Essays on Oedipus Rex

Many stories, although their plots are different, can share a significant theme tying them together. In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and in the drama Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, both authors use the theme of blindness. With their different plots, writing styles, etc. both authors also have similarities like the use of the same theme but in different aspects. Therefore, each author's use of the theme of blindness is shown by how each author portrays this theme, the way both ...

Oedipus Rex the King by Sophocles is a tragic drama. It is tragic because of what has happened to the protagonist, Oedipus, the unfortunate man who has fallen into a terrible fate without his knowing. What makes this story sad and terrible is the ending which ends with gruesome self mutilation of the protagonist. This shows how vulnerable he has become when he comes to fruition about his own life and fate told by oracles, which he with pride doubted and shunned upon their claim. This Greek ...

Sometimes no matter how hard you try, things do not work out in your favor. This statement is the unfortunate truth for several characters in the play, Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles. Oedipus lives most of his life oblivious to the horrible things he’s done, and the shocking truth thrusts Oedipus into reality. However, the way in which Oedipus acts in the face of suffering is what reveals his true character. E.R. Dodd’s quotation “Oedipus is a play about human greatness,” is true because, despite ...

Through their writings, the ancient Greeks wrote stories that explained the inmost, darkest thoughts that are in a person’s mind. Sophocles did so through his three plays in the Oedipus Cycle which included Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. Each play involves characters who have a hamartia. Oedipus tends to pity himself to his people in Oedipus Rex. Creon is extremely bossy and belligerent throughout each of the plays, sometimes more than he needs to be. Antigone is stubborn and ...

It is a well-known fact of life that even the most accomplished people can feel insecure. They suffer self-doubt and, in some cases, are in constant need of support and assurance that they are the great people everyone else perceives them to be. Written by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex explores the profound insecurities of its main character, King Oedipus, whilst he searches for the killer of King Laios. The play begins when Oedipus has already been crowned King. His great accomplishment of ...

Oedipus Rex is a complex work of fiction, interweaving several questions throughout its narrative: if gods are manipulators with ulterior motivations, fate versus agency, the blame to be given in such a complex situation, and the irony of Oedipus’ actions. The only direct contact the city of Thebes receives from the gods is at the very start of the play in the form of the oracle of delphi's prophecy, which was given to Creon: Creon: Apollo commands us - he was quite clear - / “Drive the ...

The written task is based on the text Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King by Sophocles. The critical essay aims to explore how the text, a classical Greek tragedy conforms to the particular genre of a tragedy. Indeed, Oedipus has been considered the perfect tragedy that Aristotle in his poetics framed the definition of tragedy based on the text. Sophocles was a famous and successful Athenian writer of tragedies in his time. Of his 120 plays, only 7 survived. Oedipus the King, also known as Oedipus ...

Often, misconceptions of reality solicit irrational behaviour and hinder the ability to examine the components required to assess problems. Oedipus's hubris misguides him to inadvertently fulfill a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother despite his precautions. In Sophocles's tragic play, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is an honorable and heroic man, but he chooses to lead a life of both pride and arrogance; his false perception of himself and his paranoid behavior that others are ...

Sigmund Freud was so thoroughly inspired and intrigued by this play that he came up with the “Oedipus Complex.” This complex was part of his psychoanalytic theory, which in basis is the desire or possessiveness of the parent of the opposite sex and the rivalry or competition of the same-sex parent. Freud introduced this in 1899, in his article Interpretation of Dreams. The Oedipus Complex is inspired by the Greek Oedipus Rex play, in how Oedipus had killed his father, which seems like the ...