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Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Cocteau's The Infernal Machine
Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Cocteau's The Infernal Machine relate the same story, yet from quite different angles. Sophocles' play is written in heightened language and spends 1,530 lines on an hour of time. On the other hand, Cocteau's characters speak colloquially, and his 96 pages cover 17 years, putting much more emphasis on the events prior to where Sophocles begins his play. Sophocles and Cocteau present Oedipus' character in different lights, and through these characters express contrary themes. Sophocles' proud yet wise Oedipus reveals that a human's future is determined by his actions, while Cocteau's haughty yet immature Oedipus suggests that mortals' fates are completely predetermined by the gods.
In both plays Oedipus appears to have extreme pride; while Sophocles' clever Oedipus has reason for his pride, Cocteau's foolish Oedipus is arrogant without cause. Sophocles' Oedipus solves "the (sphinx's) riddle by (his) wit alone."(Soph .O.T. 397) The Sphinx sits on the road to Thebes and kills anyone who can not answer her riddle until Oedipus appears, solves the riddle, and saves Thebes. It is at this point that he becomes King of Thebes and rules his people well. He does not know that he
has killed his father, the former king, and married his mother. When his presence in Thebes causes a plague to strike the city, he sincerely seeks out the cure for his city's plight.
Early on the morning of the last day of the battle July 3, The Union was the first to strike by having a change of events. The Northerners offensively attacked and pushed on the Confederate troops on Culp’s Hill in hopes of regaining territory lost the day before. Union forces pushed back the Confederate threat for around 8 hours and regained their lost land from the Confederate soldiers on day 2 of the battle on Culp’s Hill. Lee believed that on July 2nd; victory was within his grasps, so he decided to send three divisions of his men covered by an artillery attack against the Union center line on Cemetery Ridge. 15,000 troops, led by George Pickett, who would be asking these 15,000 men to accept the task of marching around 3/4 of a mile across an open field to attack entrenched Union positions with good stone walls for cover, who would with heavy artillery support behind them belittle the Confederate troops with barrages of fire. Longstreet strongly protested against
...t suffering any additional attacks) and in mid-June Van Gogh produced his best known work: Starry Night. Under the care of a sympathetic doctor, whose portrait he painted (Dr. Gachet, 1890, Louvre, Paris), van Gogh spent three months at Auvers. Just after completing his ominous Crows in the Wheatfields (1890, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh), he shot himself on July 27, 1890. Vincent van Gogh died at 1:30 am on July 29th. The Catholic church of Auvers refused to allow Vincent's burial in its cemetery because Vincent had committed suicide. The nearby township of Méry, however, agreed to allow the burial and the funeral was held on July 30th.
Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus The King, Oedipus At Colonus. Penguin Books. New York, New York. 1982, 1984.
Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Trans. Robert Bagg. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Ed Peter Simon. 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2014. 666-706
On July 1st 1863, General Robert E. Lee led an attack in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the battle lasted for three days. On July 1, the Union success failed as Confederate soldiers pushed back against the Iron Brigade and exploited a weak Federal line. On July 2nd, there were heavy battles around Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Peach Orchard, Culp’s Hill, and East Cemetery Hill. Confederate soldiers captured Devil’s Den and the Peach Orchard, but didn’t stop the Union defenders. On July 3rd, fighting started at Culp’s Hill when the Union regaining its lost ground. After being cut down by a massive artillery bombardment in the afternoon. Lee attacked the Union center. Lee's second invasion of the North had failed, and had resulted in heavy casualties; an estimated 51,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured, or listed as missing after Gettysburg. Years later the war ended.
Sophocles. "Oedipus Rex." An Introduction to Literature, 11th ed.Eds. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 1997.
Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine and Sophocles’s Oedipus the King are both centered on the myth, yet their themes are different. By changing Oedipus’s personality, motive, relationship with Jocasta, and his character development Cocteau makes his theme the idea that the gods basically just play with humans, instead of like Sophocles’s theme that man cannot escape his own fate.
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that the events in Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles, are the result of the hero’s self determination and restless attempt to escape a terrifying destiny predicted for him by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. My intention is to prove that although the Fates play a crucial part in the story, it is Oedipus'choices and wrong doing that ultimately lead to his downfall.
Boston: Pearson, 2013. 1396-1506. Print. The. Sophocles. “Oedipus the King” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing.
Vincent Van Gogh an extraordinary artist was born in Holland, March 30, 1853 and died at a young age of 37 years old on July 29, 1890. He received his education in boarding school, then went to middle school without completing. Gogh did not further his education after dropping out. He showed no talent in art in his early childhood. However, his relative took him under his wing to work as an assistant. He was trained as an apprentice at his job. Meanwhile, Vincent picked up the ability in creative writing, mostly to his family (Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam).
Sophocles. "Oedipus the King." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 1902.
Sophocles. "Oedipus Rex." An Introduction to Literature, 11th ed. Eds. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 1997. 800-836.
Vincent van Gogh was born in the Netherlands on 1853. At the age of 27 is when he truly began his interest in art and soon expanded it into a career, even though only having another 10 more years to live. While traveling to Paris in 1886 with his brother Theo, Vincent learned many knew techniques and movements of art which he later used in his own art work. It was not until the very last two and a half years of Vincent’s life that the world truly saw what he was capable of creating with his hands and mind, being in that state of mind in which he was really disturbed and his despair was deepening. Some of his mental and, as well as physical, health includes temporal lobe epilepsy, bipolar disorder and hypergraphia, according to Van Gogh Gallery, 2015.
On March 30, 1853 one of the most brilliant and creative children was born in Zundert, Holland. This boy’s life would be one of pain and struggle. His name was Vincent Van Gogh.
In the year of 1866, Van Gogh had gone to Paris to join his brother Theo. Theo was the manager of Goupil’s gallery at the time. During the time in Paris, Vincent Van Gogh was studying with Cormon. Later on, Van Gogh had met Piarro, Monet, and Gaug...