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Was Oedipus Responsible For His Own Downfall

Decent Essays

Oedipus Rex, the iconic greek drama written by the famous poet Sophocles, tells the tragic story of a man whose hubris and short-temper causes his inevitable downfall prophesied by the gods. He was never able to see that everything terrible that has happened to him is his fault. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, has been told by the blind prophet of Apollo that his city is cursed because of his own horrible actions. Being the excessively prideful man, he reacts rudely to the blind man. That prophet, Teiresias, reveals that the killer of the former King Laius is the same man who killed his father and slept with his mother. Oedipus quickly denies this, mocks him and the gods, then accuses Tiresias and his best friend Creon of conspiring against him for the throne. Despite both of them having perfectly reasonable explanations to prove Oedipus’s accusations to be false, his imprudent pride of himself leads him to the inability to realize the truth that is was him. This is one of the many epitomes of hubris that leads to one’s own downfall. …show more content…

The messenger tells the couple that Oedipus’s father was not King Polybus of Corinth. Jocasta gets suspiciously irritated by this information because she realizes her new husband is actually her child who was prophesied to to kill her former husband King Laius and take her hand in marriage. Being ashamed of this fact, she storms off. Oedipus, who still is unaware of the truth, assumes she is embarrassed to have might married the son of a slave. He then gets angry also and yells at her without asking for the real reason for her behavior. If he would had simply questioned her instead of showing his short-temper once again, he would have found out the truth sooner and Jocasta probably wouldn’t have taken her own life the next day. Again, proving that his own actions are leading to him to the rank of a static

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