Oedipus does not show unusual arrogance, no more so than his father did when he abandoned his child to cheat death. Oedipus leaves his natural parents out of a desire to protect them, as any son possessing filial pity should do, in the eyes of the Greeks.
However, in contrast to the Christian economy of good and evil, where good is rewarded and evil is punished by God, in ancient Greece: "The gods frequently interfere physically and psychically in human affairs (bringing on, for example, madness, illnesses, unusual acts of courage or folly, natural disasters, untimely death, and so on), but there is nothing consistent about these interactions, and they may or may not take place, no matter how many times the human beings offer sacrifices or prayers" (Johnson, 2007). Fate in "Oedipus Rex" is arbitrary, and Oedipus' terrible punishment has nothing to do with his uniquely terrible status as a human being. Oedipus is fallible, but not evil.
One of the greatest horrors of Oedipus' fate, however, is not simply that he kills his father but that he marries his mother. He thus is also fated to become a slave to female desire and female words, as the Oracle of Delphi who foretold his fate was traditionally represented as a female figure. Oedipus was filled with confidence that he had triumphed over femininity, because he vanquished the Sphinx, a monster with a female head, by solving her riddle. At the end of the play Oedipus is seen as entirely enwrapped in the influence of women. He blinds himself with his mother and wife's pins, and his last scene on stage shows him saying good-bye to his...
" Pioneer psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was fascinated by the story of King Oedipus, as Sophocles depicted him within Oedipus the King, as a work of literature. Clearly, however, Freud also recognized how Sophocles's story, at least in a literal sense if not a figurative or psychological one, paralleled his particular new theory of early childhood development, that at the four-year-old stage, a child "falls in love" with the opposite sex parent
However, the play goes even further than these hints in demonstrating the irrelevance of any supernatural force to the story's action when Tiresias mocks Oedipus for suggesting that the blind seer is the source of the plague (Sophocles 27). When Oedipus accuses Tiresias of a being "a conspirator" to Laius' murder due to his reluctance to tell what he knows, Tiresias responds by asking "Sooth sayest thou?" (Sophocles 26-27). While
Oedipus is at once a King of courage and judicial propriety, and also one in whom there is a tendency toward pride. Underlying it all, however, lays a great and secret blemish that awaits his discovery. It is through this secret mark - a birthmark of sorts - that fate, or the fates will eventually lead him to his downfall. It will be his character traits of courage, honesty and
Oedipus Tyrannous When debating the question if Oedipus is fortune's fool, a pure victim of fate, or responsible for his own density, a reader might be tempted to pose his or her instinctive argument in favor of fate. Firstly, in terms of plot structure, Oedipus actively resists the destiny foretold to him by the Oracle of Delphi. Like a good son, Oedipus tears himself away from the bosom of the adoptive
Question What is ironic about the ending of the play? Oedipus, it was prophesied when he was a baby, would kill his father and marry his mother. So he was cobbled by his feet and exposed as an infant. The commoner charged with exposing the prince, however, was childless and took pity upon the babe, and reared the child himself. Oedipus as a young man learned by the same prophesy that he
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
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