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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus misguidedly accuses the blind prophet, Teiresias, as well as his own brother-in-law, Creon, of conspiring against him to take his throne. He grows angry when Teiresias refuses to tell him...
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Oedipus Rex
The three Unities in Greek drama, as described in Aristotle’s rules of poetry in The Poetics, are the Unities of Time, Place, and Action; here, the entire dramatic action of Oedipus takes place...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus Rex contains several metaphors that the playwright, Sophocles, refers back to a number of times in the play. One of the metaphors depicts the state (Thebes) as a ship. A ship, in order to...
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Oedipus Rex
Every tragic hero has a tragic flaw, a hamartia, and Oedipus is no exception to the rule. Usually this hamartia is hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence. Every mortal needs pride to some...
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Oedipus Rex
In his fifth-century BCE tragic play Oedipus Rex, Sophocles explores issues of free will, fate, and the consequences of intentional ignorance. At the appearance in the play of Oedipus's wife,...
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Oedipus Rex
You are right in identifying Oedipus as the classic example of this statement. One of the reasons that this play is so famous is that Sophocles creates a situation where both the audience and quite...
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Oedipus Rex
This is a great question. As you know, the most important part of any essay is a strong thesis statement. In light of this, let me offer a few possible thesis statements. First, you can write on...
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Oedipus Rex
This is a great question, because Oedipus' interaction with people says much about his character and consequently this tragic flaw. First, it is important to note that his negative interaction with...
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Oedipus Rex
In the tradition of many mythological stories, humans did not have much control over their lives. The gods—or even the Fates (the Moirai)—determined what happened in a man's life. The Greeks...
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Oedipus Rex
One of the main themes explored in Oedipus Rex, simply put, is the age-old question of what controls human destiny, fate (the gods) or our own personal choices (free will). In the play, the entire...
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Oedipus Rex
“Dramatic irony” has been briefly and helpfully defined at dictionary.com as follows: irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not...
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Oedipus Rex
Please follow the link below to a previously asked question about the role of the chorus.
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Oedipus Rex
It is agreed by many scholars that not only is Oedipus's ultimate failure a result of his hubris but that his failure occurred before he had ever even taken the crown. Indeed, Oedipus had already...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus is a character with several prominent traits. He is strong-willed, confident, honest and bold. Also, he is proud, quick to anger (sometimes violent) and subject to paranoia. At the outset...
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Oedipus Rex
You will receive many different and distinctive answers to such a question. I would say that an equally compelling case can be made for both options. Such complexity is testament to Sophocles'...
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Oedipus Rex
CREON. Before thou didst assume the helm of State,The sovereign of this land was Laius. OEDIPUS. I heard as much, but never saw the man. CREON. He fell; and now the god's command is plain:Punish...
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Oedipus Rex
With catharsis as a term used by Aristotle to describe emotional release of the feelings of pity and fear experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy, the readers/audience...
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Oedipus Rex
The overwhelming sense of pride is apparent through much of the play. Oedipus' fundamental belief that he can overcome his fate through his exercise of free reflects this pride. The faith in his...
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Oedipus Rex
The central theme of the play Oedipus Rex would be the folly of trying to change one's fate. For ancient Greeks, fate was determined purely and solely by the gods. It was therefore considered...
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Oedipus Rex
In Oedipus Rex, the plot begins with the people of Thebes facing a plague on the land. The oracle claims that the plague will end when the murderer of King Laius is found and punished. Oedipus, as...
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Oedipus Rex
In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles creates the ultimate dramatic irony by allowing the reader to understand Oedipus's true identity long before he does. The effect of this irony makes the resolution of the...
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Oedipus Rex
Socrates's philosophy of wisdom was founded strongly upon the acknowledgement that we are all fundamentally ignorant: he defended himself at his trial with the argument that he himself was the...
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Oedipus Rex
This is a great question. Here are a few points to consider. First, as you state the tragic flaw of Oedipus is his pride. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the whole play is driven by...
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Oedipus Rex
Irony is, in fact, a literary technique which originated in Greek tragedy. Most common is dramatic irony in which a character's actions or words are understood by the audience, but unknown to the...
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Oedipus Rex
One way to approach answering this question is to look at Oedipus and Tiresias, the blind prophet. Although Oedipus, who has the physical ability to see, believes that he can discover the truth...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus's fated transgression of unknowingly killing his own father and committing incest with his mother was said to have brought suffering, not only to himself, but to all the people surrounding...
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Oedipus Rex
Creon acts as a constant and unwelcome reminder to Oedipus of the fundamental fragility of his kingship. Although Creon actually gave Oedipus the throne of Thebes as a reward for solving the riddle...
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Oedipus Rex
The exposition of Sophocles' Oedipus the King occurs in a fairly organic way in this play. The audience learns from conversations that Oedipus has with the Priest and Creon that the plague...
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Oedipus Rex
The downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy is usually caused by the character's "tragic flaw". This is true of Oedipus as much as it is true of any other tragic figure of antiquity. Of your two...
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Oedipus Rex
The answer that Oedipus gives to the Sphinx is indeed a universal one. All humans start out as babies completely dependent upon their elders for their very survival, mature and develop strength and...
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Oedipus Rex
Jocaste, or Jocasta as it is often spelled in different versions of Oedipus Rex, fits the definition of a tragic heroine for many reasons. For one, she is a person of high or noble birth. She is...
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Oedipus Rex
Creon doesn't want to be the king because he gets a lot more stress and responsibility without extra benefits. Creon is the brother-in-law of Oedipus Rex, the king of Thebes. His sister married...
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Oedipus Rex
When Oedipus begins his quest for the truth, seeking out King Laius' killer in order to eliminate the plague placed on the city, he asks many questions in order to determine the true killer of King...
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Oedipus Rex
Destiny plays a very strong role in Oedipus Rex. The play's central theme is that people can't escape their destinies. Oedipus tries to evade his tragic destiny, which he learns is to kill his...
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Oedipus Rex
Different readers will find different parts of the play most engaging. When responding to this sort of prompt as a student, one should note that there is no one "correct" answer but rather that the...
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Oedipus Rex
To emphasize the theme of fate in his tragic play Oedipus Rex, Sophocles uses what modern audiences will recognize from television shows and movies as a flashback technique to bring the audience...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus refers to himself as "ungodly pollution" at the end of the play because he has learned that he not only killed his own father, but also that he slept with and had children with his own...
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Oedipus Rex
The setting for Sophocles's ancient Greek tragic play Oedipus Rex is the same as it is for many tragic plays of the fourth and fifth centuries BCE, which was, essentially, "in front of something."...
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Oedipus Rex
In episode 3 of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, an old messenger arrives from Corinth to tell Oedipus that King Polybus is dead, and that Oedipus is called back to Corinth to be King. Oedipus is both...
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Oedipus Rex
The plague is the punishment that comes from Apollo. In the beginning of the play, Kreon arrives and reports what he has learned from going to Delphi: Apollo orders the Thebians to take revenge...
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Oedipus Rex
It is Apollo, the son of Zeus and God of Light, who initially delivers the prophecy, at Oedipus' birth, that Oedipus will murder his father and marry his mother. This prophecy has faded into...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus's ignorance, or lack of knowledge, leads to his blindness to the truth in Thebes because of the irony of his having solved the riddle of the Sphinx. For, since he has been clever enough to...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus's suffering is mostly due to his discovery that he has been married to his mother and killed his father. This is a particularly shocking example of the idea that self-discovery, while...
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus is the all-powerful king of Thebes, and he exerts his power over others at every opportunity. Fiercely proud, Oedipus will tolerate no opposition to his rule. As far as he's concerned, he's...
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Oedipus Rex
A catharsis is a strong release of emotions. In theater, it is connected to a vicarious experience of emotions: the audience bonds with a character in a play, then suffers what they suffer, feeling...
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Oedipus Rex
The dramatic structure of Oedipus Rex is intimately related to its status as a tragedy. In other words, the way in which the play is structured is designed to serve the time-honored demands of...
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Oedipus Rex
In terms of Ancient Greek drama, catharsis refers to the purging, or purifying, of the audience's emotions by the provoking of fear and pity. In the Poetics, the Greek philosopher Aristotle argued,...
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Oedipus Rex
It becomes clear that fate ends up ruling over the world of Oedipus Rex. Initially, Oedipus believes it is the other way around. At the exposition of the drama, Oedipus believes in his own power...
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Oedipus Rex
In Oedipus Rex, the nature of justice is characterized by paying the consequences for one's dishonorable actions. During the play, Oedipus reveals to Jocasta that after he left Corinth in an...
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Oedipus Rex
Jocasta first becomes uncomfortable when Oedipus tells her of his dilemma and the oracle's prophecy. However, it is when the messenger arrives with news of the death of Polybus that the pieces...
