Oedipus Rex
Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" is the most famous of his tragedies in which Greek dramatic irony reaches an apex (Sophocles1 pp). Aristotle was a great admirer of Sophocles, and considered Oedipus Rex to be the perfect example of tragedy (Outline pp). According to Aristotle, tragedy is an imitation of action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, in which language is embellished with each kind of artistic ornament of several kinds found throughout the play (Outline pp). A tragedy is in the form of action, not of narrative, and incidents arouse pity and fear, "wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions ... every tragedy therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality -- namely, Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody" (Outline pp). And for Aristotle, Oedipus Rex contained every element of the perfect tragedy (Outline pp).

According to Aristotle, tragedy is higher and more philosophical than….

Thus, his thirst for knowledge prompts the tragedy to a certain degree. His wife and mother at the same time attempts to dissuade him from the further pursuit of truth, hinting in a very interesting phrase that such 'fantasies' as the wedlock to one's mother is a constant appearance in dreams and should simply be ignored: "This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou. / How oft it chances that in dreams a man / Has wed his mother! He who least regards / Such brainsick phantasies lives most at ease."(Sophocles, 94) There is thus a hint in the text itself to the archetypical content of the story. Obviously, the myth of Oedipus was long known to the Greek audience before he staged it. Moreover, wisdom is shown to be a cause of disgrace many times, preventing men to be really happy on earth: "Alas, alas, what misery to….

It is this lead character's outrage that drives the plot, rather than any journey of self-discovery or some fateful intervention. This is seen when Antigone declares her defiance of the king: "I will bury him myself. / and if death comes, so be it. / There'll be glory in it. / ... The gods will be proud of me." Rather than placing the importance of the gods first, Antigone views her own actions as of primary importance.
There is also a heavy element of introspection in both plays; it is Oedipus' attempt to discover the past of his kingdom that reveals his own personal past, and it is this self-discovery that leads to the tragedy of the play. Oedipus himself reveals the personal nature of this tragedy when he says "nor needs to tell / How your whole state is sick, for howsoe'er / Ye sicken, sicker is this heart….

His nephew turned against his own country and he got what he deserved. but, in king Creon's view, death is not enough. He believes in setting an example and uses the occasion as an opportunity to make a point and warn all those who dared to defy their country of the fate that was expecting them, too. In this case, King Creon is wrong, because he will eventually pay dearly for his mistake of defying the gods. Profanation represented a duty of the humans to the higher forces and not even a king could afford to forget that.
The Burial at Thebes is a play meant to bring the work of a classic Greek play writer into the twenty-first century. Freud found the sources of one of his psychoanalytic theories in edipus Rex, paying his tribute to his predecessor who lived two and a half centuries away.

The audiences in the….

His physical loss of sight is penance for the lack of insight he had at the start of the play. He has exchanged physical sight for mental insight into the truth.
4. Rhetorically, Oedipus uses the diction of a king at the beginning of a play. He plays the role of one in power, and of a person in full control of and with confidence in himself. When his people approaches him with a problem, he therefore reacts with confidence that he can solve it. He is fearless and strong in his position, as shown in lines 10-15. He is so confident that he can take care of any problem that he promises to do so even before hearing what the trouble is. Indeed, he believes that the only thing that can possibly keep him from helping the supplicants with their problem would be the hardness of his heart. This….

Q: There is a good deal in the play about seeing and blindness. What purpose does this serve? How is Oedipus contrasted with Teiresias? How does Oedipus at the beginning of the play contrast with the Oedipus at the end? Why is his blinding himself dramatically appropriate?

A: The physical conditions of sight and blindness in the play serve symbolic functions, particularly as these conditions manifest themselves in Oedipus himself. Oedipus begins the play by being physically sighted, but he is blind in terms of knowledge. He does not know the whole truth about his heritage. Nor does he make the connection between the murder of Jocasta's husband, his subsequent marriage to her, and the prophesy he is trying to avoid. In this way, he is mentally blind to the truth of his situation.

Teiresias, on the other hand, is physically blind, but has insight into the truth of situations, as well….

When the play opens, a plague has overcome Thebes, and so Oedipus has sent Creon to consult the oracle of Apollo to seek a solution. Creon reports that the oracle has declared that Laius's murderer must be found and banished from Thebes, only then will the plague be lifted. Oedipus sends for the blind prophet, Teiresias, to tell him who killed Laius. Teiresias names Oedipus as the killer and says that his marriage to Iocasta is sinful, and reminds him of his parents' curse. Iocasta and Oedipus exchange stories of their pasts. Then a messenger arrives announcing the death of Polybus, King of Cornith. Oedipus is relieved believing that he has escaped the prophecy. However, the messenger tells him that it was he who took Oedipus to Cornith. The servant confirms this, and thus the truth is revealed and the prophecy has been fulfilled after all.

Oedipus is an honorable man.….

In shaping his dramatic theory, Aristotle surveyed the drama of his time and developed certain concepts regarding the nature of the tragic hero. The tragic hero must be an important person with a character flaw that causes him to make a great mistake leading to tremendous suffering and a fall from his high status. The tragedy derives from the fact that none of what occurs is the tragic hero's fault, for the tragic flaw predetermines his actions and seals his fate. This is the pattern found in the plays of Sophocles, among other playwrights of Ancient Greece. The world of Sophocles is a world of myth brought into the human realm, and the tragic vision derives from the conflict between the actions of human beings and the requirements of the gods:
Compared with the Homeric epics, Athenian tragedy reflected a more conscious sense of the gods' metaphorical significance and a….

Oedipus Rex was definitely one of Sophocles' best plays as well as one of the foremost of all the Greek tragedies. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, is a classical character for his mix of attributes; wise and courageous yet proud and sometimes ill-tempered. It was Sophocles' ability to show realistic human character flaws along with their positive attributes that made his plays more realistic and well-received by their Greek audiences and those throughout the proceeding ages. This analysis will look at some of the events that occur offstage in Sophocles plays and contrast them with later plays.
Offstage Events

Sophocles' did not include any of the bloody or death scenes on stage for the audience to witness. Some of the death and dying that occur offstage in the play include:

The death of Laius

Jocasta's suicide

Oedipus' pricking of his eye

There is much speculation as to why such events were not included in the play.….

Oedipus's Tragic Flaws
Oedipus Rex is the classic story of Oedipus, King of Thebes, a tragic hero whose fate was in the hands of supernatural forces and who was doomed to murder his father and marry his mother. In the play, Oedipus has many characteristics that allow him to be labeled a tragic hero. The philosopher Aristotle states that a tragic hero is an influential person that because of an error in judgment has to suffer the consequences of his or her actions. In the case of Oedipus, it can be argued that his tragic flaws are excessive pride, or hubris, and self-righteousness.

The root of Oedipus's tragic flaw is found in his stubbornness, pride, and ignorance. There are many events within the play that are not motivated by these flaws and are predestined to occur and are controlled by supernatural forces, however Oedipus's flaws make it easier for prophecies to come….

Oedipus Rex 1. The myth of Oedipus differs from the play in that much of the mythology (such as the backstory and the answering of the riddle of the Sphinx) takes place prior to the play’s beginning.
2. An example of where Oedipus demonstrates hubris is when he states, “I count myself the son of Chance, the great goddess, giver of all good things—I'll never see myself disgraced” (1188-1190). This is just before it is revealed to him who he actually is—which brings about the disgrace he thinks he will never suffer.
3. Creon is Jocasta’s brother. Jocasta is both Oedipus’s wife and mother—so that makes Creon Oedipus’s uncle and brother-in-law.
4. The purpose of the chorus in the play is to provide narrative for the viewer. The chorus tells the viewer what is happening and also provides the moral lesson that is to be communicated plainly.
5. Exposition is given throughout the play. It….

Oedipus the King by Sophocles. Specifically, it will explain how the suffering brought upon others by Oedipus contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole. Oedipus is the classic tragic hero, as he not only adversely affects his own life, he is the instrument of suffering for many of the other characters surrounding him in the play. His tragic flaw, or hamartia, is a fatal mistake that flows from a hero's character, and this tragic flaw continually affects those around him, and ultimately leads to his downfall, and the tragic ending of this play. Tragedy surrounds everything that Oedipus does, and ultimately no one in the play can survive when Oedipus touches their lives.
Oedipus' tragic flaw is his rashness. He does not think things through before he acts on his rash impetuousness, and this continually affects those around him. From the moment he slays the traveler….

irony in Oedipus Rex is that you cannot escape destiny and that the attempt to do so will lead you to take part in it. Destiny cannot be escaped nor can it be changed. The second form prevalent in the play is in foreshadowing through symbolic language. More than once character warns Oedipus that he is not seeing the world as it truly is, that is refusing to see truth. When truth cannot be escaped, he gouges out his own eyes to attempt to reclaim this blindness. Symbolic blindness becomes real blindness.
The first scene of importance is when Oedipus pledges to kill the man who killed Lais, this of course being himself. Secondly is Teiresias and Creon try to expose the truth to Oedipus and then accuse him of blindness. The irony here is that the symbolism becomes real. Thirdly, Jocasta's story of the prophecy regarding her first husband's….

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King Claudius says this about the title character of "Hamlet." He says this to Laertes, to explain why he has not physically punished Hamlet yet, for the killing of Laertes' father Polonius. Thus, the two must conspire to punish Hamlet via a duel with a poisoned sword, says Claudius, because he cannot offend the queen. This quote shows the king's lying nature, as the king cares less for Polonius than eliminating the son Hamlet, who knows how he came to the throne, and his fears of raising suspicions in the court about his complicity in old Hamlet's death.

2) "You-here? You have the gall to show your face before the palace gates? You, plotting to kill me, kill the king-I see it all, the marauding thief himself scheming to steal my crown and power!"

As his fate closes around him, the king of Thebes "Oedipus" raves in horror at the sight of….

It is as if his sense of male control and dominance prescribed by the norms of the society is blinding him to her true nature. He judges her in terms of the norms of assumed female weakness. This aspect is summarized in the following quotation.
Gender relations are pretty antagonistic in Othello. Unmarried women are regarded as their fathers' property and the play's two marriages are marked by male jealousy and cruelty (both wives are murdered by their own husbands). Most male characters in Othello assume that all Venetian women are inherently promiscuous, which explains why female sexuality is a huge threat to men in the play. Othello is easily convinced his wife is cheating on him and feels emasculated and humiliated as a result

(Othello: Theme of Gender)

In a similar sense in King Oedipus, the inferior status or societal position of women can be seen in the fact the mother….

Literary Analysis

Hamlet's Tragic Flaw: An Exploration of Indecisiveness and Self-Doubt
The Role of Ambition in Macbeth: A Study in Power and Corruption
The Tragic Heroine in King Lear: A Comparison of Cordelia and Goneril
Romeo and Juliet as a Tragedy of Fate or Free Will
The Meaning of Love in Twelfth Night: A Romantic Comedy with a Twist

Character Analysis

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Macbeth: A Tragic Hero or a Villain?
Ophelia in Hamlet: A Study of Fragility and Female Agency
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