Oedipus And Jocasta example essay topic

Background to Oedipus the King In ancient Athens, plays were performed at the Festival of Dionysus (Bacchus), and were performed competitively; three playwrights would present four different plays each (a trilogy of tragedies and one satyr play, or comedy), and then a panel of judges would determine the winner. As part of a religious festival, plays were not merely entertainment, but served to heighten the religious mood. Tragedies centered on worthy protagonists: great men whose fall could be a lesson to audiences. These tragedies were always based on stories the audiences already knew, relying on presentation, eloquence, and acting rather than surprise to captivate. A good modern comparison might be a religious pageant such as a Passion Play at Easter. A key device in such plays is dramatic irony - the audience knows the outcome of the story, but the character does not, making his statements or choices ironic and dramatic in the eyes of the viewers.

Plays were performed in open-air amphitheaters that could seat up to 17,000 people. There may have been scenery; a scene was a temporary building that served as a backdrop, and pina kes were movable painted panels. Actors were always men, and they wore elaborate robes and painted masks that presented the characters' most typical facial expression. Plays were expensive to put on, and so were produced by wealthy members of society much the way they are today. The Oedipus myth goes back as far as Homer and beyond, and sources vary about plot details. The play that Sophocles presents is merely the very end of a long story, and some plot background must be provided to make the story understandable for modern audiences.

The real myth begins a few generations before Oedipus was born. The city of Thebes was founded by a man named Cadmus, who slew a dragon and was instructed to sow the dragon's teeth to form a city. From these teeth sprang a race of giants who were fully armed and angry; they fought each other until only five were left, and these five became the fathers of Thebes. The trouble begins when Laius, the great grandson of Cadmus, receives a prediction from the oracle of Apollo that his son will kill him. Thus he and his wife Jocasta give their infant son to a servant to kill by abandoning it on a mountainside. But the servant doesn't have the heart to kill the baby, instead giving it to another man, who gives it to the childless king and queen of Corinth.

These adoptive parents name the boy Oedipus, a reference to his feet, which were mangled and swollen when Laius and Jocasta pierced them with an iron pin. Laius is killed years later at a crossroads outside Thebes, and the city is beset by the Sphinx, a winged monster with the head of a woman and the body of a lion who kills all who fail to answer her riddle. The riddle: what goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening? The only man who is able to solve the riddle is Oedipus, who has traveled to Thebes in an attempt to escape the fate an oracle has predicted for him: that he will kill his father and marry his mother (remember that he thinks the king and queen of Corinth are his parents). Oedipus delivers the answer: a man, who crawls when he is a baby, walks when he is a young man, and limps with a cane when he is old. The Sphinx kills herself, and Oedipus is proclaimed the savior of Thebes, getting to marry Jocasta as a reward.

Oedipus and Jocasta have a happy marriage and a number of children. However, years later, tragedy strikes Thebes again when a blight strikes the city, killing both crops in the field and babies in their mothers' wombs. Oedipus sends his brother-in-law to the oracle of Apollo to ask how to lift this blight, and as the play opens, the answer comes back: find Laius's murderer and banish him from Thebes. Little does Oedipus know that he himself is Laius's murderer - he killed an old man at a crossroads just before coming to Thebes, and this old man was Laius himself.

Ancient Greek audiences would already know the background, and in fact the entirety, of the Oedipus play. Therefore what makes this play so great is its ability to present this material in an evocative and powerful manner, which, of course, it does perfectly. Modern audiences might recognize the name Oedipus from Sigmund Freud's famous "Oedipus Complex", his theory that young boys lust after their mothers and see their fathers as competition for their mothers' favors. This theory springs from Jocasta's comment that killing your father and marrying your mother are the kinds of things men often dream of.

Freud's theory has been hotly debated, and the psychological community is still torn on this issue, proof that the Oedipus story continues to be powerful and controversial even thousands of years after Sophocles's play was written. Character List Oedipus: the king of Thebes, married to Jocasta. He was raised in Corinth but left when an oracle predicted he would kill his father and marry his mother. In his wanderings he killed a man at the crossing of three roads, then came to Thebes, where a monster called the Sphinx was laying waste to the city and killing any man who could not answer her riddle. Oedipus successfully answered the riddle, rescuing Thebes from the Sphinx. Then he married Jocasta, the wife of Laius, king of Thebes, who had recently been killed.

When the play opens, Thebes is suffering from a drought, and an oracle has predicted that the drought will end when Laius's killer is found. Oedipus does not know that he himself is Laius's killer. Nor does he know that Jocasta and Laius were in fact his real parents. Jocasta: wife of Oedipus and queen of Thebes. Before Oedipus, she was married to Laius. Years before this play, an oracle told Laius that his son would kill him and marry Jocasta, so they gave their infant son to a servant to expose on a hillside.

Because Laius was supposedly killed by robbers, she does not believe in the power of oracles to predict the future. But she will soon find out that fate cannot be avoided. Creon: Jocasta's brother, he shares one third of Thebes's riches with Oedipus and Jocasta. He is a devout follower of the oracle of Apollo, and as the play opens, he is returning from the oracle with the news that Laius's killer must be found.

He is a loyal friend to Oedipus, unresentful of the accusations Oedipus makes against him and kind to him when Oedipus finally discovers the horrible truth. Teiresias: a blind prophet who knows the truth about Oedipus's parentage. Oedipus calls on him to find Laius's killer but becomes furious when Teiresias claims that Oedipus himself is the killer. As he leaves he tells Oedipus that he is his wife's son and his father's killer, and that Oedipus will leave Thebes in shame, but Oedipus does not listen, instead accusing Teiresias of conspiring with Creon to overthrow him. Messenger from Corinth: he arrives to tell Oedipus that his father (the man Oedipus believes to be his father) Polybus is dead, and that the people of Corinth would like Oedipus to be their king.

He also reveals to Oedipus that Polybus and Merop'e are not his real parents. He says that long ago a stranger from Thebes gave him a baby, and that he gave the baby to the king and queen of Corinth. This baby was, of course, Oedipus. Shepherd: the man who gave the baby to the messenger. This is also the same man who witnessed Laius's death. When he returned to Thebes and saw that the man who killed Laius is the new king, he asks leave to flee from the city.

Oedipus sends for him when the messenger mentions him, hoping to figure out who his real parents are. The shepherd unhappily reveals that the baby he gave to the messenger was Laius and Jocasta's son. Priest: his followers are making sacrifices to the gods at the beginning of the play, hoping that the gods will lift the blight that has struck the city. Attendant: a servant of Oedipus and Jocasta who reveals what happened in the palace after Oedipus discovered his parentage.

Ismene and Antigone: Oedipus's young daughters who are led out at the end of the play. Oedipus laments the fact that they will never find husbands with such a cursed lineage and begs Creon to take care of them. Chorus of Theban Elders: a group of men who serve as an emotional sounding board and exposition device in the play, reflecting on the happenings and asking questions. The Chorus speaks as one person, although sometimes single Chorus members will deliver lines. Short Summary When the play opens, the city of Thebes is wasting away under a plague that leaves its fields and women barren. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, has sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to ask the house of Apollo to ask the oracle how to put an end to the plague.

Creon returns, bearing good news: once the killer of the previous king, Laius, is found, Thebes will be cured of the plague (Laius was Jocasta's husband before she married Oedipus). Hearing this, Oedipus swears he will find the murderer and banish him. He asks Creon some questions: where was Laius murdered? did anyone see the crime? how many men killed him? Creon answers: Laius was killed outside the city by a group of robbers, and the only witness was a shepherd who still lives nearby.

Hearing this, Oedipus asks the people of Thebes if any of them know any information about the king's death. The Chorus (representing the people of Thebes) suggests that Oedipus consult Teiresias, the blind prophet. Oedipus tells them that he has already sent for Teiresias. When Teiresias arrives, he seems reluctant to answer Oedipus's questions, warning him that he does not want to know the answers.

Oedipus threatens him with death, and finally Teiresias tells him that Oedipus himself is the killer, and that his marriage is a sinful union. Oedipus takes this as an insult and jumps to the conclusion that Creon paid Teiresias to say these things. He also mocks Teiresias, telling him that he is no prophet; a prophet should have been able to answer the Sphinx's riddle, but Oedipus himself was the only one who could. Teiresias counters that although he has no sight, Oedipus is the one who is blind to the truth. He asks him whose son he is and reminds him of the curse on his parents' heads. He tells him that he will leave Thebes in shame.

Furious, Oedipus dismisses him, and Teiresias goes, repeating, as he does, that Laius's killer is right here before him - a man who is his father's killer and his mother's husband, a man who came seeing but will leave in blindness. Creon enters, asking the people around him if it is true that Oedipus slanderously accused him. The Chorus tries to mediate, but Oedipus appears and charges Creon with treason. The men fight until Jocasta, Oedipus's wife, arrives. They explain the nature of their argument to Jocasta, who begs Oedipus to believe Creon. The Chorus also begs Oedipus to be open-minded, and Oedipus unwillingly relents and allows Creon to go.

Jocasta asks Oedipus why he is so upset and he tells her what Teiresias prophesied. Jocasta comforts him by telling him that there is no truth in oracles or prophets, and she has proof. Long ago an oracle told Laius that his own son would kill him, and as a result he and Jocasta gave their infant son to a shepherd to leave out on a hillside to die with a pin through its ankles. Yet Laius was killed by robbers, not by his own son, proof that the oracle was wrong.

But something about her story troubles Oedipus; she said that Laius was killed at a place where three roads meet, and this reminds Oedipus of an incident from his past, when he killed a stranger at a place where three roads met. He asks her to describe Laius, and her description matches his memory. Yet Jocasta tells him that the only eyewitness to Laius's death swore that five robbers killed him. Oedipus summons this witness. While they wait for the man to arrive, Jocasta asks Oedipus why he seems so troubled. Oedipus tells her the story of his past.

Once when he was young, a man he met told him that he was not his father's son. He asked his parents about it, and they denied it. Still it troubled him, and he eventually went to an oracle to ask. The oracle told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

This so frightened Oedipus that he left his hometown and never returned. On his journeys, he came across a haughty man at a crossroads and killed this man when he insulted him. Oedipus is afraid that the stranger he killed might have been Laius. If this is the case, Oedipus will be forever banished both from Thebes (the punishment he swore for the killer of Laius) and from Corinth, his hometown (because he is afraid of killing his father and marrying his mother if he returns). If this eyewitness will swear that robbers killed Laius, then Oedipus is free, and this is what he prays will happen. Oedipus and Jocasta enter the castle to wait for the witness.

Jocasta comes back out of the castle, on her way to the holy temples to pray for Oedipus. A messenger arrives from Corinth with the news that Oedipus's father Polybus is dead. Overjoyed, Jocasta sends for Oedipus, glad that she has even more proof in the uselessness of oracles. Oedipus rejoices, but then states that he is still afraid of the rest of the oracle's prophecy: that he will marry his mother. The messenger assures him that he need not fear approaching Corinth, since Merop'e, his mother, is not really his mother, and for that matter, Polybus wasn't his father either. Stunned, Oedipus asks him how he knows this.

The messenger replies that years ago a man gave a baby to him and he gave this baby to the king and queen of Corinth, and this baby was Oedipus himself. The debility of Oedipus's ankles is a testament to the truth of his tale, because the baby's feet had been pinned through the ankles. Oedipus asks the messenger who gave the baby to him, and he replies that it was one of Laius's servants. Oedipus sends his men out to find this man. The messenger suggests that Jocasta should be able to help identify the man.

Suddenly figuring out the horrible truth, Jocasta begs Oedipus not to carry through with his investigations. Oedipus replies that he swore to unravel this mystery, and he will. Jocasta runs inside the castle, saying a final farewell to Oedipus. Oedipus again swears that he will figure out this secret, no matter how vile the answer is. He assumes that Jocasta is ashamed at his seemingly low birth. The Chorus senses that something bad is going to happen.

Oedipus's men lead in an old shepherd, who is afraid to answer Oedipus's questions. But finally he tells Oedipus the truth. He did in fact give the messenger a baby boy, and that baby boy was Laius's son, the very same son that Jocasta and Laius left on a hillside to die because of the oracle's prophecy. Finally the truth is out, and Oedipus runs into the castle, roaring with anguish. He grabs a sword and searches for Jocasta with the intent to kill her. But when he enters her chambers he finds that she has hanged herself.

He takes the gold brooches with which she had fastened her dress and gouges his eyes out. He enters the stage again, with blood streaming from his now blind eyes. He cries out that he, who has seen and done such vile things, shall never see again. He begs the Chorus to kill him.

Creon enters, having heard the entire story, and begs Oedipus to come inside, where he will not be seen. Oedipus begs him to let him leave the city, and Creon tells him that he must consult Apollo first. Oedipus tells him that banishment was the punishment he declared for Laius's killer, and Creon agrees with him. Before he goes, though, Oedipus asks to see his daughters and begs Creon to take care of them.

Then Oedipus is led away and Creon and the girls go back in the castle. The Chorus, alone, laments the sad story of Oedipus, the greatest of men, who fell so low. Full Summary The play opens in front of the Theban palace. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, asks a passing priest why he and his followers are lamenting and praying.

The priest replies that they pray to the gods to end the plague that has beset Thebes. This plague has wasted the city's crops and pastures and rendered all Theban women sterile. The priest begs for Oedipus's help. Oedipus tells the priest that he feels the city's pain, and that he has sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the Pythian oracle of Apollo to ask for help.

Creon appears, bearing good news. The oracle told him that the plague on Thebes was caused by the murder of Laius, the previous king of Thebes. The murderer was born in Thebes and still lives there, and if they can find him and banish him, the plague will be lifted. Oedipus asks Creon about the details of Laius's death.

Creon tells him that Laius was killed as he left Thebes on a pilgrimage. There was only one surviving eyewitness, a man who said that the king was killed by a band of robbers. Oedipus asks why the matter was not fully investigated, and Creon tells him that the city's problems with the Sphinx demanded attention at that point. Oedipus swears that he will solve this mystery, not merely for Laius's sake, but for his own, since Laius's killer might attack him next. He summons all the people of Thebes. The Chorus of Theban elders appears, expressing a sense of foreboding about what Oedipus might find.

The Chorus describes again the plague that has stricken the city and calls on the gods to help the city. Oedipus enters from the palace and asks the people of Thebes to help him find Laius's killer; if any of them has any information that would help him, he orders them to come forward. There is silence. He declares that if the killer is among them and will give himself up, his punishment will merely be banishment. Still the people are silent. Oedipus tells them that any information that could help will be rewarded.

Still silence, and Oedipus declares that if any men are found to be hiding the truth from him, they too will be banished. Nor does Oedipus exempt himself from the punishment he has just declared; if he unknowingly harbors the killer, he will leave Thebes himself. The Chorus finally speaks up, suggesting that Oedipus consult the man closest to Apollo: Teiresias the blind prophet. Oedipus agrees with their suggestion and reveals that he has already sent for Teiresias upon Creon's advice. Teiresias enters, led by an attendant. Oedipus informs him of the oracle's statements and begs him to help find the killer.

Teiresias states that he never should have come, and asks to leave. Oedipus asks him again, telling him that he is an enemy to Thebes if he refuses to help. Again Teiresias refuses to answer Oedipus, and Oedipus gets angry. Teiresias counsels him to look within himself before he blames others. Finally Oedipus angrily declares that Teiresias's silence implicates him in Laius's murder. At this Teiresias, fed up, tells Oedipus what he knows: "You are the cursed polluter of this land" (35).

His words enrage Oedipus, who dares him to repeat them. Teiresias obliges, saying "the killer you are seeking is yourself" (36). Again Oedipus goads him, and he elaborates: "you are living / In sinful union with the one you love, / Living in ignorance of your own undoing" (36). Full of fury, Oedipus now calls Teiresias a "shameless and brainless, sightless, senseless sot" and again accuses him of conspiring with Creon (36). Again Teiresias vows that the enemy Oedipus seeks is himself. Continuing to mock Teiresias, Oedipus now charges him with fraud, using the Sphinx's riddle as proof.

If Teiresias is a seer, then he should have been able to solve the riddle. But instead Oedipus was the only one who was smart enough to do so. So much for Teiresias's gifts! Now the Chorus tries to step in and calm Oedipus down. Teiresias tries one last time to show him the truth, saying "have you eyes / And do not see your own damnation? Eyes, / And cannot see what company you keep?

/ Whose son you are? I tell you, you have sinned -- / And do not know it - against your own on earth / And in the grave" (37). He predicts the future: Oedipus will be more hated and more scorned than any other man. Oedipus orders him to leave. As he goes, Teiresias repeats his warnings and his predictions, saying "he that came seeing, blind shall he go; / Rich now, then a beggar; stick-in-hand, groping his way / To a land of exile; brother, as it shall be shown, / And father at once, to the children he cherishes; son, / And husband, to the woman who bore him; father-killer, / And father-supplanter" (38). Oedipus goes back into his house.

The Chorus reflects on what Teiresias said, but does not understand it, saying that it chooses to think that Oedipus is innocent until proven guilty because he has done such good for Thebes. Creon enters, asking the Chorus if what he heard is true: if Oedipus has actually accused him of treason. The Chorus tries to calm him, telling him that Oedipus was overwrought when he said these things. Oedipus comes out and repeats his accusations against Creon, and the two argue heatedly. Creon tries to reason with him, asking him why he would choose to give up a stable and happy life with a third of Oedipus's estate for an uneasy rule.

He tells Oedipus to test him by asking the Pythian oracle if his message was true, and if Creon comes out guilty, Oedipus can sentence him to death. Oedipus continues to argue with him, and eventually Creon charges him with ruling unjustly. Jocasta enters, and the men tell her the gist of their argument. She begs Oedipus to believe Creon and to be merciful. The Chorus joins in her pleas, and reluctantly Oedipus lets Creon go. Jocasta questions Oedipus, and he reveals Teiresias's prophecies.

Jocasta comforts him by telling him that no man can see the future, and she has proof. She relates the story of the prophecy an oracle once made about Laius: that he would be killed by his own son. But that never happened; instead Laius was killed by robbers at a place where three roads met. And as for the son, Jocasta and Laius let their infant be exposed on a hillside with a pin through his ankles to prevent the prophecy from coming true. If Laius's prophecy didn't come true, she says, then why should Oedipus's? But her mention of the meeting of three roads troubles Oedipus, bringing back memories of a murder he committed long ago at a similar place.

He asks Jocasta what Laius looked like, and her description matches his memory. Oedipus now begins to suspect that Teiresias's words were true. He asks Jocasta how many men were with Laius, and she tells him there were five - the same number of men that were with the man Oedipus killed. He asks about the eyewitness, and Jocasta tells him that the man ran away to the country when he found that Oedipus had become king of Thebes. Oedipus summons this eyewitness, and while they wait for him to arrive, he tells Jocasta more about his youth. His parents were from Corinth, Polybus and Merop'e.

One day, a drunken man told Oedipus that he was not his father's son. Disturbed, Oedipus asked his parents if this was true, and they denied it. But it still troubled Oedipus, so he secretly went to the oracle at Python and asked it. But the oracle told him something even more frightening: that one day he would kill his father and marry his mother. The prediction so shocked Oedipus that he left and never returned to Corinth, afraid that if he did so he would fulfill the oracle's prophesies.

In his wanderings, Oedipus came to a crossroads where three roads met, and here he was accosted by a haughty man. Oedipus ended up killing this man. If this man turns out to have been Laius, then Oedipus will be banished from Thebes as punishment, but also from Corinth, to which he can never return for fear of killing his father and marrying his mother. He can only hope that the eyewitness confirms that robbers killed Laius. Jocasta comforts Oedipus again by saying that even if he did kill Laius, the oracle's prophesy for Laius still would not be true, since the son that should have killed him is dead.

They return to the house. Alone, the Chorus muses on what it has learned and speaks about the evils of pride. Pride, it claims, can only bring doom and punishment. Jocasta enters from the house, on her way to visit the holy temples and pray. A messenger from Corinth enters, with the news that Oedipus's father Polybus is dead. The Corinthians would like to make Oedipus king of both Corinth and Thebes.

Overjoyed, Jocasta sends for Oedipus. When he hears the news, he rejoices in the falseness of prophecy - he can't kill his father now. But he is still afraid of the other half of the prophecy - that he will marry Merop'e. But the messenger assures him that he needn't worry about marrying her, because Polybus and Merop'e are not really his parents. He relates the story of how Oedipus came to be their son. A long time ago, the messenger says, he was living as a shepherd on the mountain, and a stranger gave him an infant that he had rescued from death; the infant's ankles were riveted (at this Oedipus confirms that he has had a limp since birth).

The messenger gave this baby to Polybus and Merop'e. Oedipus inquires about the identity of the man who gave the baby to the messenger, and the messenger tells him that the stranger was one of Laius's servants. Is he alive? Oedipus wants to know. The messenger replies that Jocasta should know who he is.

Oedipus turns to Jocasta, who is white with fear. She begs him not to pursue this matter any more, to forget it. But Oedipus is determined to solve this mystery, and sends for the man who gave the baby to the messenger. Jocasta warns him for his own good to drop this line of questioning and runs into the house.

Nobody but Jocasta has figured out the puzzle yet, and the Chorus reflects that something bad seems about to happen. Oedipus states that he wants to learn the entire truth, no matter how foul it is; he suspects that Jocasta is upset about his seemingly low birth. He declares that he is Fortune's child, and that he will know who he really is. Again the Chorus expresses foreboding. A shepherd approaches; this is the man who gave the baby to the messenger. Oedipus questions him, but he is reluctant to answer.

The messenger tells him that Oedipus is that same baby, and the shepherd reacts with fear and begs the messenger to hold his tongue. Oedipus threatens him with physical violence, and finally the man confesses that the baby was a child of Laius's house. Oedipus asks if it was a slave's child or Laius's child, and the shepherd tells him that it was Laius's child, that Jocasta gave him to expose on the hillside because of some prophesy. What prophesy? Oedipus asks. That he would kill his father, the shepherd replies.

The shepherd says the he didn't have the heart to kill the infant, so he took it to another country instead. Aghast, Oedipus finally sees the truth and runs screaming into the house. The messenger and the shepherd leave. The Chorus reflects on the fleeting nature of happiness and the sin of pride. Nobody can escape fate. An attendant enters from the palace with horrifying news.

When Jocasta went into the palace, she went straight to her bedroom and slammed the door, tearing her hair with her fingers. There she cried out to Laius and wailed the tragedy of her son / husband. Oedipus entered the palace, crying for a sword and searching for his wife. No servant answered, but he seemed to know instinctively where she was. He slammed his body against her bedroom doors and broke them open. Stumbling in, he found that Jocasta had hanged herself.

Moaning horribly, he untied her and laid her on the ground. Then he took the gold brooches with which she had fastened her gown, and, thrusting his arms out at full length, he gouged his eyes out. Again and again he pierced he eyes until bloody tears streamed down his cheeks. Now he is shouting for someone to open the castle doors and show all of Thebes the man who killed Laius. He swears he will flee this country to try to rid his house of his curse. The doors to the palace open, and Oedipus stumbles out.

The Chorus cries out in agony at the sight and hides its own eyes. Oedipus cries out to the city in a voice that hardly seems his own. The Chorus wails that Oedipus is unspeakable and too terrible for eyes to see, that he has been punished in both body and soul. Oedipus calls for someone to be his guide.

The Chorus asks him why he injured himself, and he replies that he doesn't want eyes when all he can see is ugliness. He pleads with the Chorus to lead him out of Thebes and curses the shepherd who saved his life when he was a baby. The Chorus tells him that surely death would have been better than blindness, and Oedipus replies by asking how he could have met his parents in the underworld with seeing eyes. How could he have looked upon children whom he had begotten in sin? In fact, he says, he wishes he could dam up his ears as well. He begs the Chorus to hide him away from human sight.

Creon enters, asking the Chorus to remember their love for the gods, and Oedipus begs him to cast him away from Thebes. Creon replies that he must wait for instructions from Apollo. Oedipus argues that Apollo's instructions were clear: the unclean man must leave Thebes. Oedipus also asks Creon to bury Jocasta properly and to take care of his daughters. But before he goes, he begs, can he see these daughters once more? His daughters Antigone and Ismene are led in, and Oedipus caresses them with hands that are both father's and brother's.

He weeps for the fact that they will never be able to find husbands with this tragic family history. With Creon's promise that he will send him away from Thebes upon Apollo's word, Oedipus and his family enter the palace again, Alone on the stage, the Chorus asks the audience to remember the story of Oedipus, the greatest of men; he alone could solve difficult riddles and was envied my his fellows for his prosperity. And now the greatest of misfortunes has befallen him. The Chorus warns the audience that mortal men must always look to their endings, and not suppose that they are happy until they die happy. Full Analysis In his Poetics, Aristotle outlined the ingredients necessary for a good tragedy, and he based his formula on what he considered to be the perfect tragedy, Sophocles's Oedipus the King. According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself; in other words, the story must be realistic and narrow in focus.

A good tragedy will evoke pity and fear in its viewers, causing the viewers to experience a feeling of catharsis. Catharsis, in Greek, means "purgation" or "purification"; running through the gamut of these strong emotions will leave viewers feeling elated, in the same way we often claim that "a good cry" will make one feel better. Aristotle also outlined the characteristics of a good tragic hero. He must be "better than we are", a man who is superior to the average man in some way.

In Oedipus's case, he is superior not only because of social standing, but also because he is smart - he is the only person who could solve the Sphinx's riddle. At the same time, a tragic hero must evoke both pity and fear, and Aristotle claims that the best way to do this is if he is imperfect. A character with a mixture of good and evil is more compelling that a character who is merely good. And Oedipus is definitely not perfect; although a clever man, he is blind to the truth and refuses to believe Teiresias's warnings. Although he is a good father, he unwittingly fathered children in incest.

A tragic hero suffers because of his hamartia, a Greek word that is often translated as "tragic flaw" but really means "error in judgement". Often this flaw or error has to do with fate - a character tempts fate, thinks he can change fate or doesn't realize what fate has in store for him. In Oedipus the King, fate is an idea that surfaces again and again. Whether or not Oedipus has a "tragic flaw" is a matter that will be discussed later.

The focus on fate reveals another aspect of a tragedy as outlined by Aristotle: dramatic irony. Good tragedies are filled with irony. The audience knows the outcome of the story already, but the hero does not, making his actions seem ignorant or inappropriate in the face of what is to come. Whenever a character attempts to change fate, this is ironic to an audience who knows that the tragic outcome of the story cannot be avoided. Dramatic irony plays an important part in Oedipus the King.

Its story revolves around two different attempts to change the course of fate: Jocasta and Laius's killing of Oedipus at birth and Oedipus's flight from Corinth later on. In both cases, an oracle's prophecy comes true regardless of the characters' actions. Jocasta kills her son only to find him restored to life and married to her. Oedipus leaves Corinth only to find that in so doing he has found his real parents and carried out the oracle's words. Both Oedipus and Jocasta prematurely exult over the failure of oracles, only to find that the oracles were right after all. Each time a character tries to avert the future predicted by the oracles, the audience knows their attempt is futile, creating the sense of irony that permeates the play.

Even the manner in which Oedipus and Jocasta express their disbelief in oracles is ironic. In an attempt to comfort Oedipus, Jocasta tells him that oracles are powerless; yet at the beginning of the very next scene we see her praying to the same gods whose powers she has just mocked (45-50). Oedipus rejoices over Polybus's death as a sign that oracles are fallible, yet he will not return to Corinth for fear that the oracle's statements concerning Merop'e could still come true (52). Regardless of what they say, both Jocasta and Oedipus continue to suspect that the oracles could be right, that gods can predict and affect the future - and of course the audience knows they can. If Oedipus discounts the power of oracles, he values the power of truth. Instead of relying on the gods, Oedipus counts on his own ability to root out the truth; after all, he is a riddle-solver.

The contrast between trust in the gods' oracles and trust in intelligence plays out in this story like the contrast between religion and science in nineteenth-century novels. But the irony is, of course, that the oracles and Oedipus's scientific method both lead to the same outcome. Oedipus's search for truth reveals just that, and the truth revealed fulfills the oracles' prophesies. Ironically, it is Oedipus's rejection of the oracles that uncovers their power; he relentlessly pursues truth instead of trusting in the gods, and his detective work finally reveals the fruition of the oracles' words.

As Jocasta says, if he could just have left well enough alone, he would never have discovered the horrible workings of fate (55). In his search for the truth, Oedipus shows himself to be a thinker, a man good at unraveling mysteries. This is the same characteristic that brought him to Thebes; he was the only man capable of solving the Sphinx's riddle. His intelligence is what makes him great, yet it is also what makes him tragic; his problem-solver's mind leads him on as he works through the mystery of his birth. In the Oedipus myth, marriage to Jocasta was the prize for ridding Thebes of the Sphinx. Thus Oedipus's intelligence, a trait that brings Oedipus closer to the gods, is what causes him to commit the most heinous of all possible sins.

In killing the Sphinx, Oedipus is the city's savior, but in killing Laius (and marrying Jocasta), he is its scourge, the cause of the blight that has struck the city at the play's opening. The Sphinx's riddle echoes throughout the play, even though Sophocles never mentions the actual question she asked. Audiences would have known the Sphinx's words: "what is it that goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at midday, and three feet in the evening?" Oedipus's answer, of course, was "a man". And in the course of the play, Oedipus himself proves to be that same man, an embodiment of the Sphinx's riddle.

There is much talk of Oedipus's birth and his exposure as an infant - here is the baby of which the Sphinx speaks, crawling on four feet (even though two of Oedipus's are pinioned). Oedipus throughout most of the play is the adult man, standing on his own two feet instead of relying on others, even gods. And at the end of the play, Oedipus will leave Thebes an old blind man, using a cane. In fact, Oedipus's name means "swollen foot" because of the pins through his ankles as a baby; thus even as a baby and a young man he has a limp and uses a cane: a prefiguring of the "three-legged" old man he will become.

Oedipus is more that merely the solver of the Sphinx's riddle, he himself is the answer. Perhaps the best example of dramatic irony in this play, however, is the frequent use of references to eyes, sight, light, and perception throughout. When Oedipus refuses to believe him, Teiresias cries, "have you eyes, / And do not see your own damnation? Eyes, / And cannot see what company you keep?" (37). Mentioned twice in the same breath, the word "eyes" stands out in this sentence. Teiresias knows that Oedipus will blind himself; later in this same speech he says as much: "those now clear-seeing eyes / Shall then be darkened" (37).

The irony is that sight here means two different things. Oedipus is blessed with the gift of perception; he was the only man who could "see" the answer to the Sphinx's riddle. Yet he cannot see what is right before his eyes. He is blind to the truth, for all he seeks it. Teiresias's presence in the play, then, is doubly important. As a blind old man, he foreshadows Oedipus's own future, and the more Oedipus mocks his blindness, the more ironic he sounds to the audience.

Teiresias is a man who understands the truth without the use of his sight; Oedipus is the opposite, a sighted man who is blind to the truth right before him. Soon Oedipus will switch roles with Teiresias, becoming a man who sees the truth and loses his sense of sight. Teiresias is not the only character who uses eyes and sight as a metaphor. When Creon appears after learning of Oedipus's accusation of him, he says "said with unflinching eye was it?" (40). This is a strange thing to say; one would expect a bold statement to be made with "un halting voice", not "unflinching eye". Yet it continues the theme of eyes and sight; Oedipus makes accusations while boldly staring Creon down, yet later when he knows the truth, he will not be able to look at Creon again.

He will be ashamed to look any who love him in the eyes, one reason, according to Oedipus, that he blinds himself: "how could I have met my father beyond the grave / With seeing eyes; or my unhappy mother?" (63). Oedipus himself makes extensive use of eyes and sight as a metaphor. When he approaches Creon a few lines later, he says "did you suppose I wanted eyes to see / The plot preparing, wits to counter it?" (40). Ironically, Oedipus does in fact lack the capacity to see what is happening, and the more he uses his wit to untangle the mystery, the more blind he becomes.

The Chorus's reflections after Oedipus discovers the truth carry the sight theme to another level. "Show me the man", the Chorus says, "whose happiness was anything more than illusion / Followed by disillusion... Time sees all; and now he has found you, when you least expected it; / Has found you and judged that marriage mockery, bridegroom-son! / This is your elegy: / I wish I had never seen you, offspring of Laius, / Yesterday my morning of light, now my night of endless darkness!" (59). Here are a number of binaries associated with the idea of sight and blindness: illusion and disillusion, light and dark, morning and night. Time casts its searchlight at random, and when it does, it uncovers horrible things.

The happiness of the "morning of light" is an illusion; the reality is the "night of endless darkness". And the Chorus wishes it had never seen Oedipus. Not only has he polluted his own sight and his own body by marrying his mother and killing his father, he is a pollutant of others's ight's by his very existence. When Oedipus enters, blinded, the Chorus shouts "I dare not see, I am hiding / My eyes, I cannot bear / What most I long to see...

Unspeakable to mortal ear, / Too terrible for eyes to see" (62). Oedipus has become the very blight he wishes to remove from Thebes, a monster more terrible than the Sphinx, a sight more horrible than the wasted farmlands and childless Theban women. What are we to make of the ironies and the structure of this play? There are two ways to read the story of Oedipus. One is to say that he is a puppet of fate, incapable of doing anything to change the destiny that fate has in store for him. Another is to say that the events of the play are his fault, that he possesses the "flaw" that sets these events into action.

As a puppet of fate, Oedipus cannot affect the future that the oracle has predicted for him. This does in fact seem to be an important message of the story; no matter what Jocasta says about the unreliability of oracles, their predictions all come true. In an attempt to change fate, both Jocasta and Oedipus changed the structure of their families, moving as far away as possible from the relatives that threaten to ruin them. Yet in so doing, they set the course of the story into action. You cannot escape fate, no matter what you do. Your dead son will come back to kill his father.

The safe harbor you have found from your fated parents turns out to be the very arena in which you will kill and marry them. As the Chorus says, "Time sees all"; fate and the course of time are more powerful than anything a human being can do. Oedipus's tragic end is not his fault; he is merely a pawn in the celestial workings of fate. At the same time, Oedipus seems like more than merely a passive player lost in the sweep of time. He seems to make important mistakes or errors in judgement (hamartia) that set the events of the story into action. His pride, blindness, and foolishness all play a part in the tragedy that befalls him.

Oedipus's pride sets it all off; when a drunken man tells him that he is a bastard, his pride is so wounded that he will not let the subject rest, eventually going to the oracle of Apollo to ask it the truth. The oracle's words are the reason why he leaves Corinth, and in leaving Corinth and traveling to Thebes, he fulfills the oracle's prophecy. A less proud man may not have needed to visit the oracle, giving him no reason to leave Corinth in the first place. In the immediate events of the play, Oedipus's pride continues to be a flaw that leads to the story's tragic ending. He is too proud to consider the words of the prophet Teiresias, choosing, instead to rely on his own sleuthing powers. Teiresias warns him not to pry into these matters, but pride in his intelligence leads Oedipus to continue his search.

He values truth attained through scientific enquiry over words and warnings from the gods; this is the result of his overweening pride. Another word for pride that causes one to disregard the gods is the Greek word hubris. Oedipus is also foolish and blind. Foolishly he leaves his home in Corinth without further investigating the oracle's words; after all, he goes to the oracle to ask if he is his father's son, then leaves without an answer to this question.

Finding out who his true father is seems important for someone who has just been told he will kill his father. Nor is Oedipus particularly intelligent about the way he conducts himself. Even though he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents, he still does kill a man old enough to be his father and marry a woman old enough to be his mother. One would think that a man with as disturbing a prophesy over his head as Oedipus would be very careful about who he married or killed.

Blindly he pursues the truth when others warn him not to; although he has already fulfilled the prophesy, he does not know it, and if he left well enough alone, he could continue to live in blissful ignorance. But instead he stubbornly and foolishly rummages through his past until he discovers the awful truth. In this way, Jocasta's death and his blindness are his own fault. Regardless of the way you read the play, Oedipus the King is a powerful work of drama.

Collapsing the events of the play into the moments before and after Oedipus's realization, Sophocles catches and heightens the drama. Using dramatic irony to involve the audience, the characters come alive in all their flawed glory. The play achieves that catharsis of which Aristotle speaks by showing the audience a man not unlike themselves, a man who is great but not perfect, who is a good father, husband, and son, and yet who unwillingly destroys parents, wife and children. Oedipus is human, regardless of his pride, his intelligence, or his stubbornness, and we recognize this in his agonizing reaction to his sin.

Watching this, the audience is certainly moved to both pity and fear: pity for this broken man, and fear that his tragedy could be our own.