Similarities Between Oedipus And Minority Report

In the stories of Oedipus by Sophocles and Minority Report by Phillip. K. Dick, there are similarities in their superficial storylines but there are more significant differences that set them apart. In the two stories, the idea of the main character saving a city and coming into a position of authority are very similar. A more significant difference, however, is that while Oedipus didn’t know the identity of his real parents (his victims), in Minority Report John did know the identity of his real victim and was therefore able to control his future and change it. Another significant difference in the stories is that Oedipus is a tragic hero and John is more of a traditional hero. Oedipus starts off at a very exciting point in his life but then

ends in the lowest and most depressing point in his life due to both his parents dying and him being exiled. While on the other hand, John starts off great, gets a little worse in the middle of his story, but ends off even better than before by getting back together with his wife and having a child. While there are superficial storyline similarities between Oedipus and Minority report, the differences between the main characters knowledge of the identity of the victims in their prophecies and one being a hero and the other being a tragic hero are more significant.

A similarity in the storylines of Oedipus and John Anderton is that both of the characters begin their stories saving a city and as a result come into a position of authority.

At the beginning of Oedipus’s story, he comes to a city called Thebes. Oedipus was very smart and had a good wit, and when he came to the city he saw that it was being terrorized by a Sphinx. The Sphinx was putting a plague on the city that was causing people to get very sick and die. When Oedipus approached the Sphinx it asked him a riddle and said that if Oedipus could solve it the plague would be removed from the city. Upon hearing this Oedipus very quickly figured out the answer and saved the city from the Plague of the Sphinx. When the city figured out that he was the one responsible for saving their city they appointed him the king. Very similarly, John saves a city from a deadly plague of murder in Minority Report. John starts off as one of the few officers of a new division called pre-crime that stops murders before they happen. So once John and his team began stopping all these murders it was as if he was stopping the plague of murder that was spreading rapidly in the city. In response to this, the city promotes him to general or head of pre-crime because of all the good he was doing, stopping all the murders. Not only do they promote him to general they also look up to him as a role model and as the face of the city. In these two stories, we see how both Oedipus and John save their cities

from a form of a deadly plague and as a result are promoted to a position of high authority.

Despite that similarity, the differences between the two stories have a much bigger impact on the characters and their stories.

One of the key differences between Oedipus and John Anderton is the extent to which they were able to affect their prophecies and change their futures. In the story of Oedipus, Oedipus didn’t know the identity of his real parents and this greatly affected his ability to prevent his prophecy from coming true. When he was grown and living in Corinth, he was told that he would kill his father and marry his mother. At the time he thought that the King and Queen of Corinth were his real parents. To prevent the prophecy from coming true, he ran away so as not to harm them. But on his travels he killed a man during a road rage type encounter and that man turned out to be his real father, King Laius (although Oedipus didn’t know it at the time). When he got to Thebes and saved it from a plague he was declared king and was wed to the queen, his real mother (again, he didn’t know it at the time). Oedipus therefore lacked the knowledge to prevent his prophecy from coming true because he didn't know who his real parents were in order to prevent it from happening. On the other hand, in the story of Minority Report, John had more of an opportunity to affect his prophecy. John was told that he was going to kill someone within 24 hours (but he had never met the person but knew his name). Upon receiving the message that he would kill someone he tried his best to

stay away from anything that might provoke him to kill someone. Ironically, despite his efforts to stay away from being involved in a murder, the actions he took to expose the corrupt head of pre-crime led him closer and closer to the murder. At the point when he was aiming a gun at the man he found out he was supposed to kill, he was able to make a conscious decision to spare the man’s life. This was possible because unlike Oedipus John knew the name of the man he was supposed to kill and with that information he was able to hold himself back and prevent the murder and the prophecy from coming true. A clear difference in the stories of Minority Report and Oedipus is that while Oedipus had a limited ability to prevent his prophecy from coming true because he didn’t know the identity of his real parents, John was able to make a clear decision to change his future because he did know the identity of the man he was supposed to kill.

Another difference that has a big impact on the stories of Oedipus and John is that Oedipus was a tragic hero and John was more of a traditional hero. These two types of heros are very different and set these two characters apart. Oedipus is a tragic hero because he starts off at a very high point in his life, but then his whole story takes a turn for the worse. He starts off becoming king and getting married. But from there he kills his father, marries his mother, and has children with her. To make it even worse, his mother then kills herself, he blinds himself by gouging out his own eyes, and finally exiles himself from his own kingdom. On the other hand, John’s story begins on a high note, gets worse, but then all ends well for him. At the beginning of Minority report, John is the head of pre-crime, a role model, and stops murders. After that, his story seems to get a lot worse because he is convicted of a crime, gets his eyes replaced, and learns that his mentor who started pre-crime has actually murdered someone himself. But the end of the stories is where the important difference lies. While Oedipus’s story just kept getting worse and ended at a low point, John’s story takes a turn for the worse but then ends on a high note. He exposes the head of pre-crime for murder, proves his own innocence, and gets back together with his wife who’s pregnant with their child. One of the biggest differences between John Anderton and Oedipus is that Oedipus’s story starts out great and only gets worse while John’s story starts off great, gets worse, but then ends off on a high note.

In the storylines of Minority Report and Oedipus, we see some similarities in the main characters paths but the differences between them have a much greater impact. Oedipus and John both begin their stories saving a city and as a result come into a position of power. But while Oedipus wasn't able to do anything to prevent his prophecy from coming true because he didn’t know the true identity of his parents, John was able to prevent his prophecy from coming true because he knew the identity of his victim. Not only did John get to change his future but he is a more traditional hero because his story starts off on a high note, gets worse, but then ends happily. Oedipus on the other hand, is a tragic hero because his story starts off great but gets increasingly worse and ends at a very low point. In conclusion, while the stories of both of these main characters begin in similar ways the differences that occur throughout their stories are much more substantial.