Sophocles Oedipus-analysis of the play
The play revolves around a young Greek man who is almost run over by a chariot belonging to a rich arrogant person. This defines the position that Oedipus takes in the society. The play developed in a Greek mythology. Oedipus meets a lot of riddles and challenges that move him to the state of solution and prompts him to use his problem solving skills and resolution tactics. Eventually, due to the solution of one of the riddles that faced him, he rises and becomes the king of Thebes. The previous king is murdered by unknown person, which put Oedipus to task to find a solution as the society believes that nothing befell the person behind the murder. Oedipus vows to find the killers and address all problems that faced the society (Louis 173). This paper undertakes a look at the events that describe the main characters in the play, with the view of finding out the traits that define the characters.
The beginning of the play is the early period of Oedipus’ leadership, a period when the people come to Oedipus for action. As the king, he promises that he will deal with the killer and punish him/her irrespective of whom it turns out to be. Eloit (190) states that “I will punish the killer no matter who the culprit is” this shows that the king had determination to shoulder the problems of the society and that justice determined the rule of the king in the land. Oedipus seems so grilled in finding the person who took the life of the previous king away, which pushes him to seek the help of a prophet named Teresias. The prophet look into the issue and earns the king that he should stop dwelling into the matter. The prophet insists that continued insight into the matter would cause the king disturbance but Oedipus seems thrilled to get to the base of the matter. After various attempts to hide the matter, the prophet reveals to Oedipus that the killer is Oedipus, the king.
The fact that the king turns out the murderer thrills the whole race of the people and nobody comes to agreement that the king could do such a thing. Weigel (3) infers that “The words of Tiresias strike fear into the hearts of Creon” This shows that the locals worried about the plague that the society would encounter and the people of Thebes and the whole race of people living on the land, and Creon reluctantly goes out of his way to free Antigone. This seems the only way that the society can get their salvation. The prophet foresees that the society would encounter a big plague, which would turn the lives of the people into miserable states, and that the people would face the wrath of the gods.
The story that Oedipus murdered the king turns out the same as one that he encountered some time back when he lived in Corinth because a prophet also claimed that he would execute his father. Oedipus run away from the land because of the dreadful prophesies. His wife tells him that he should calm down as they try to face the problem. The first great huddle in his leadership looms, representing the challenges that faced his reign. The challenge shows that when people expect their solutions to lie in some quarters, sometimes they turn to areas that they least expect. All the people expected that the killer would turn out to be another person but the king ironically turns out as the killer.
Oedipus is struggling with his life as he tries to face a tormenting fate. Particularly, the king blinds himself to escape from the reality that he can hardly face. Oedipus is a misfortune son who unknowingly falls in activities that are taboo in respect to the community’s customs. Prophesy indicated that he had to murder his father and marry his mother (Eloit 290). As the play unveils, this happens while Oedipus is trying his best to avoid it. Oedipus finds himself entangled in fateful encounters that he could hardly avoid. Surprisingly, his effort of facing the challenges he encounters in his life complicates the situation further. For example, in the quest of avoiding a teasing prophesy he assumes a position that results to conflicts between him and other people including his family members such as Antigone.
Oedipus also blinds himself to free himself from the responsibility of taking care of his parents in his afterlife. He challenges the community’s beliefs and norms by viewing life and interpreting situations from his own perspective. Oedipus is often ignorant to the laws of nature which he essentially regard insignificant and unrealistic. He creates a unique world that is less restricted by natural formalities. However, the King hardly realizes his desires because natural forces follow and affect his activities accordingly (Gallo 60). Oedipus perspective results to serious rivalries because the ideologies informing the two worlds differ with one another. Accordingly, the king often finds himself in situations that demand him to believe in spiritual counsel. For example, the guideline that requested for the need of establishing the killer of the former king of the city becomes relevant when his kingdom faces endless calamities.
When the society expects that matters will become well for their king, nothing seems to go well with the king. The life of Oedipus becomes more complicated along the way, to a state that he becomes frustrated in his leadership. He failed to punish himself for the murder of the previous king yet he found out that he had fallen victim to the first prophecy. During the time, Jocasta commits suicide, while Oedipus uses the pins from her dress to gauge out his eyes. He wanders all over the land as an example of a person wrapped in the curse of the gods (OTK 176). The characters of the play present in many developments although the early chapters of the play introduces the audience to a people who emphasized on the main characters. The development of the characters presents one of the best settings for a play. Oedipus represents the main character in the play. He establishes as a victim to fate and nature takes control over what goes on in his life.
Oedipus starts as a person trying to avoid a lot of mistakes and problems in his life when he ran away from his adopted home to avoid the prophesy that he would kill his father. Unknowingly, he kills his father on the way and marries his mother, making the play more reliable on fate than the decisions of the people (OAC 16). He further falls into more controversy when the prophet declares that he was the killer of the previous king. This antagonizes Oedipus to the rest of the people in the kingdom. The second character represents Oedipus’ wife, Jocasta. She became the wife t Oedipus when his husband died. Later, she realizes that Oedipus actually murdered her husband in an argument and married her. The prophecy that Oedipus would marry his own mother after murdering his father comes out true in the life of the queen. When she realised that she had married her own son, she commits suicide due to the frustration and the order of fate. She lives in fate as she loses her own son, who later marries her and she has a daughter with him.
According to Fosso (36), Antigone is the third character among the major characters in the play, which plays a major role in the development of the play. She was born between a mother and her son and feels that she is a daughter of fate. During her life in the king enslaves her due to the tranquilities that she caused the people and because the king believes, she was the cause of his problems. However, after Teresus foresaw that the kingdom would face problems after the death of the king (SOT 56). However, Cleon frees the daughter of the king so that he could save the kingdom from the problems that faced them as per the prophet. Consequently, she faces the judgment of the people and the clashes that the people had with the king. In the latter chapters, people realized that the daughter of the king became a victim of actions of the king, his wife, and his brother-in-law. She cared for her blind granny but came back for her family. Like the rest of the characters, she falls to fate and her life goes as to what fate describes.
Creon represents the man in the rise and fall of the leadership in the kingdom. He sees Oedipus rise to become king and at the same time witnesses the fall of the same king, he saw rise. As the sister to the king’s wife, he stays close to the king, watching all the things that the king went through and the severe prophecies the people laid before the king (OCEE 167). Although he feels that they are strange, he does not do anything about them and watches the king fall to his own mistakes. He took over as the king of the land when Oedipus left the throne.
The development in the play represents some of the best scenes, with a number of themes coming up through the stylistic creations. The most prevalent theme in the play represents the fate that befalls most of the people in the play. From the first king, then Oedipus, then his wife and daughter, the kingdom possesses a history full of fate (Eloit 288). The theme of state control reveals through the pressure that people place on Oedipus to solve the plague in the death of the king. He rises to the throne but later falls to his mistakes. Blindness and sight wraps up the main themes in the play. Literally, the theme shows up through Antigone caring for her blind granny. Metaphor of the same comes through the blindness of the king and the people not to see what fate had for them.
Sophocles Oedipus represents a play that builds from the simple life of a person who almost dies in a chariot accident to a person who rises to kingship. However, he later falls to fate and wanders in a life with many fate stories. Although the people trusted Oedipus to solve their issues, they never knew that he had more problems due o fate than they thought. The play ends in the solutions and a series of fateful events that came after Oedipus left the throne. Fate clearly decides the lives of the people in the kingdom.
Works cited
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