Oedipus Rex Essays and Term Papers
Last update: August 22, 2014-
Oedipus Rex
Oedipus Rex If fate is predetermined then what good can come out of seeing one’s future? Perhaps Sohpocles had this question in mind when he wrote Oedipus Rex. In this story, Oedipus, king of Thebes, must find the murderers who killed his wives first husband, king Laios, so that the great plague will be lifted from his city. He stops at nothing to find out the truth. Oedipus sends a messenger to bring him Teiresias,
Rating:Essay Length: 485 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: June 6, 2010 -
Oedipus Rex
Irony 1: Irony Oedipus the King Oedipus is self-confident, intelligent and strong willed. Ironically these are the very traits which bring about his demise. Sophocles makes liberal use of irony throughout “Oedipus the King”. He creates various situations in which dramatic and verbal irony play key roles in the downfall of Oedipus. Dramatic irony depends on the audience’s knowing something that the character does not and verbal irony is presented when there is a contradiction
Rating:Essay Length: 307 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: June 10, 2010 -
Literary Analysis: Oedipus Rex
Faust Adriane Faust English 1023-M17 Schexnayder November 18, 2016 Literary Analysis: Oedipus Rex Oedipus Rex is a story that displays the perfect example of a Greek tragedy as Aristole would call it. Oedipus Rex encountered many devastating tragedies in this story. Most men wouldn’t have been strong enough to face the many tragedies that Oedipus Rex faced. Oedipus Rex was native of the town of Corinth. Oedipus Rex was born into a noble family. His
Rating:Essay Length: 865 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: December 11, 2016 -
Oedipus Rex Part 1 Essay
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus, the king of Thebes, makes discoveries that leads him to one major discovery. Because Oedipus is blind to the truth, he reacts to his discoveries in the wrong way and blames others to give himself assurance. Oedipus starts off as a confident man who doesn’t know who he is, and turns into a man with a broken soul who knows who he is and what he has done. In the prologue
Rating:Essay Length: 644 Words / 3 PagesSubmitted: December 16, 2016 -
Oedipus
Teriesias. He is reaccuring figure in greek mythology. He has been a woman and a man, and zeus struck him blind. Zeus gave him the gift of prophercy. He is known to posses god-given insight. He is the only one in the play who is not afraid of Oedipis. Tereisas finds the gift of prophecy more of a burden then a benefit. Teriesias accuasations (in the scence between king and prophet) lead him on the
Rating:Essay Length: 302 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: November 13, 2009 -
Oedipus Tyrannous
Oedipus Tyrannous When half human monsters walked the Earth and mythical Gods ruled all of creation, one man was destined to suffer the worst fate ever imaginable. Oedipus Tyrannous is a classic Greek tragedy written by Sophocles around 470 BC. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, Greek tragedies should follow certain guidelines in order to be effective tragic drama. Many of Oedipus’ character traits ultimately justify his place as a perfect specimen of Aristotle’s tragic hero. According
Rating:Essay Length: 900 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: November 13, 2009 -
Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King Oedipus being shown in an updated version is a very effective and understandable way to present it to audiences. The play that was viewed in class was a good adaptation of the original play. Although modern versions of Oedipus are far different today than the way they were performed during Sophocles’s time, I think he would be impressed with the way that modern versions of his play are performed. The reason
Rating:Essay Length: 736 Words / 3 PagesSubmitted: November 14, 2009 -
Oedipus
Oedipus When Oedipus is first shown, his appearance is quite elegant. He walks out from his castle and is dressed in a white suit that shines brighter than the sun itself. Toward the end right after he takes his own sight, he is dressed in nothing more than rags. In the beginning of the story Oedipus' words are that of encouragement when he is talking to his people. As the story goes on and he
Rating:Essay Length: 420 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: November 14, 2009 -
The Tragic Fate of Oedipus the King
In the play Oedipus the King, Oedipus the main character meets with a tragic fate. In the beginning he is a mighty king, ruler of the city of Thebes. Then the people of Thebes come to him with a problem. The city is tragically on the surge of death. Oedipus, being the mighty king he is, is determined to solve the problem. Oedipus saved the city once before and became a hero. Now faced with
Rating:Essay Length: 948 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: November 18, 2009 -
Explain the Nature of the Oedipus Complex
The Oedipus complex is believed to be a play off of the ancient Greek mythological character Oedipus Rex. According to the myth, Oedipus Rex was a Greek king that killed his father out of envy and rage in order to have his mother. If the ancient Greek myth is viewed in such a way, it would be possible to believe that Oedipus Rex, who had been given a prophecy advising of his fate, was attempting
Rating:Essay Length: 1,456 Words / 6 PagesSubmitted: November 20, 2009 -
Compare and Contrast the Part That the City or State (polis) Plays in Antigone and Oedipus the King.
Compare and contrast the part that the city or state (polis) plays in Antigone and Oedipus The King. Antigone is a play about the tension caused when two individuals have conflicting claims regarding law. In this case, the moral superiority of the laws of the city, represented by Creon, and the laws of the gods, represented bt Antigone. In contrast, Oedipus The King is driven by the tensions within Oedipus himself. That play both begins
Rating:Essay Length: 868 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: November 20, 2009 -
Morality in Oedipus Tyrannus
People often confuse the terms “guilt” and “responsibility” for one another. Can these terms be freely intertwined with one another or are they separate entities altogether? However, in this case these terms, regardless of how closely related they are to each other, have different meanings. Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus is a tragic play that revolves around the issues of morality. The question that thus stands is whether Oedipus was guilty and or responsible for patricide and
Rating:Essay Length: 1,612 Words / 7 PagesSubmitted: November 21, 2009 -
The Oedipus Cycle
The Oedipus Cycle The characters in Sophocles’ The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone all seem to show complex Freudian concepts. Strangely enough, Sophocles was the only great writer during his time to ever tie in Freudian concepts in his work. In the first part of the trilogy, Oedipus Rex, we learn that the mighty king Oedipus, ruler of Thebes, has fallen from power and now must live with his horrific fate.
Rating:Essay Length: 968 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: November 22, 2009 -
Death of a Salesman & Oedipus the King
An overwhelming desire for personal contentment and unprecedented reputation can often result in a sickly twisted distortion of reality. In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, a man well-known for his intellect and wisdom finds himself blind to the truth of h life and his parentage. Arthur Miller's play, The Death of a Salesman, tells of a tragic character so wrapped up in his delusional world that reality and illusion fuse causing an internal explosion that
Rating:Essay Length: 1,729 Words / 7 PagesSubmitted: November 25, 2009 -
Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King While reading classical literature one is bound to run into many types of heroes. The different types of heroes can range in their greatness, but above all, the tragic hero is viewed as being the most alluring of them all. A tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle, is a man who is great but also terribly flawed, who experiences a fall in misfortunes while still remaining admirable to the audience at the
Rating:Essay Length: 849 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: November 25, 2009 -
Oedipus
In Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King”, the central thematic intent is of divine prophesy and human will. In the introduction it states that Laius and Jocasta, “the childless King and Queen of Thebes”, had been told by the god Apollo that their son would kill Laius and marries his mother Jocasta. To make sure the prophesy would not come true, they gave their son to a shepherd so that he would leave it to die on
Rating:Essay Length: 388 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: November 26, 2009 -
Oedipus as a Plot Driven Tragedy
According to Aristotle, the driving force behind tragic works lies not in the development of characters but in the formulation of a specific plot structure. Aristotle believed that the purpose of all art is to imitate life and that human beings live their lives through events and actions. He argues that characters serve to advance the events of the plotline and that the characters themselves are not central. Aristotle's opinions on tragedy were largely constructed
Rating:Essay Length: 1,534 Words / 7 PagesSubmitted: November 28, 2009 -
Oedipus the King
How does one take back words that were said in haste? In Sophacles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus longed to retract the curse that he brought upon himself but what he did could not be undone. Oedipus’ pride blinded him to himself and everything around him. He had eyes that could see physically but could not recognize any faults within himself. Ironically, a blind man was able to perceive the truth and even then Oedipus did not
Rating:Essay Length: 341 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: November 28, 2009 -
The Oedipus Complex
Is it true all men are mamma's boys and jealous of their fathers for being with their mothers? Sigmund Freud, a noted psychologist, thought so. The theory based on a supposedly subliminal and a regular male craving to get in bed with his mother is called the Oedipus Complex. Hamlet is an excellent example of this complex. Although Hamlet did not actually get in bed with his mother, he spoke of incestuous wishes. Well, where
Rating:Essay Length: 679 Words / 3 PagesSubmitted: December 3, 2009 -
Oedipus
~Oedipus~ Many times humans do things that contradict another thing they do. An example of this is one thing may be good but also bad at the same time. A person who has done this more then once is Oedipus in the writer Sophocles plays. Sophocles uses imagery like light verses darkness, knowledge verses ignorance and sight verses blindness. Oedipus is very knowledgeable during the play and at some times still extremely ignorant. He doesn’t
Rating:Essay Length: 1,000 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: December 4, 2009 -
Oedipus - Irony - Essay
Irony Oedipus the King Oedipus is self-confident, intelligent and strong willed. Ironically these are the very traits which bring about his demise. Sophocles makes liberal use of irony throughout “Oedipus the King”. He creates various situations in which dramatic and verbal irony play key roles in the downfall of Oedipus. Dramatic irony depends on the audience’s knowing something that the character does not and verbal irony is presented when there is a contradiction between what
Rating:Essay Length: 322 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: December 4, 2009 -
Oedipus and Blindness Imagery
Jack Beasley AP English Essay A January 30, 2001 In the story of Oedipus the king, Sophocles beautifully demonstrates the imagery of sight versus blindness through the use of tragedy and ignorance. Oedipus is ignorant to his own incest, therefore causing the first instance of his blindness. The second instance of Oedipus’ blindness is the ignorance of his true parent’s identity. The third instance of Oedipus’ blindness is a literal one, in which he physically
Rating:Essay Length: 517 Words / 3 PagesSubmitted: December 5, 2009 -
Oedipus Paper
Oedipus Paper The Theban plays taught ancient Greeks that there were four things that should be learned and lived by in order to be a good person and a good leader. The chorus outlined these things in the last lines of “Antigone” (pg 162). According to the chorus, Of happiness the crown And chiefest part Is wisdom, and to hold The gods in awe. This is the law That, seeing the stricken heart Of pride
Rating:Essay Length: 821 Words / 4 PagesSubmitted: December 5, 2009 -
Rex the King Cobra
King Cobra Rex A Snakes Life Hey what’s up! My name is Rex the King Cobra, one of the most deadly snakes that could ever live! I’m 18 ft long, and I have a thick body. It’s not easy to live in South East Asia in the dense highland forest. Food is easy to find! I enjoy eating other venomous and non-venomous snakes such as Pythons & Kraits, but if I can’t find any snakes,
Rating:Essay Length: 261 Words / 2 PagesSubmitted: December 6, 2009 -
Use of Dramatic Irony in Oedipus the King
Oedipus Rex a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles in the early days of antiquity is based upon an even more ancient story in Greek mythology. Sophocles, however, knowing that his audience is aware of the outcome of the play utilizes that foreknowledge to create various situations in which dramatic and verbal irony play key roles. Through his use of irony Sophocles manages to avoid simply retelling an old tale, though the audience is cognizant
Rating:Essay Length: 1,788 Words / 8 PagesSubmitted: December 7, 2009