Hope For King Oedipus example essay topic

In the play, Oedipus Rex, Sophocles carefully gives each character their own personality, so they will react differently to their problems as they come about. The way each character deal with his or her feelings is what makes this play so powerful. Through out the play we know for a fact the main character, Oedipus Rex, had indeed killed his father in a confrontation, and went on to marry his mother, Iocaste. As Oedipus learns this, he goes through a great deal of emotions throughout the story, ranging from one extreme to the other.

After Oedipus learns about his prophesy, he becomes deathly afraid the Oracle might become true. One problem, Oedipus doesnt know the people he has been living with are not his birth parents. He leaves his native place so he would not fulfill his prophesy. On the road leading away form his supposed home he meets King Laius, not knowing of course, King Laius is his real father. In a sudden quarrel strikes him dead.

After Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx, the city is saved. He is rewarded with the hand of Iocaste, and becomes king of Thebes. At this point the prophesy has been fulfilled, by the unknowing King Oedipus. This would bring a great deal of pride to a man, and can easily lead to arrogance, which is later seen. Throughout the story Oedipus gets several clues, which makes him believe the oracle came true, he later shows he is sincerely hoping for the best from his fate.

He is talking to a messenger, and to Iocaste, about his prophesy. Iocaste says the following to Oedipus: Why should anyone in this world be afraid, since fate rules us and nothing can be foreseen 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.

(Sophocles, p. 192) This is in relation to what Freudian Freud psychoanalytic theory about the Oedipus complex. Freud states: An Oedipus complex consists of a double set of attitudes toward both parents: (1) An intense love and yearning for his mother is coupled with a powerful jealousy of and rage toward his father... The whole Oedipal experience is so frightening that it is thoroughly repressed, and cannot be recalled without the aid of psychoanalytic therapy. Its effects may well become obvious, however, as when a man marries a woman who closely resembles his mother. (R.J. C orsini, Ed., p. 512) (Also page 3 of packet).

Iocaste is basically saying the same thing Freud states, almost twenty five hundred years later. Marrying someone that unconsciously reminds you of your mother, and actually going out and marrying your mother is two different things, which is why Oedipus gets so disgusted when he find out that Iocaste is not only his wife, but also his mother. Oedipus goes through a great deal of emotions in the next few pages of the story, from one extreme to the other. Oedipus goes through fear of guilt, he starts thinking, maybe he is guilty of killing his own father. From here he learns about a Shepherd from Choragos, the Shepherd might know more about his childhood, and there may be hope for King Oedipus, that maybe the prophesy is not true. After disguising the baby with the Shepherd Oedipus cries: Ah God!

It was true! all the prophecies! -Now, O Light, may I look on you for the last time! I, Oedipus, Oedipus, damned in his birth, in his marriage damned, Damned in the blood he shed with his own hand! (Sophocles, p. 198) Oedipus is enraged about learning that the entire prophesy has come true, and to make things worse for him, he finds out that his mother / wife kills herself. He is so extremely disgusted with the whole prophesy, which explains what he does next.

I would blot out from my mind what happened next! For the King ripped from her gown the golden brooches that were her ornament, and raised them, and plunged them down straight into his own eyeballs, crying No more, no more shall you look on the misery about me, the horrors of my own doing! Too long have you known the faces of those whom I should never have seen, too long been blind to those for whom I was searching! From this hour, go in darkness! ... He struck at his eyes-not once, but many times.

(Sophocles, p. 201) What Oedipus had gone through is beyond anything an average person ever experienced, or will ever experience. Which is why his reaction to the situation is so drastic, permainatly blinding himself. When the truth is known about Oedipus life, Oedipus is no longer King, Creon defiantly lets Oedipus know about it, with a remark. At the very end of the play, Oedipus is totally fed up with the way his life ended up, and wants to end it all.

He demands that Creon and Choragos bring him to the top of the mountain to where he was originally placed, by his parents to die. Oedipus wants to take his four children with him, but Creon doesnt allow it to happen. Think no longer that you are in command here, but rather think how, when you were, you served your own destruction. (Sophocles, p. 207). 356 "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles.