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Oedipus's demise
Oedipus characterization assignment
Account for the fate of king oedipus
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Confronting the Mysteries of Oedipus The King Solving mysteries leads to new information and answers to questions; however, in literature, solving an investigation can delve further than just the upfront facts found in an investigation. In Oedipus The King, Oedipus searches for the alleged robbers who killed Laius, the previous King of Thebes. Ironically, Oedipus searches for himself. The investigation portrays copious characteristics of Oedipus, an ignorant man. Through the investigation, a new realm of truth unveils itself. The truth, revealed throughout to the reader and Oedipus, elucidates that ignorance leads to demise. To begin, Oedipus, clueless in regards to his true identity, portrays the epitome of ignorance. Oedipus searches for the murderer of Laius, but in the midst of everything …show more content…
Oedipus, calls down a curse on the killer; his ignorance to the truth brings into play the beginning of his demise. Oedipus does not realize that he killed Laius, and he ruins his life through his curse. Throughout the play, due to the investigation carried out, Oedipus slowly comes closer to the truth. A messenger arrives, and eventually enlightens Oedipus to the truth, that Polybus and Merope are not Oedipus’ real parents. Oedipus, shook, listens to the messenger, learning that another shepherd delivered him to the area, where the messenger found him. Oedipus heads out to find the shepherd, and threatens him with torture. The shepherd confesses that Oedipus was really born to Jocasta and Laius. From this, he realizes that the prophecy holds truth, he killed Laius. He also understands that his parents, Jocasta and Laius abandoned him due to the prophecy that he would kill his father. When he finds out, his world shatters. His ignorance to the situation, creates a disaster and crushed Oedipus leading to his demise. Jocasta hangs herself, aware of what she has done, as his mother but also his wife,
Oedipus goes through denial and then separates himself through self-examination. Although warned to refrain from the search by his wife/mother, Jocasta, Oedipus continues to seek out the truth. This truth seeking leads to the transformation where Oedipus realizes that he is responsible. He had killed his father (although at the time he did not know Laius was his father) and married his mother (he did not know this either), thereby causing the plague. This realization was too much for Jocasta to bear, and so she committed suicide.
The work as a whole seems to be a study of the nature of the mystery and how its discovery brings out the true identity of Oedipus. The clues involved in Oedipus’ puzzle surface a dark truth about his past and the fate. that he simply cannot shake the fact that he is the murderer and is indeed controlled by the Gods, not as powerful as them. When Kreon returns from Delphi, he tells Oedipus that he must “avenge”. the murderers of King Laios.
When he does visit the prophet, Tiresias, he learned that he adopted. It comes out that Oedipus was the unknown man who killed Laius from the revelation that the old king was killed at the same crossroads Oedipus remembers from his fight. In addition, it is revealed that Oedipus was the child Jocas...
As the tragedy comes to a close, the truth is revealed to Oedipus concerning his lineage and unnatural actions. Although the truth had been spoken to him about these matters previously, Oedipus had chosen not to believe and understandably so. True revelation comes to Oedipus through the same slave that had been ordered to kill him as a baby.
Few people think of detective work in regard to “Oedipus the King”, but this play builds on riddles solved, and unsolved, making it to be a mystery. Oedipus starts out as an optimistic individual who is in charge of a cold case proclaiming that he is going to solve the mystery of the murder of King Laius, in order to life the plague from his city Thebes. The people
The play's plot, in a nutshell, develops like this. After solving the riddle of the Sphynx, who had kept Thebes under a curse of some kind, Oedipus is invited to become king of the city. He marries Jocasta, the widow of the previous king, and they have two children. When the play begins, Thebes is again under some sort of curse, and Oedipus tries to find out its cause so that he can rescue the city. He is told that the cause of the curse is that the murderer of the previous king is still in the city and has gone unpunished. In the process of searching for the murderer, Oedipus discovers that it is he, himself, who is responsible and that he is actually the son of Jocasta and her previous husband. Horrified by his sins of incest and murder, Oedipus claws out his eyes. Jocasta commits suicide because she is so disgraced.
The scene where Oedipus opens the investigation is the first step toward his downfall. Oedipus covers up the murder and is nervous when he hears the news. It is Oedipus's continuous effort to find the murderer. He wants to find the murderers of the king, not knowing that he is the murderer.
Throughout the play, Oedipus is faced with the truth and fails to acknowledge it. He is first told by the drunk at the party, but he dismisses it as just something said by an ignorant drunk. He then visits the oracle and is told his fate determined by the gods and believes he can escape it by fleeing to Thebes. On his way he carries out the first part of the fate by killing his father. He then makes it to Thebes and marries Jocasta, unknowingly fulfilling the fate. Teiresias finally tells Oedipus the horrible truth, but Oedipus calls him a liar and fails to recognize the truth again. When Oedipus finally figures that what the oracle, drunk, and Teiresias was all true, he cannot handle it and blinds himself while Jocasta kills herself.
When Oedipus was born he was taken to an Oracle, this was custom for the rich. The Oracle was to tell his fate. The Oracle said that when Oedipus grows up he will marry his mother and he would also kill his father, "... Why, Loxias declared that I should one day marry my own mother, And with my own hands shed my father's bool. Wherefore Corinth I have kept away far, for long years; and prosperd; none the less it is most sweet to see one's parents' face..."(p36 ln1-6). When his parents herd this they gave Oedipus to a man and he was to get rid of the baby by leaving it in the forest, but an servant of Polybus, the king of Corinth, finds the baby and brings him to the king. The king falls in love with the baby and takes him in as one of his own.
As the play draws to a close, it is shown how Oedipus learns the true nature of things. Oedipus remains blind to the truth until he can deny it no longer. After hearing the testimony of the herdsman it is perfectly clear to Oedipus that he has fulfilled the prophecy by killing his father and marrying his mother, in turn bringing the great misfortune about the city of Thebes. Upon discovering the truth, along with discovering Jocasta’s dead body, Oedipus blinds himself with the pins on her dress and shouts that his eyes “would no longer see the evils he had suffered or had done, see in the dark those he should not have seen.” (1280-1282).
It is said that the truth will set you free, but in the case of Sophocles’ Oedipus, the truth drives a man to imprison himself in a world of darkness by gouging out his eyes. As he scours the city for truth, Oedipus’ ruin is ironically mentioned and foreshadowed in the narrative. With these and other devices Sophocles illuminates the king’s tragic realization and creates a firm emotional bond with the audience.
For Oedipus, prophecy is not the main source of his fall towards society; rather, his hubris blinds himself from recognizing his personal sin in the world, thus leading to his demise. Sophocles even skillfully uses a metaphor through the words “ as led by a guide” to further explain the “supernatural being” that ultimately decides the tragic fate of the family of Oedipus. In addition, through the death of Jocasta, the reader is immediately attuned of Oedipus’ raging moment of violence and will be petrified by the overwhelming power of the gods, thus realizing the importance of being cautious before making a final choice. Indeed, after an individual settles on a decision, the gods take control of the person’s fate, hurling numerous consequences to him if he makes the wrong decision. Moreover, as Oedipus suddenly becomes the unintended victim of the gods through his sinful decision to execute Laius, he is forced to relinquish his predominate impetus for pridefulness in exchange for a heart of deep realization and forgiveness. At the end of the play, Oedipus sacrifices everything in order to remove his guilt through the consequences of his atrocious actions witnessed by the gods. After Oedipus realizes the astringent fate he was destined to encounter through his sinful murder of Laius, he immediately attempts to take responsibility for his
Born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta in the city of Thebes, Oedipus is surrounded with controversy after a prophecy shows that Oedipus will be destined to murder his father and marry his mother. Fearing the potential consequences of the prophecy, Oedipus’ parents made the decision to abandon their baby at the top of a mountain to die using one of their servants. The servant’s consciousness, however, causes him to instead deliver the baby to a shepherd, who in turn sends him to King Polybius and Queen Merope of the kingdom Corinth. After raising the child as their own, Oedipus becomes suspicious that these weren’t his biological parents and leaves Corinth upon hearing the prophecy by the oracle Delphi. As he unknowingly travels to his birth city, Thebes, Oedipus murdered a man along with his servants after a dispute between them. Before entering Thebes, Oedipus is confronted by the guardian of the city’s Gates, the Sphinx who presents him with a riddle. If he solves the riddle, he will be able to pass. If he doesn’t, he’ll die. Oedipus’s superior intelligence and cleverness allows him to easily solve the riddle, however unbeknownst to him will be a foreshadowing of his tragic downfall. The citizens of Thebes praise Oedipus and Queen Jocasta offers to marry him since her husband was mysteriously murdered. Upon marry Jocasta and becoming the King of Thebes, a powerful plague decimates the citizens of
After calling upon a former servant of Laius, who now works as a shepherd after Laius’s murder, Oedipus is visited by a messenger from his home town of Corinth. From these two men, Oedipus learns that his biological parents are Laius and Jocasta, the man whom Oedipus murdered and the woman whom Oedipus married (Parallelism). No longer under the misconception that his prophecy will not be fulfilled, Oedipus screams in agony: “I stand revealed at last--/ cursed in my birth, cursed in my marriage, /cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!” (Episode 4, 1308-1310). At this moment in the drama, he discovers that the heinous future Tiresias had foretold has been realized.
As each successive "layer of the onion" is unpeeled, Oedipus is brought a step closer to realizing the true nature of his actions. Foretold in prophecy and initiated by his anger, the downfall of Oedipus comes to fruition as all facts gradually come to light. This "enlightening" starts with the revelations of a blind prophet named Tiresias. Though sightless, Tiresias can "see" the truth. He argues with Oedipus ".you have your sight, and do not see..