How is Laius' murder important in 'Oedipus Rex'?

Answer 1

The murder of Theban King Laius is important as a heinous offense, and as a step in the fulfillment of a horrific fate. The offense is the killing of a father and a sovereign. Such an offense requires special cleansing procedures for purification of the particular individual and the place where that individual resides. A lack of individual cleansing pollutes the entire environment in which that individual lives.

Subsequent Theban King Oedipus is Laius' killer. He doesn't know of the personal and professional relationship that he shares with an apparently churlish, surly stranger. Oedipus nevertheless needs purification for his double offense. He doesn't go through it. So he pollutes himself and everyone and everything that comes into contact with him. Consequently, Thebes is visited with a pestilence whose fearful impact affects Theban livestock, harvests and birth rates.

On a personal level, that killing brings Oedipus closer to the terrifying fate that he seeks to avoid. He's warned by the Delphic Oracle of a future as a father killer and as a sex offender with his mother. So he flees Delphi and Corinth, where he mistakenly believes himself to be the biological son of Corinthian King Polybus and Corinthian Queen Merope.

But his flight takes him to a crossroads where a street brawl over a right-of-way leaves a stranger and four of his five companions dead. Unbeknownst to Oedipus, that stranger is precisely the father whom he seeks to avoid. Equally unbeknownst to him, Oedipus then heads to his hometown. There a grateful people reward him with a vacated royal throne and a grieving royal widow for ridding Thebes of the beastly, bullying Sphinx. Unbeknownst once more to Oedipus, that widow is his own mother, Theban Queen Jocasta.

All of the horrific pieces of the puzzle of Oedipus' life come together with that senseless killing at the meeting place for three roads. In fact, the English adjective 'trivial' traces its origins to the Latin for 'three roads'. The reason that trivial has its meaning is the unimportance of which road Oedipus chooses. All three roads meet at the very spot where a father unknowingly challenges a son's right to the road. So the origins and destinations of father and son are irrelevant, given that all meet in the same place and with the same heinously criminal, destructive consequences.

Answer 2

The murder of Theban King Laius is important as a heinous offense, and as a step in the fulfillment of a horrific fate. The offense is the killing of a father and a sovereign. Such an offense requires special cleansing procedures for purification of the particular individual and the place where that individual resides. A lack of individual cleansing pollutes the entire environment in which that individual lives.

Subsequent Theban King Oedipus is Laius' killer. He doesn't know of the personal and professional relationship that he shares with an apparently churlish, surly stranger. Oedipus nevertheless needs purification for his double offense. He doesn't go through it. So he pollutes himself and everyone and everything that comes into contact with him. Consequently, Thebes is visited with a pestilence whose fearful impact affects Theban livestock, harvests and birth rates.

On a personal level, that killing brings Oedipus closer to the terrifying fate that he seeks to avoid. He's warned by the Delphic Oracle of a future as a father killer and as a sex offender with his mother. So he flees Delphi and Corinth, where he mistakenly believes himself to be the biological son of Corinthian King Polybus and Corinthian Queen Merope.

But his flight takes him to a crossroads where a street brawl over a right-of-way leaves a stranger and four of his five companions dead. Unbeknownst to Oedipus, that stranger is precisely the father whom he seeks to avoid. Equally unbeknownst to him, Oedipus then heads to his hometown. There a grateful people reward him with a vacated royal throne and a grieving royal widow for ridding Thebes of the beastly, bullying Sphinx. Unbeknownst once more to Oedipus, that widow is his own mother, Theban Queen Jocasta.

All of the horrific pieces of the puzzle of Oedipus' life come together with that senseless killing at the meeting place for three roads. In fact, the English adjective 'trivial' traces its origins to the Latin for 'three roads'. The reason that trivial has its meaning is the unimportance of which road Oedipus chooses. All three roads meet at the very spot where a father unknowingly challenges a son's right to the road. So the origins and destinations of father and son are irrelevant, given that all meet in the same place and with the same heinously criminal, destructive consequences.