Themes in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

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A prophecy of a boy who kills his father and marries his mother comes true in the story of Oedipus. Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex, a play about a man who kills his father and marries his mother without realizing it. Oedipus leaves Corinth, the town he was raised in after being found hung by his ankles as a baby, and he kills his father, Laius, and his father’s servants. Then he arrives in Thebes and solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which he earns the ability to be ruler of Thebes and gets to marry Jocasta, his mother. In the end, Jocasta kills herself, and Oedipus makes himself blind. Some themes in Oedipus Rex are; to think before acting on something, to not be selfish or ignorant, and sight versus blindness. An important theme in Oedipus Rex is to think before acting on something. The main character Oedipus says, “It is endurable that I should hear such words from him? Go and a curse go with you! Quick home with you! Out of my house at once,” (Sophocles, 484). Oedipus curses Teiresias, a blind soothsayer, because he thought Teiresias was plotting with Creon, Oedipus’ brother in law...

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