Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles
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At a glance:
- Author: Sophocles
- First Published: 429
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Setting: Thebes
- Characters: Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, Teiresias
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy
- Subjects: Murder or homicide, Blindness or blind persons, Mistaken or secret identity, Guilt, Incest, Punishment, Death or dying, Kings, queens, or royalty, Fratricide, parricide, or filicide, Fate or fatalism, Prophecy or prophets, Greek or Roman times, Horror, Greece or Greek people, Plague, Oracles
- Locales: Europe, Greece, Greece, ancient, Thebes, ancient
The Story:
When Thebes is struck by a plague, the people ask King Oedipus to deliver them from its horrors. Creon, the brother of Jocasta, Oedipus’s queen, returns from the oracle of Apollo and discloses that the plague is punishment for the murder of King Laius, Oedipus’s immediate predecessor, to whom Jocasta was married. Creon further discloses that the citizens of Thebes need to discover and punish the murderer before the plague can be lifted. The people mourn their dead, and Oedipus advises them, in their own interest, to search out and apprehend the murderer of...
(The entire page is 2418 words.)
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