Love's Destruction: Oedipus the King

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Recommended: Examine the role of jealousy love and betrayal in othello

Love’s Destruction
Jocasta and Emilia, important minor characters in their plays, both showcase the power of love as well as how destructive it can be. Emilia and Jocasta both unknowingly end their own lives, as well as others, and spread tragedy throughout the towns in which they lived. It is believed that in 425 B.C., Sophocles first produced Oedipus the King (Theater of Sophocles). In the play, Oedipus the King, Jocasta is the main character, Oedipus’, mother and wife. Jocasta’s love for Oedipus ultimately destroys him and results in her death. Sophocles helped shape the heroic ideal that is later embodied in medieval romance, which Shakespeare traditionally uses in Othello (Zerba). William Shakespeare wrote Othello in about 1604 (The Theater of Shakespeare). In the play, Othello, Emilia is a companion to the main character, Othello’s wife Desdemona. Emilia’s love for her husband, Iago, ultimately destroys Othello and results in her own death.
Othello is a dramatic play in which ends in ironic tragedy. In the play, Iago is a jealous man who wants revenge on Othello for giving Cassio the position of lieutenant, when Iago wanted the position for himself. In the play there is a handkerchief that is a symbol of Othello’s love for his wife, Desdemona. Iago has a plan to steal the handkerchief and place it with Cassio, then spread a rumor that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio. Iago uses Emilia and Desdemona’s close relationship as leverage in order to gain the handkerchief. Emilia takes the handkerchief without Desdemona knowing. Once the handkerchief is placed with Cassio, Othello believes that his wife is cheating on him. Othello then decides to kill his wife Desdemona. When Emilia realizes what she has done, she tells O...

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...Cited
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. "Chapter 25/ The Theater of Sophocles." Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Fourth ed. N.p.: U of South California, n.d. 704-55. Print.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. "Chapter 26/ The Theater of Shakespeare." Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Fourth ed. N.p.: U of South California, n.d. 756-878. Print.
KEKES, John. "Moral Depth." Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy (1990): 439-53. ProQuest. 21 Apr. 2014 .
Tiles, J. E. "Logic and Rhetoric: An Introduction to Seductive Argument." Philosophy and Rhetoric 28.4 (1995): 300-15. ProQuest. 21 Apr. 2014 .
Zerba, Michelle L. "Modalities of Tragic Doubt in Homer's Iliad, Sophocles' Philoctetes, and Shakespeare's Othello." Comparative Literature 61.1 (2009): 1-25. ProQuest. 21 Apr. 2014 .

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