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

Despite his love of the estate, the future is far better and far more promising than the Russia of the previous era. Another tragic feature of Ranevskaya's character that makes her uniquely 'modern' is that she knows her flaws. She admits that she squanders money, while Oedipus seems unaware of his arrogance until the very end of the play. Chekhov's subtlety as a playwright is that he knows that people

Sacred Site The Oracle of Delphi continues to fascinate visitors thousands of years after the last prophesy was delivered there. Known as the "most important shrine" in all Greece, poets, politicians, and philosophers alike visited or took part in ceremonies at Delphi ("The Oracle at Delphi" n.d.). The exact origin of the site and its oracle is unknown. It was used in the Mycenaean period as a sanctuary to worship a

It is worded too strongly just to relate a fact. Further, the fact it relates, if common in the ancient world, would not deserve such strong wording to people who were familiar with such things as blind oracles. Rather, even were blind oracles commonplace in the ancient world, this one is special because he is not just a conveyor of bad news to Oedipus, but a kind of archetype, symbol,

His enlightenment comes when he is forced to be fully self-reliant. He realizes that he cannot depend upon his father or upon anyone else for omniscient knowledge, and that he is left to his own devices and beliefs in a world without morality. Like the cave-dweller, Elie eventually realizes that the material world does not offer moral answers; rather moral answers come from his own mind, sense of fortitude,