony--/ that is the only name I have for you,/ that, no other-- ever, ever, ever!”(10-12). This is a turning point for Jocasta, not only has her speech become reduced to short clauses, she has also come to the conclusion that Oedipus has inflicted his physical and mental trauma on himself by his choices. As Jocasta exits the stage to commit suicide after

But unlike Oedipus, Jocasta handles her situation through hypocrisy and denial. As the play progresses, it becomes obvious that Jocasta is terrified of the idea that her life is influenced by the gods. Instead, she forces herself to believe that “life is governed by the operations of chance. Nothing can be clearly foreseen. The best way to live is by hit or miss, as best you can” (53). Jocasta’s life best resembles a balance, with the evidence to support the prophecies on one side and how much she can ignore on the other. She convinces herself that prophetic power does not exist, yet attempted to avoid the prophecy of Laius’ death by sending their child into the mountains. When Laius died, Jocasta reasoned that it was due to chance, thus proving the prophecy wrong. But the moment the Corinthian messenger revealed where he found Oedipus as a baby, Jocasta’s balance tipped. Not even Jocasta, who could ignore Oedipus’ injuries to his ankle and the meaning of his name, could overlook the proof. In her desperation to retain control of her life, Jocasta begs Oedipus to not interrogate the shepherd, and when he refuses, she takes her own life. Ultimately, Jocasta is revealed as a character who would do anything to avoid the truth. When the prophecies came to fruition, Jocasta realizes that she never had any control over her life. Unlike Oedipus, Jocasta refuses to accept her fate, and in her final act of defiance, an act she deems as her own, she commits

There was an oracle told to Oedipus when he was younger that he would kill his father and wed his mother. Jocasta tells Oedipus that prophets are not correct all the time. She went on to tell him that she once bore a child to Laius, and Apollo told them that this child would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. At that point Oedipus was scared because of the oracle told to him when he was younger. It is ironic that Oedipus could have this much guilt placed on him in this short amount of time. He replied to her, "As I listen, my queen, my thoughts went reaching out and touched on memories that make me shudder..."(lines, 759-760). Oedipus has just reacted to what Jocasta, his wife/mother, has told him. He is terrified because he believes that he may have been the one who killed Laius. Oedipus goes on to ask Jocasta multiple questions about who, what when and where this all happened. After every answered question Oedipus reacted with more and more grief. Every question showed more and more evidence that Oedipus had been the murderer of Laius. When the messenger

Jocasta rejoices, convinced that Polybus’s death from natural causes has disproved the prophecy that Oedipus would murder his father. At Jocasta’s summons, Oedipus comes outside, hears the news, and rejoices with her. He now feels much more inclined to agree with the queen in deeming prophecies worthless and viewing chance as the principle governing the world. But while Oedipus finds great comfort in the fact that one-half of the prophecy has been disproved, he still fears the other half—the half that claimed he would sleep with his mother.

Throughout William Shakespeare’s classic play, Hamlet, it is very clear that the Prince of Denmark suffers from severe parental problems. These problems bear a stark resemblance to those borne by Oedipus, the classic staple of Greek mythology. The similarities, however, end and begin with an unhealthy obsession towards the mothers of each character and a distinct distaste towards the father that would border on hatred. Oedipus is, due to childhood experiences that were uncontrollable to him, largely unaware of these issues and even takes steps to disprove them. Hamlet, on the other hand, finds himself in this situation due to circumstances that he encounters later in life. While both Hamlet and Oedipus have very unnatural and unusual

Often the past will present answers to questions about the future as well as questions of the now, and in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’ past plays an integral role in his pursuit of righting the wrongs that are affecting him in the present. In the play, Oedipus must identify who has killed Laius in order to exile them to solve the qualms of his people, and in a dialogue with Jocasta, who happens to be his wife as well as his mother, she reveals to him details of the death of Laius that seem far too familiar for his comfort (Sophocles 27). This revelation of information acts as a catalyst that forces Oedipus to make the connection between his past and what Jocasta is telling him. This realization that he may have been responsible for Laius’ death exposes him to the weight of the pursuit of justice sometimes hold for humans. Through this dialogue, Oedipus comes to fear that he is the culprit of the scandal that is plaguing the situation, thus putting him in the position of a criminal who will face the due punishment for the crime. This internal conflict that Oedipus experiences creates and

Oedipus believed Teiresias was making the accusation because he was bribed by Creon. Jocasta attempts to calm Oedipus as well, citing that oracles are nonsense. She tells of an example where an oracle prophesied to her that her first born son would one day murder his father and sleep with her, Jocasta. Believing that prophecy ridiculous, Oedipus decides not to heed

Oedipus is ashamed of himself and unsatisfied with his situation, even though it is not his fault. The gods wouldn’t have made the prophecies come true without the help of the oracle, which delivered the prophecies to Oedipus’ parents. It is obvious that the gods were planning to this fate before Oedipus’ birth, because through the oracle, they announced the two prophecies while Jocasta was pregnant. Above that, the gods didn’t mention Oedipus’ blindness in their prophecies; but instead, they mentioned only Oedipus’ shameful crimes that involved both the father and the mother. The purpose of this was to make both parents agree to kill their child, for Laius didn’t want to be murdered by his son, and Jocasta didn’t want to marry her son. This fear of terrible destiny led the parents to kill their child. On the other hand, if Laius and Jocasta hadn’t known about the prophecies, they would’ve kept the child, and thus he would know his parents, which makes it impossible for the prophecies to come true.

Oedipus and Jocasta both don’t want to see the truth. Although it may occur to them at some point, but they don’t give it a second thought because they think it is absurd and it isn’t possible. “Why should anyone in this world be afraid, since fate rules us and nothing van be forseen? A man should live only for the present day. Have no more fear of sleeping with your mother: How many men, in dreams, have lain with their mothers! No reasonable man is troubled by such things.” Jocasta is further from believing than Oedipus, she constantly tells him not to worry about it, don’t get worked up, and to just forget what you were told. Oedipus cannot forget what the oracle has said and goes on to pursue the case.