Oedipus Rex

That Oedipus will end the pestilence is what his success in defeating the Sphinx years before leads the priest to expect in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus answers the seemingly unanswerable riddle of the monstrous Sphinx. The Sphinx commits suicide. No one else figures out how to defeat the Sphinx so the priest hopes that Oedipus' successful problem-solving will be repeated in regard to the current pestilence.

King Oedipus himself is responsible for his own blindness. He's responsible for his physical blindness. He's the one who plunges his wife and mother's brooches into both eyes.

Oedipus also is responsible for his previous, symbolicblindness. He hears a rumor that he isn't the biological son of Corinthian King Polybus and Queen Merope. He doesn't like their lack of a direct answer to this piece of unsettling gossip.

So Oedipus goes off to consult with the Delphic Oracle. He likes even less what he learns there. He's told of his fate to kill his father and marry his mother.

Oedipus doesn't think to check out the rumor that the Corinthian monarchs aren't his real parents. Instead, he goes tearing off to Thebes, which happens to be his real hometown. On the way, he kills a stranger who's old enough to be his father and whom he resembles. It turns out to be his father, Theban King Laius.

Then Oedipus marries a woman who's old enough to be his mother and with whom he may or may not share similar features or personality quirks. She turns out to be his mother, Theban Queen Jocasta. The possibilities are all there for seeing with the eyes and processing with the mind. But Oedipus is figuratively blind to all.

Because the truth will destroy both of them and their entire family is the reason why Jocasta tries to keep Oedipus from learning the truth in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban Queen Jocasta realizes that the killer whose execution or exile the gods demand in fact is her second husband, Oedipus. Additionally, she also processes the fact that Oedipus is the infant son that she and her first husband, King Laius, leave to die rather than grow up to kill his father. Jocasta has a personality that avoids unpleasantness and that goes into denial. She therefore attempts not to broadcast this information, which will destroy the couple's role model life of domestic bliss and professional success.

That he breaks divine and human laws that he tries not tois the reason why Oedipus suffers in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.)

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus leads an apparently charmed life until early adulthood. Then he hears a rumor that Corinthian monarchs Polybus and Merope are not his biological parents. He seeks the rumor's confirmation or rejection from the Delphic oracle, who says that Oedipus is fated to fill his father and marry his mother.

Oedipus therefore runs away, kills an elderly man in a street brawl, defeats a monster terrorizing Thebes, marries the beautiful widow of Thebes' murdered King Laius, and becomes a role model of domestic bliss and professional success until pestilence comes to Thebes.

But the pestilence reflects divine wrath over Laius' unsolved murder and the lack of punishment of the guilty in this offense against gods and mortals. In the course of trying to hunt down and punish the guilty, Oedipus discovers that he is not at all whom he thinks he is, and the punishment that he seeks for others needs to be carried out against himself.

Without going into too much detail: he killed his father and married his mother (he didn't know who they were at the time, and they didn't recognize him either). It took years for them to discover the truth ... well, Oedipus and his mother anyway; his father didn't discover anything, what with being dead and all.

When he found what he had done

He tore his eyes out, one by one,

A tragic end to a loyal son

Who loved his mother.

- Tom Lehrer, "Oedipus Rex"

Somewhere in his forties (40s) may be Oedipus' age when he is banished in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Oedipus is old enough to marry and become king when he moves to Thebes. By the time of the action of the play, he has two sons just about ready to succeed him. So Oedipus is probably in his twenties when he gets married and his sons are probably heading towards or in their twenties when Oedipus loses his wife, his sight, his reputation, his job and his home.

The interactions between Creon and Oedipus are examples of foil in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the term foil describes an opposite. The description fits the conversations that Theban King Oedipus has with Creon, his brother-in-law and royal colleague. For example, Oedipus is rash, rude and ruthless in charging Creon with treasonous conspiracy. Creon maintains a spirited but reasoned and respectful defense. He even refuses to stoop to payback when positions are reversed. Creon reigns over the disgraced Oedipus, whom he nevertheless treats kindly and approves a meeting with the latter's daughter.

Theban King Creon appears at the beginning of the third episode, as a logical connectionbetween that episode and the second episode of 'Antigone'. The third episode deals with the King's relationship with his son Haemon. It's the logical, natural progression from the second episode's ending with Antigone, Creon, and Ismene all purporting to know Haemon's feelings. For example, Creon claims that Haemon, as his son, undoubtedly wants better than the 'evil wife' that Antigone will make if allowed to live. He therefore takes up that point, and the notion that women are replaceable in men's emotions and responsibilities, in his interactions with Haemon in the third episode.

The third episode therefore allows Haemon the opportunity to present his feelings. It gives the audience the opportunity to see whether father, fianc

It is his daughter Antigone that convinces Oedipus to hear what Polyneices has to say in "Oedipus at Colonus" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, disgraced Theban King Oedipus dislikes his twin sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, for not helping him at the time of his overthrow for criminal acts and immoral behavior. He does not plan to meet with either one of them ever again. But he ends up being convinced to do so when his daughter, Princess Antigone, persuades him that Polyneices deserves an audience since Eteocles is denying his legitimate claim to the Theban throne.