thesis statement for oedipus rex

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Oedipus Thesis Statements and Essay Topics

Below you will find four outstanding thesis statements / paper topics for “Oedipus” by Sophocles that can be used as essay starters. All four incorporate at least one of the themes found in “Oedipus” and are broad enough so that it will be easy to find textual support, yet narrow enough to provide a focused clear thesis statement. These thesis statements offer a short summary of “Oedipus” in terms of different elements that could be important in an essay. You are, of course, free to add your own analysis and understanding of the plot or themes to them. Using the essay topics below in conjunction with the list of important quotes from”Oedipus” on our quotes page, you should have no trouble connecting with the text and writing an excellent essay.

Thesis Statement #1: Family as Defined in Oedipus

To the character of Oedipus, his biological parents are not his real parents. He views his adoptive parents as his true parents. He interprets the prophecies based on his beliefs about his family. When he marries his mother and has children with her, he is both their father and their half-brother. Examine the definition of family as outlined in the mind of Oedipus. Does it make his deeds any more or less distasteful because he does not acknowledge his biological parents as his true parents?

Thesis Statement #2: The Role of the Prophecy

Throughout Oedipus , several prophecies are brought forth. It could be argued that the reaction of his biological parents lead to the prophecies being fulfilled. Laius orders Jocasta to kill her son. She cannot do it, so she orders a servant to do it for her. The servant then leaves Oedipus to die from exposure rather than killing him outright. These actions contribute to the prophecy about Oedipus’ birth becoming truth. Additionally, each character interprets the prophecies based on his or her own beliefs and thoughts. Discuss the relationships between the prophecies and some characters’ beliefs about them.

Thesis Statement #3: Fate and the Tragic Hero

Many readers express pity for Oedipus at the conclusion of the play, as Oedipus did not mean to commit the crimes and misdeeds that befall him. Some see Oedipus as a “tragic hero” whose one major flaw brings him ruin and sorrow, making the audience feel pity. However, Oedipus almost seems to disregard the evidence of his crimes that Tiresias gives him. Did Oedipus have any free will to avoid the tragedies in “Oedipus” or was he meant to live in exile because of his fate? Does Oedipus have a major flaw that characterizes him as a “tragic hero”?

Thesis Statement #4: An Analysis of Jocasta

Jocasta is at the center of much that occurs within Oedipus . When Laius orders her to kill Oedipus, she passes the unpleasant job off to one of her servants and does not make sure that it is done. Later on, she unknowingly marries that same son and bears his children. She is both grandmother and mother to them without realizing it. When Oedipus is seeking out the truth behind the prophecy about killing his father and marrying his mother, Jocasta realizes the truth before he does. She tries to prevent Oedipus from pursuing the knowledge. Analyze the role that Jocasta plays in the events of the story. How often does her influence or decision make a difference in how things happen?

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Oedipus — The tragedy of Oedipus

The Tragedy of Oedipus

Categories: Oedipus Oedipus Rex

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Published: Dec 18, 2018

Words: 974 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Hook examples for "oedipus" essay, "oedipus" essay example.

An Unavoidable Fate: Step into the world of ancient Greece, where the gods wield power over mortal lives. Join me as we unravel the timeless tragedy of Oedipus and the inexorable grip of fate that leads to his downfall.
An Intriguing Quote: Sophocles wrote, "Fate has terrible power." Let's delve into how the concept of fate and Oedipus's unwavering quest for truth drive the narrative, ultimately culminating in a tragic revelation.
The Complexity of Self-Discovery: Explore with me the theme of self-discovery as we follow Oedipus's relentless pursuit of the truth about his identity. Together, we'll dissect the consequences of his actions in the face of an inevitable destiny.
The Tragic Hero's Journey: Oedipus is the quintessential tragic hero. Join me in analyzing his noble qualities, tragic flaws, and the catastrophic consequences of his choices, all of which contribute to the profound impact of his story.
A Timeless Tale of Hubris and Irony: Despite its ancient origins, Oedipus's story remains relevant today. Explore with me how themes of hubris, irony, and the human struggle against destiny continue to resonate with modern readers and thinkers.

Works Cited

Jankowski, T. (2013). Oedipus Rex: a classic example of a tragic hero. Student Pulse, 5(05), 1-3.
Kinyua, K. (2019). Oedipus Rex as a tragic hero : a critical analysis. Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research, 1(1), 30-36.
Knox, B. M. (1979). The hero and the chorus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus. Greece & Rome, 26(2), 104-117.
Laios, K. (2018). Oedipus Rex and the tragic hero. Humanitas, 1(1), 23-38.
McDonald, M. (2015). Oedipus Rex: a tragic hero revisited. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 135, 39-51.
Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. (1953). The dramatic festivals of Athens (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Podlecki, A. J. (1966). The political background of the Oedipus Tyrannus. American Journal of Philology, 87(3), 225-244.
Segal, C. (1982). Oedipus Tyrannus: tragic heroism and the limits of knowledge. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 29(1), 93-105.
Sophocles. (1954). Oedipus Rex. In R. Fagles (Trans.), The Three Theban Plays (pp. 33-99). Penguin.
Webster-Merriam. (2022). Hubris. In Webster-Merriam Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hubris

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Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 27, 2020 • ( 0 )

The place of the Oedipus Tyrannus in literature is something like that of the Mona Lisa in art. Everyone knows the story, the first detective story of Western literature; everyone who has read or seen it is drawn into its enigmas and moral dilemmas. It presents a kind of nightmare vision of a world suddenly turned upside down: a decent man discovers that he has unknowingly killed his father, married his mother, and sired children by her. It is a story that, as Aristotle says in the Poetics , makes one shudder with horror and feel pity just on hearing it. In Sophocles’ hands, however, this ancient tale becomes a profound meditation on the questions of guilt and responsibility, the order (or disorder) of our world, and the nature of man. The play stands with the Book of Job, Hamlet, and King Lear as one of Western literature’s most searching examinations of the problem of suffering.

—Charles Segal, Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge

No other drama has exerted a longer or stronger hold on the imagination than Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (also known as Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus Rex ). Tragic drama that is centered on the dilemma of a single central character largely begins with Sophocles and is exemplified by his Oedipus, arguably the most influential play ever written. The most famous of all Greek dramas, Sophocles’ play, supported by Aristotle in the Poetics, set the standard by which tragedy has been measured for nearly two-and-a-half millennia. For Aristotle, Sophocles’ play featured the ideal tragic hero in Oedipus, a man of “great repute and good fortune,” whose fall, coming from his horrifying discovery that he has killed his father and married his mother, is masterfully arranged to elicit tragedy’s proper cathartic mixture of pity and terror. The play’s relentless exploration of human nature, destiny, and suffering turns an ancient tale of a man’s shocking history into one of the core human myths. Oedipus thereby joins a select group of fictional characters, including Odysseus, Faust, Don Juan, and Don Quixote, that have entered our collective consciousness as paradigms of humanity and the human condition. As classical scholar Bernard Knox has argued, “Sophocles’ Oedipus is not only the greatest creation of a major poet and the classic representative figure of his age: he is also one of a long series of tragic protagonists who stand as symbols of human aspiration and despair before the characteristic dilemma of Western civilization—the problem of man’s true stature, his proper place in the universe.”

For nearly 2,500 years Sophocles’ play has claimed consideration as drama’s most perfect and most profound achievement. Julius Caesar wrote an adaptation; Nero allegedly acted the part of the blind Oedipus. First staged in a European theater in 1585, Oedipus has been continually performed ever since and reworked by such dramatists as Pierre Corneille, John Dryden, Voltaire, William Butler Yeats, André Gide, and Jean Cocteau. The French neoclassical tragedian Jean Racine asserted that Oedipus was the ideal tragedy, while D. H. Lawrence regarded it as “the finest drama of all time.” Sigmund Freud discovered in the play the key to understanding man’s deepest and most repressed sexual and aggressive impulses, and the so-called Oedipus complex became one of the founding myths of psychoanalysis. Oedipus has served as a crucial mirror by which each subsequent era has been able to see its own reflection and its understanding of the mystery of human existence.

If Aeschylus is most often seen as the great originator of ancient Greek tragedy and Euripides is viewed as the great outsider and iconoclast, it is Sophocles who occupies the central position as classical tragedy’s technical master and the age’s representative figure over a lifetime that coincided with the rise and fall of Athens’s greatness as a political and cultural power in the fifth century b.c. Sophocles was born in 496 near Athens in Colonus, the legendary final resting place of the exiled Oedipus. At the age of 16, Sophocles, an accomplished dancer and lyre player, was selected to lead the celebration of the victory over the Persians at the battle of Salamis, the event that ushered in Athens’s golden age. He died in 406, two years before Athens’s fall to Sparta, which ended nearly a century of Athenian supremacy and cultural achievement. Very much at the center of Athenian public life, Sophocles served as a treasurer of state and a diplomat and was twice elected as a general. A lay priest in the cult of a local deity, Sophocles also founded a literary association and was an intimate of such prominent men of letters as Ion of Chios, Herodotus, and Archelaus. Urbane, garrulous, and witty, Sophocles was remembered fondly by his contemporaries as possessing all the admired qualities of balance and tranquillity. Nicknamed “the Bee” for his “honeyed” style of fl owing eloquence—the highest compliment the Greeks could bestow on a poet or speaker—Sophocles was regarded as the tragic Homer.

In marked contrast to his secure and stable public role and private life, Sophocles’ plays orchestrate a disturbing challenge to assurance and certainty by pitting vulnerable and fallible humanity against the inexorable forces of nature and destiny. Sophocles began his career as a playwright in 468 b.c. with a first-prize victory over Aeschylus in the Great, or City, Dionysia, the annual Athenian drama competition. Over the next 60 years he produced more than 120 plays (only seven have survived intact), winning first prize at the Dionysia 24 times and never earning less than second place, making him unquestionably the most successful and popular playwright of his time. It is Sophocles who introduced the third speaking actor to classical drama, creating the more complex dramatic situations and deepened psychological penetration through interpersonal relationships and dialogue. “Sophocles turned tragedy inward upon the principal actors,” classicist Richard Lattimore has observed, “and drama becomes drama of character.” Favoring dramatic action over narration, Sophocles brought offstage action onto the stage, emphasized dialogue rather than lengthy, undramatic monologues, and purportedly introduced painted scenery. Also of note, Sophocles replaced the connected trilogies of Aeschylus with self-contained plays on different subjects at the same contest, establishing the norm that has continued in Western drama with its emphasis on the intensity and unity of dramatic action. At their core, Sophocles’ tragedies are essentially moral and religious dramas pitting the tragic hero against unalterable fate as defined by universal laws, particular circumstances, and individual temperament. By testing his characters so severely, Sophocles orchestrated adversity into revelations that continue to evoke an audience’s capacity for wonder and compassion.

The story of Oedipus was part of a Theban cycle of legends that was second only to the stories surrounding the Trojan War as a popular subject for Greek literary treatment. Thirteen different Greek dramatists, including Aeschylus and Euripides, are known to have written plays on the subject of Oedipus and his progeny. Sophocles’ great innovation was to turn Oedipus’s horrifying circumstances into a drama of self-discovery that probes the mystery of selfhood and human destiny.

The play opens with Oedipus secure and respected as the capable ruler of Thebes having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and gained the throne and Thebes’s widowed queen, Jocasta, as his reward. Plague now besets the city, and Oedipus comes to Thebes’s rescue once again when, after learning from the oracle of Apollo that the plague is a punishment for the murder of his predecessor, Laius, he swears to discover and bring the murderer to justice. The play, therefore, begins as a detective story, with the key question “Who killed Laius?” as the initial mystery. Oedipus initiates the first in a seemingly inexhaustible series of dramatic ironies as the detective who turns out to be his own quarry. Oedipus’s judgment of banishment for Laius’s murderer seals his own fate. Pledged to restore Thebes to health, Oedipus is in fact the source of its affliction. Oedipus’s success in discovering Laius’s murderer will be his own undoing, and the seemingly percipient, riddle-solving Oedipus will only see the truth about himself when he is blind. To underscore this point, the blind seer Teiresias is summoned. He is reluctant to tell what he knows, but Oedipus is adamant: “No man, no place, nothing will escape my gaze. / I will not stop until I know it all.” Finally goaded by Oedipus to reveal that Oedipus himself is “the killer you’re searching for” and the plague that afflicts Thebes, Teiresias introduces the play’s second mystery, “Who is Oedipus?”

You have eyes to see with, But you do not see yourself, you do not see The horror shadowing every step of your life, . . . Who are your father and mother? Can you tell me?

Oedipus rejects Teiresias’s horrifying answer to this question—that Oedipus has killed his own father and has become a “sower of seed where your father has sowed”—as part of a conspiracy with Jocasta’s brother Creon against his rule. In his treatment of Teiresias and his subsequent condemning of Creon to death, Oedipus exposes his pride, wrath, and rush to judgment, character flaws that alloy his evident strengths of relentless determination to learn the truth and fortitude in bearing the consequences. Jocasta comes to her brother’s defense, while arguing that not all oracles can be believed. By relating the circumstances of Laius’s death, Jocasta attempts to demonstrate that Oedipus could not be the murderer while ironically providing Oedipus with the details that help to prove the case of his culpability. In what is a marvel of ironic plot construction, each step forward in answering the questions surrounding the murder and Oedipus’s parentage takes Oedipus a step back in time toward full disclosure and self-discovery.

As Oedipus is made to shift from self-righteous authority to doubt, a messenger from Corinth arrives with news that Oedipus’s supposed father, Poly-bus, is dead. This intelligence seems again to disprove the oracle that Oedipus is fated to kill his father. Oedipus, however, still is reluctant to return home for fear that he could still marry his mother. To relieve Oedipus’s anxiety, the messenger reveals that he himself brought Oedipus as an infant to Polybus. Like Jocasta whose evidence in support of Oedipus’s innocence turns into confirmation of his guilt, the messenger provides intelligence that will connect Oedipus to both Laius and Jocasta as their son and as his father’s killer. The messenger’s intelligence produces the crucial recognition for Jocasta, who urges Oedipus to cease any further inquiry. Oedipus, however, persists, summoning the herdsman who gave the infant to the messenger and was coincidentally the sole survivor of the attack on Laius. The herdsman’s eventual confirmation of both the facts of Oedipus’s birth and Laius’s murder produces the play’s staggering climax. Aristotle would cite Sophocles’ simultaneous con-junction of Oedipus’s recognition of his identity and guilt with his reversal of fortune—condemned by his own words to banishment and exile as Laius’s murderer—as the ideal artful arrangement of a drama’s plot to produce the desired cathartic pity and terror.

The play concludes with an emphasis on what Oedipus will now do after he knows the truth. No tragic hero has fallen further or faster than in the real time of Sophocles’ drama in which the time elapsed in the play coincides with the performance time. Oedipus is stripped of every illusion of his authority, control, righteousness, and past wisdom and is forced to contend with a shame that is impossible to expiate—patricide and incestual relations with his mother—in a world lacking either justice or alleviation from suffering. Oedipus’s heroic grandeur, however, grows in his diminishment. Fundamentally a victim of circumstances, innocent of intentional sin whose fate was preordained before his birth, Oedipus refuses the consolation of blamelessness that victimization confers, accepting in full his guilt and self-imposed sentence as an outcast, criminal, and sinner. He blinds himself to confirm the moral shame that his actions, unwittingly or not, have provoked. It is Oedipus’s capacity to endure the revelation of his sin, his nature, and his fate that dominates the play’s conclusion. Oedipus’s greatest strengths—his determination to know the truth and to accept what he learns—sets him apart as one of the most pitiable and admired of tragic heroes. “The closing note of the tragedy,” Knox argues, “is a renewed insistence on the heroic nature of Oedipus; the play ends as it began, with the greatness of the hero. But it is a different kind of greatness. It is now based on knowledge, not, as before on ignorance.” The now-blinded Oedipus has been forced to see and experience the impermanence of good fortune, the reality of unimaginable moral shame, and a cosmic order that is either perverse in its calculated cruelty or chaotically random in its designs, in either case defeating any human need for justice and mercy.

The Chorus summarizes the harsh lesson of heroic defeat that the play so majestically dramatizes:

Look and learn all citizens of Thebes. This is Oedipus. He, who read the famous riddle, and we hailed chief of men, All envied his power, glory, and good fortune. Now upon his head the sea of disaster crashes down. Mortality is man’s burden. Keep your eyes fixed on your last day. Call no man happy until he reaches it, and finds rest from suffering.

Few plays have dealt so unflinchingly with existential truths or have as bravely defined human heroism in the capacity to see, suffer, and endure.

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Oedipus the King

Table of contents.

Tiresias says to Oedipus, “Creon is not your downfall, no, you are your own.” What is the extent of Oedipus’ guilt in his own downfall?

“Oedipus the King demonstrates that the quest for truth only leads to self-destruction.” Discuss.
What does the play have to say about fate and free will?
“The play is about Oedipus’ search for his identity.” Discuss.
“What should a man fear? It’s all about chance, / chance rules our lives.” Discuss Jocasta’s philosophy about life.
Discuss the dual role of the Chorus.
What do the choral odes have to say about the relationship between humans and the gods?
What are Oedipus’ feelings about family?
Evidence Bank

Oedipus the King is a classic Greek tragedy by Sophocles about the downfall of Oedipus, a heroic yet ill-fated character who was prophesied to slay his father and marry his mother. Oedipus finds himself caught in a dilemma between his determination to unwind the tangled threads of his history, or avoid undermining everything he knows about his life. The premise of the ancient play reminds audiences of the cruel nature of fate and the importance of making good decisions. Yet Oedipus himself is a complex character who does his best to exercise free choice within the restraints of his fate, which lends itself to the argument surrounding the extent of his guilt in his eventual downfall. To a large extent, Oedipus is responsible for his horrible actions that drive him to fulfil the prophecy given to him at birth, such as his violent nature which drives him to slay his father, as well as his incessant drive to seek the truth about himself. Yet as the ancient Greeks would have it, despite taking extensive manoeuvres to avoid his terrible future, Oedipus may have been a prisoner of his own fate and thus remain guiltless.

Oedipus the King, a timeless Greek tragedy penned by Sophocles, unfolds the tragic descent of Oedipus, a heroic figure ensnared in the ominous prophecy of patricide and matrimony with his mother/incest. Confronted with the formidable choice between unraveling the intricacies of his lineage and preserving the foundation of his perceived reality, Oedipus grapples with a profound dilemma. The narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the inexorable cruelty of destiny and the consequential significance of judicious decision-making.Oedipus, a character of intricate depth, endeavors to wield volition amidst the constricting threads of his foretold destiny, thereby fueling debates about the degree of culpability in his eventual downfall. While Oedipus bears considerable responsibility for the grievous deeds that propel him toward the fulfillment of his preordained fate—such as his proclivity for violence leading to the slaying of his parents—he also exhibits an unwavering determination to unveil the veracity of his existence.Yet, adhering to the ancient Greek ethos, Oedipus, despite his concerted efforts to circumvent the ominous prophecy, remains ensnared in the inexorable web of fate, prompting contemplation about his potential innocence. In essence, Oedipus, despite his extensive manoeuvres to avert a calamitous destiny, emerges as a captive of his predetermined path, thereby challenging conventional notions of guilt and culpability.

Oedipus’ violent and aggressive nature, as shown by his various impulsive actions, can be said to be a defining factor which led him to the actions of his downfall. Even considering the audience’s knowledge of his horrible fate, there is no question that his nature lends itself to his questionable actions. For example, Oedipus testifies to Jocasta that the man he killed, Laius, was “accompanied by a herald”, thus announcing to the world that he was a king. Yet Oedipus, despite having been raised as royalty himself, does not hold himself back in the slaughter of Laius, the herald, and multiple others. This can be interpreted in several ways: either his impulsivity and pride led him to rashly kill Laius and his followers, thus cementing his guilt in his own fate, or that the threads of fate led him to make that decision in that moment. Either way, there is little doubt that it was simply part of Oedipus’ nature, as there is little other justification for his violent actions. In a similar way, his dogged determination to uncover the truth of his past turns him hostile and abusive, revealing his hubris; when Tiresias does tell him the truth about what he seeks, he does not listen as he is consumed by paranoia. His aberrant character flaws are thus determinant of his guilt in his own downfall.

Oedipus’ propensity for violence and aggression, manifested through impulsive actions, emerges as a pivotal factor contributing to his eventual downfall. Despite the audience’s awareness of his inexorable fate, there is an unequivocal acknowledgment that his inherent nature propels him towards morally ambiguous deeds. Notably, Oedipus, while recounting to Jocasta the slaying of Laius, explicitly highlights the regal stature of his victim, accompanied by a herald. Paradoxically, even though Oedipus himself was nurtured in royal surroundings, he fails to restrain his carnage, perpetrating the ruthless murder of Laius, the herald, and others. This dichotomy invites interpretations that either his impetuosity and pride precipitated the hasty annihilation, cementing his culpability in his tragic destiny, or that the inexorable threads of fate coerced him into that fateful decision.Moreover, Oedipus’ unwavering commitment to unraveling the truth of his origins transforms him into a hostile and abusive figure, laying bare the depths of his hubris. When Tiresias imparts the veracious revelation he seeks, Oedipus, ensnared by paranoia, remains deaf to reason. His anomalous character flaws thus serve as decisive elements substantiating his complicity in the tragic unraveling of his own fate.

In addition to his violent nature, Oedipus’ incessant seeking of the truth also leads him to his downfall. As the play opens, the audience learns that Oedipus is at the height of his success, as he had already become a great ruler of Thebes, revered by many for “defeating the Sphinx”. This only lends itself to demonstrate the great downfall that he will face at the hands of his own curiosity. Later, when Jocasta tells the tale of Laius’ death to Oedipus, he begins to doubt himself, in that he is indeed the murderer he is seeking. However, despite understanding the consequences, this does nothing to stop the momentum of his investigation. Oedipus refuses to consider Jocasta’s advice that he “live at random, best we can” and according to chance. Instead, he is so fixated on getting to the bottom of the truth by calling for the old shepherd who saved him when he was a baby. Oedipus is aware of the consequences, that “if he refers to one man, one alone, / clearly the scales come down on me: / I am guilty”. Even as the shepherd, like Tiresias, demonstrates reluctance to tell Oedipus what he knows, he insists that the truth must come out. Moreover, when Jocasta collapses in despair, Oedipus remains fervent in his determination to discover his true identity, proclaiming that “I must know it all, / must see the truth at last”. In the end, it is this unwavering confidence and determination for the truth that ultimately leads him to his downfall.

However, despite these interpretations, it can also be said that Oedipus was merely a prisoner of his own fate, indicating that all the questionable actions he took were merely part of his destiny, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. Through this interpretation, Oedipus is guiltless as there was no way to avoid his fate. Many attempts to avoid Oedipus’ tragic fate appear in the play, yet he still fulfilled it regardless. Jocasta and Laius cast him out as a mere infant; Oedipus exiles himself from his adopted parents in fear that ill would befall them (and not his birth parents). Yet it is fate that drives him towards Thebes and to the crossroads where he slew Laius, where there was no reason to kill Laius, but he was driven to do so anyway. Fate rewards him cruelly with Jocasta as a wife after besting the Sphinx. Lastly, fate drives him to pursue the truth of his past, driving home the final punishment of exile and blindness set by himself. There appeared the illusion of free will in his choices, but Oedipus was ultimately driven to make horrible choices which resulted in the fulfillment of the prophecy. Hence, Sophocles presents the cruel reality that even though characters may take extensive manoeuvres to avoid committing the crimes of their fate, they will be compelled to commit abhorrent acts in order to fulfill their destinies.

Overall, Oedipus himself is a complex character: the extent of his guilt depends on how much the audience places value on his personal choices or the prison of his fate. It is true that his nature lends itself to the interpretation of his own guilt in his actions. However, given the context of ancient Greece where individuals were commonly understood to be prisoner of their own fate, there may have been no way for him to avoid the consequences. Hence, while Oedipus was ill-fated from birth, Sophocles aimed to imbue audiences with the moral that one’s choices are highly important to the outcome of their lives.

“ Oedipus the King demonstrates that the quest for truth only leads to self-destruction. ” Discuss.

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Theme Analysis

The ancient Greeks believed that their gods could see the future, and that certain people could access this information. Prophets or seers, like blind Tiresias , saw visions of things to come. Oracles, priests who resided at the temples of gods—such as the oracle to Apollo at Delphi—were also believed to be able to interpret the gods' visions and give prophecies to people who sought to know the future. During the fifth century B.C.E., however, when Sophocles was writing his plays, intellectuals within Athenian society had begun to question the legitimacy of the oracles and of the traditional gods. Some of this tension is plain to see in Oedipus Rex , which hinges on two prophecies. The first is the prophecy received by King Laius of Thebes that he would have a son by Queen Jocasta who would grow up to kill his own father. The second is the prophecy that Oedipus received that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Laius, Jocasta, and Oedipus all work to prevent the prophecies from coming to pass, but their efforts to thwart the prophecies are what actually bring the prophecies to completion.

This raises a question at the heart of the play: does Oedipus have any choice in the matter? He ends up killing his father and marrying his mother without knowing it—in fact, when he is trying to avoid doing these very things. Does he have free will—the ability to choose his own path—or is everything in life predetermined? Jocasta argues that the oracles are a sham because she thinks the prediction that her son would kill her husband never came to pass. When she finds out otherwise, she kills herself. In Oedipus Rex , Oedipus has fulfilled his terrible prophecy long ago, but without knowing it. He has already fallen into his fate. One could argue that he does have free will, however, in his decision to pursue the facts about his past, despite many suggestions that he let it go. In this argument, Oedipus's destruction comes not from his deeds themselves but from his persistent efforts to learn the truth, through which he reveals the true nature of those terrible deeds. Oedipus himself makes a different argument at the end of the play, when he says that his terrible deeds were fated, but that it was he alone who chose to blind himself. Here, Oedipus is arguing that while it is impossible to avoid one's fate, how you respond to your fate is a matter of free will.

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Hamlet vs. Oedipus Compare and Contrast Essay

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Oedipus Rex

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The present paper focuses on the Hamlet and Oedipus comparison – the two literary characters who seek the murderer of their father. They are the central figures of two famous classic tragedies: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet .

So, who is more resilient – Hamlet or Oedipus?

In Sophocles’ play, King Oedipus appears a persistent seeker of the truth who disregards the dangers this truth might bring to him. Shakespeare’s drama discloses Hamlet as a doubting philosopher whose search for truth destroys his inner balance and necessitates a change in his personality. Oedipus and Hamlet shall be compared in this essay.

From the summary of the play, it is obvious that King Oedipus is a type of character who initially attracts by his desire to solve the problems of his state at any cost. When he hears that the reason for the terrible plague epidemic in Thebes is the unfound murderer of the previous king Laius, Oedipus reasonably wonders at why the perpetrator has not been found yet.

Since the Sphinx curse has been solved, Oedipus decides that it is time to settle the present troubles, “… I will start afresh and once again / Make dark things clear” (Sophocles 12). In his speech to his brother-in-law Creon, the proud king voices the desire to find the murderer to secure not only the wellbeing of his state but his safety as a ruler as well.

In the compare and contrast essay on Oedipus Rex and Hamlet , it is necessary to mention that, on the way to discovering the truth, King Oedipus demonstrates remarkable persistence. He uses every chance of finding out the details that might lead to the answer and interrogates every possible witness to the case of Laius’ murder. First, he questions the blind prophet Tiresias, then he hears his wife Jocasta’s story of Laius’ murder, and finally has the courage to let a shepherd tell the true story of his origins.

Hot-tempered and decisive, King Oedipus appears not to possess any political duplicity since he strives for the truth, even facing the danger of losing the throne and his life. Unaware of the terrible curse put on him by gods, he is sure that he is doing the right thing by trying to reveal the truth and thus acting according to his conscience.

In a dialogue with the chorus warning him about the circumstances of Laius’ murder, King Oedipus states that “Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds” (Sophocles 19). This utterance demonstrates the assuredness of his righteousness and the desire to know the truth since the truth cannot harm the innocent.

In Hamlet vs. Oedipus comparison, it is clear that in contrast to King Oedipus’ persistence in seeking the truth and his active life position and attitude to solving the existing problems, Hamlet appears a much less energetic character. It is not that he does not want to find out the truth; on the contrary, he desires it strongly since he suspects something is not right with his mother marrying so soon after his father’s death. However, Hamlet is more a philosopher than a warrior, and therefore he precedes his actions with much contemplation and reflection on the events.

He uses much of his intuition in approaching the answer to the question torturing him; in one of the monologues, he voices a suspicion that things are not as smooth as they seem, “nor it cannot come to good” (Shakespeare 116). This foreboding of evil appears to be confirmed in the astonishing truth about the murder that Hamlet learns from the ghost of his father.

While King Oedipus demonstrates decisive action in his search for truth, Hamlet chooses to find out the real state of events in a bypass way. He checks the veracity of the ghost’s words not by inquiring about the truth directly (like a man of Oedipus’ character would have done) but via observing his murderous uncle’s reaction to the play acted by visiting comedians.

Unlike the bold and straightforward King Oedipus, who does not give much about insinuating words that help to find out the truth, Hamlet appears rather inventive in his search for the real murderer. Still, there are some similarities between Hamlet and Oedipus.

Staying on his own before the play, Hamlet builds an ingenious psychological strategy to reveal the perpetrator: “I’ll observe his looks; / I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench, / I know my course” (Shakespeare 173). In doing this, Hamlet presents himself as a rational person, able to stepping aside and taking a balanced decision despite the emotional breakdown he is experiencing.

The critical situation Hamlet finds himself in provokes a major change in the prince’s personality. Spurred by the ghost of his murdered father to revenge the crime, the young philosopher renounces all the learned books he has studied and lets his actions be guided by the oath he gives to his father: “And thy commandment all alone shall live / Within the book and volume of my brain“ (Shakespeare 140).

Apparently, in this situation, Hamlet is led not by his ideas and aspirations but mostly by the solemn pledge he has undertaken to restore justice and punish the murderer of his father. In order to fit the requirements of the situation, the young scholar has to demonstrate a new, more active attitude to life and conquer his fear of struggle and conflict.

In a monologue, Hamlet confesses, “Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, / That I, the son of a dear murdered, / Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, / Must like a whore unpack my heart with words / And fall a-cursing like a very drab, / A scullion!” (Shakespeare 173). Those words reveal the deep inner tragedy of the young philosopher who is struggling with his true personality to fulfill the oath to his father.

United by their desire to reveal the truth and punish the perpetrators, King Oedipus and Hamlet demonstrate various approaches to the search. The active and energetic personality of the one and the philosophic, pensive, and doubting personality of the other lead both to the achievement of their aims. However, the finger of fate foreordains a tragic end to them both. After revealing the truth and accomplishing their task, Oedipus and Hamlet are crushed by the severity of their doom.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet . Ed. Robert Hapgood. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Print.

Sophocles. Oedipus the King . Minneapolis, MN: Filiquarian Publishing LLC, 2006. Print.

📌 Who if either showed greater resilience: Oedipus or Hamlet?

📌 how are hamlet and oedipus tragic heroes, 📌 how are oedipus and hamlet similar, 📌 does hamlet have stature of a tragic hero such as oedipus.

Summary & Analysis
Genre & Literary Analysis
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Essay Samples
Lessons Learnt From Les Miserables and The Kite Runner
“Death Be Not Proud” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
Paternal Love in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles
The Message of the "Oedipus Rex" Play by Sophocles
The Role of Fate in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”
Comparison and Contrast Between “Water for Elephants” and “The Garden Party”
Parents as Failed Role Models: A Doll’s House and Fight Club
The Hunger Games: Book Versus Movie
A Comparison Between “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin and “Wild Swans” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Tragedy in the Works of Arthur Miller and Flannery O'Connor
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Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, July 5). Hamlet vs. Oedipus Compare and Contrast Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparison-and-contrast-of-the-characters-king-oedipus-and-hamlet/

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IvyPanda . 2018. "Hamlet vs. Oedipus Compare and Contrast Essay." July 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparison-and-contrast-of-the-characters-king-oedipus-and-hamlet/.

1. IvyPanda . "Hamlet vs. Oedipus Compare and Contrast Essay." July 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparison-and-contrast-of-the-characters-king-oedipus-and-hamlet/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Hamlet vs. Oedipus Compare and Contrast Essay." July 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparison-and-contrast-of-the-characters-king-oedipus-and-hamlet/.

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Seeing Oedipus Rex: Using the Chorus to Understand the Tragedy

"Oedipus? Isn't he the one with the complex?" That's not an unusual response from students when I bring up the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex . This year, I want to prepare a group of students to see the work from a different viewpoint—namely the Greek viewpoint; and we'll do that by looking at the tragedy from the point-of-view of the chorus.

Most people assume that students in most AP classes "get it" more easily than in most other general education classes. While this may be true for some students, many students struggle in my AP Language and Literature class. Students are often in these classes because they are motivated and they do the work, but this doesn't always mean that they have the skills to analyze literature. It is often the first time students have had to do this, rather than just following along with the plot. It can also be a struggle to notice symbolism, themes, and other literary devices writers use to deliver their messages. Students may become frustrated with an author's diction or the use of symbolic language that sometimes purposely obscures the message. That said, most AP students are excited at the prospect of gaining the skills required to analyze literature because they will need them to be able to pass the AP exam at the end of the year.

At the end of the first semester in AP Language and Literature, students read the play Oedipus Rex by the Greek tragedian Sophocles. Oedipus Rex is an outstanding example of a Greek tragedy, a genre that many of my students are unfamiliar with. Throughout the year we work on characterization, the use of literary devices and their purpose in diverse texts, and analytical essay writing, among other skills. Because Oedipus Rex is the third text we look at in the year, students have had some practice in honing these skills, but are still struggling to read more deeply than the plot action.

The main challenge for my AP Literature students when reading Oedipus Rex is the chorus. The verses that make up the chorus are fairly densely worded and difficult to understand, and sometimes I get the feeling that students think of the chorus almost like a side note—one they don't really have to pay attention to in order to get the drift of the story. The chorus doesn't always follow the plot, and so students have a hard time keeping track of what it is talking about. It's almost impossible to get my students to find meaning in it on their own, and in the past they've needed to have it spoon-fed to them. In this unit I'm attempting to teach the text Oedipus Rex by focusing mainly on the chorus and by teaching students about the incredibly important function of the chorus in classic Greek tragedy. We will use images of the Greek theatre as well as stills and clips from productions of Oedipus Rex to examine the role and function of the chorus in the tragedy. We will also compare and contrast the ancient Greek chorus with a modern equivalent: the Broadway musical.

My AP Literature is a class of 32 students at Oceana High School in Pacifica, California. It's a small high school of around 650 students, and our staff is a supportive and collaborative group. For some reason, our school is not generally subjected to district curriculum demands, so we have the freedom to make our own, keeping a close eye on standards and the Common Core, of course. OHS is structured on a block schedule with three 100-minute classes each day. I see my classes every other day, and that fact may affect the way I plan and lay out classroom activities.

I get to know many of the students I have in AP Literature the year before, in an advisory class. I therefore know them fairly well before I teach them in AP. This will be the first AP class for all of them, and I know that many of them are fairly well-prepared because of our strong Humanities program. My AP students are like many other classes, however. Some of them like to speak up in class, and some are extremely quiet. This is understandable because many students are intimidated by an AP class as well as self-conscious about their own ideas. My challenge will be to achieve a balance for both types of students so that everyone's voice is heard and even the shy students become used to sharing ideas.

In ancient Greece, the chorus was a very important part of Greek tragedies, if not the most important part. Daniels and Scully, authors of What is Really Going on in Sophocles' Theban Plays , say that "no feature of Greek tragedy is more intractable than the chorus." 1 Students need to know and understand why this is. It's not something that translates to students simply by reading the text. If students are able to understand the importance of the chorus before they even begin reading, they will be more engaged as they read. This will lead to better understanding of the meaning of the chorus, which is essential to interpreting the text. I want to focus this unit almost entirely on the role and function of the chorus as well as the message it gives the reader (or viewer) throughout the drama. This is an important way to read (or view) a tragedy, especially nowadays, because we interpret it very differently from the way in which the ancient Greeks did. For ancient Greeks, unlike my students, the chorus' role was an obvious one, and although the language was always in a formal dialect, it wasn't difficult to understand the chorus' message. 2

I have found that my students like looking at images in my classes, be they video, photos, paintings or cartoons. Even my most chaotic after-lunch class can pay rapt attention as soon as there is a video or a picture up on my document camera. I think it's important to take advantage of their engagement with almost anything visual and use images in my unit to engage my students. I'll be using paintings of scenes in Greek tragedies as well as production stills in order to help students visualize the play instead of simply reading it.

One of the issues for students that keeps them from gleefully jumping headfirst into the text is the form of the chorus. Because the chorus (and the whole play for that matter; the chorus, however, is more obscure) is written in verse, sometimes students struggle with its meaning. If students know the structure of the chorus and the conventions of the chorus and Greek theatre in general, the purpose and the meaning will be easier to understand. Definitions of words like strophe and antistrophe that will also help them understand form and function.

Students complain that it's difficult for them to relate to the issues that Oedipus faces. Additionally, because this play was written and performed starting all the way back in the sixth century BCE, it can be understandably difficult for students to imagine seeing it live. This can be difficult even for scholars, simply because we don't have a lot of evidence to draw from. It is also difficult to disconnect students from their prior knowledge of Oedipus Rex , which can sometimes get in the way of seeing what's going on in the play. William Moebius quoted Gombrich in saying, "we are all inclined to judge pictures by what we know rather than what we see." 3 Throughout this unit I will be using strategies and activities to encourage students to do close reading of the text and let go of previous notions of the tragedy Oedipus Rex .

We do know quite a bit about how plays were staged and what happened on the stage, and it's important for students to be able to connect it with something they have experience with. To this end, I've been told by an expert in the field, Joe Roach, that choruses from Broadway musicals have a lot in common with the chorus in Greek tragedies, mainly in their look and actions; specifically the song "Oklahoma!" in the musical Oklahoma ! 4 is very much how a chorus would look and behave. 5 Analyzing that performance and then comparing and contrasting it with the chorus from Oedipus will give students a frame of reference to come back to over and over, as well as a way to start imagining what a Greek tragedy would look like, a process that is key to understanding the message.

My objective in teaching this unit is to give students a solid understanding of the role and function of the chorus in Oedipus Rex . I want them to be able to discuss the story and the messages therein and be able to analyze the differences in the ways in which we read and interpret the play and the ways in which it was interpreted by ancient Greeks. Before any discussion can happen, students need to understand the chorus and its role and meaning. My hope is that once they have more background information as well as the chance to compare and contrast ancient and modern choruses, each one of them will have a platform to start a discussion from.

Part of this discussion should be focused on looking at the play from the viewpoint of the ancient Greeks. This objective is important for students because there are many ways to view this play, and I want them to be able to look for more than just one way to interpret it. Although the AP exam is what we are ostensibly preparing for, I believe that looking at the text from different points of view will prepare them for college.

I also want students to be able to use this background knowledge and the class discussions to be able to analyze the play in essay form. A big part of the AP Literature course is timed writing in preparation for the AP exam at the end of the year, so I want students to practice timed writes as well as other writing strategies.

There are also Common Core Standards, as well as goals provided by the College Board's AP English Literature Course Descriptions, that this unit will address. (See appendix.)

History and definition

Tragic drama began in Athens, Greece, in the sixth century BCE. 6 Performances of tragedies were a special occasion and always were planned to take place on festival days celebrating the Greek god Dionysus; these performances, however, were not religious. 7 A tragedy is always written in verse. 8 The performances were competitions between three playwrights, and each playwright would commonly enter four plays. These plays didn't need to relate to one another in any way, except that they all had to be tragedies. Sophocles won second-place when he wrote and produced Oedipus Rex . 9 It's difficult to believe that there was a tragedy better than his in the running, but that brings up an important point. There is evidence that thousands of tragedies were written, but we have manuscripts for only thirty-two in existence today. These tragedies have been widely read and performed over the last two thousand years. 10 This information will show students the stark contrast of ancient Greek tragedy to our modern day understanding of theatre and its purpose.

The amphitheater (called a theatron ) that the tragedies were performed in was enormous. Evidence shows that up to fifteen thousand people could be seated in the theatre. 11 This doesn't seem like a large capacity compared to our sports stadiums that can hold upwards of 50,000 people, but it's important to remember that Greeks didn't have the ability to amplify or project sound and pictures, except through natural acoustics. It is hard to know exactly what these theaters looked like in the sixth century BC because many of the original ruins were covered up when later theaters were built on top of them. The stage was a circle about twenty meters in diameter (about sixty-five feet), 12 and the seats surrounded the stage on three sides and continued upward and outward. Although spectators in the upper sections probably couldn't see the actors and chorus very well, if at all, no one had any trouble hearing the actors because of the amazing acoustics. Actors also had to have very strong voices. The word was extremely powerful during the time when rhetoric was born, and this is obvious seeing the Greeks' design of theatres with the priority for was everyone to be able to hear during the plays. The scenery on the stage was very basic—often it was just the stage, which was built with columns and decorated in the Greek style.

In Greek theatre, just as in modern theatre, both actors and chorus members wore costumes—sometimes both were elaborate costumes, and sometimes chorus members wore ordinary Athenian dress. Unlike modern theatre, everyone on stage wore masks that covered the whole head. Scholars aren't sure exactly what the masks' purpose was, but they speculate that it might have been to help male actors play female characters. I would also guess that part of the function was to make the actors' features larger so that people far away could see the faces. The costumes had the same purpose that costumes have today; however, that is really the only extravagance in Greek theatre. For most of my students, it's almost impossible to imagine watching a play in which there are no special effects, no lights, and practically no scenery. I want them to understand, however, that for the Greeks, this was the highest form of entertainment and that most people went to plays and enjoyed them. Ordinary Athenians were often cast in chorus roles, so it could be said that they had a stake in going to see other plays. Often people would remember lines and sing them, just as we sing songs from the radio and even Broadway musicals. We will be looking at images from the nineteenth century that attempt to recreate the stage and costumes of ancient Greece.

Tragedy is a specific type of drama, and it has very specific characteristics. There could only be three actors on the stage at one time, and the chorus was made up of twelve to fifteen people (Sophocles raised the number to fifteen). Only men could act in tragedies (or any Greek performance, for that matter). Tragedies were written in verse, and actors would either say or sing their lines. The chorus usually sang and danced between actors' lines. 13 In ancient Greece, the playwright was a choreographer and a composer in addition to being a playwright. He choreographed the dances for the chorus as well as composing the music that the chorus sang. 14 (add citation) Unlike today, when a playwright or a screenwriter will do only the writing and leave the music and movement to someone else or more likely to many others, the Greek playwright did all of these jobs, and he did them all at the same time, since the movements and the tempo of the song depended on the words the chorus was singing. The only musical accompaniments were the aulos , which is a double-reeded instrument, 15 and sometimes a harp-type instrument.

There were fairly strict rules for writing a tragedy. All main characters in tragedies had to be nobles, although sometimes they were disguised as beggars or some other unfortunate character. Gods often showed up in tragedies, not as physical characters necessarily but sometimes intervening on behalf of a character or criticizing others. The English word tragedy often refers to horrible events; and although this can also be true in Greek tragedies, Oedipus Rex for example, Greek tragedies don't always end sadly, contrary to popular high school belief. They sometimes have a happy ending, but it's usually after something horrible almost happens, for example, in Euripides' Ion , a mother and son nearly kill each other, but the tragedy is averted at the last minute. Some tragedies, for example, reunite families, as in Euripides' Ion and Iphigenia among the Taurians . 16

Function and form of the Chorus

The chorus played an integral role in the Greek theatre. The closest translation to the concept of "directing a play" translates roughly in Greek to "teach a chorus." This in itself offers evidence of the centrality of the chorus to the drama. It was the director's job to teach normal Athenians how to sing and dance as members of the chorus, and doing so was probably more work than directing actors who already had some training. In the brief history that I share with students, I will be focusing specifically on the chorus' role in tragedies and even more specifically on its role in Oedipus Rex . The chorus had a few different purposes. One of their jobs was to provide background information that the spectator would need to know at the beginning of the play. This is not the case in Oedipus Rex ; it is actually the priest whose sole function in the play seems to be giving the audience background information. The chorus can also function as the backup singers, in a sense. They often repeat what the actors are saying. The first time we see the chorus in this play, they are calling on the gods to help their poor city and describing just how bad things are in Thebes due to a plague. Although the priest has just told Oedipus practically the same thing, it's the chorus' job to reinforce for the audience the seriousness of the issues in the play.

The chorus also provides opinions and points of view about the action in the play. Daniels and Scully note that the chorus is often on a "different plane; differentiated from the specific concerns and incidents of the action." 17 Often the chorus may be commenting on something that is happening in the action, but it could also be a comment that doesn't exactly relate to the current actions. A modern-day example to look at is the Broadway musical Rent , 18 during which, in some songs, the chorus is not singing about the action at hand, but rather expressing a supporting or sometimes opposing view than that of the lead singers. The song "La Vie Boheme" is a good example: in one scene the actors/singers are having dinner together, and the chorus is singing about different people and the different preferences they have. The message the chorus is sending while the characters are dining and supposedly celebrating, is that people are different, and it's not always easy to get along, but we're all human. This may not be a perfect example, and the content is very different to Oedipus Rex , but it helps explain why the chorus can be difficult for my high-school students to read and to integrate the messages of the chorus into the rest of the action.

The chorus did essentially (with a few important differences, of course) what a chorus in a contemporary Broadway musical does—sings and dances to music. The chorus stood together on the stage with the other three actors (the most permitted by Greek rules of drama to be on stage at one time). 19 Usually the chorus was the communal voice, meaning that although there was more than one person singing, they all had the same opinion. The chorus always stayed physically near each other, in the center of the stage, and when they moved, everyone moved together. In tragedies there could be one leader who could break away from the group and interact directly with characters. The purpose of this character (who is simply titled chorus in the text, as opposed to strophe and antistrophe —see below for more information) is to give advice to one of the characters. Those are some of the easier lines of the chorus for students to understand because the language is clear and the intent is straightforward.

Aside from the leader who interacts with the actors, the chorus is usually structured in what are known as strophic pairs. The first part is called the strophe , and the second part is called the antistrophe . 20 These words in Greek literally mean "turn" and "turn against." The chorus would dance across the stage while singing the strophe and then turn around and come back across during the antistrophe . This is an interesting part of the play and I wasn't able to find out if there was symbolism for this act, or if it was just to add movement and dance. Some of the time these pairs present different points of view, and this can make it more difficult for students to keep up.

I've talked about the difficulty for students to understand the messages and point-of-view of the chorus. I want to take a strophic pair and discuss in more detail some of the difficulties students may have. The first time we hear from the chorus in Oedipus Rex is directly after Creon returns from the god Apollo with Apollo's message about how to save the city of Thebes from plague and ruin:

Students understand that the entire play is written in verse, but the strophic pairs are generally in more flowery and obscure verse than the actors' lines are. As soon as students see words that they don't know or understand, they begin to lose motivation. The strophe is reacting to the news from Apollo and in some ways foreshadowing the events to come when it says, "I am stretched on the rack of doubt," and it then uses words that express fear and foreboding, like "terror and trembling" and "full of fears" and "doom." This may seem quite apparent, but the language is full of metaphor and allusion, and this can be difficult for students to understand. The antistrophe is calling on the gods to help them. This presents a problem for students who haven't learned the names and stories of the gods being written about, especially because their myth or story has an impact on the meaning. Why does Sophocles pick these specific gods? If students haven't had the opportunity to learn about Greek myths, they have a harder time making the connections that they need to make in order to understand these messages. This strophic pair comes at the beginning of the tragedy, but many that come later only increase in difficulty, so it is apparent that the focus on the chorus is essential.

Structure of Greek tragedy

The structure of a tragedy is divided into six parts: exposition, complication, discoveries and reversals, peripeteia , climax and denouement. Oedipus Rex fits into this structure perfectly, giving it amazing economy in terms of plot and purpose. The structure plays a big role in the form of the tragedy, and it's worthwhile to look at the summary of the play in terms of this structure.

Oedipus Rex

Many tragedies, including Oedipus Rex , are based on traditional legend. 22 The name translates to Oedipus the King. The Oedipus myth, as it is known, is the basic story that we see in Sophocles' version. Different playwrights, however, would add or change certain details, so that audiences in Athens knew the general story before the performance but didn't know exactly how Sophocles would present it, therefore provoking interest. We can easily relate to this in our modern world—filmmakers often remake a classic with a new twist or remake it in a very similar way, but the audience is still very interested in seeing the remake, especially if they've seen the original.

Oedipus Rex is the story of a man who becomes the king of Thebes after solving the riddle of the Sphinx, who had taken over the city. The riddle the Sphinx asks is: what crawls on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? Oedipus thinks a bit and then gives the correct answer: man. The fascinating part of this story is that Oedipus never actually says the answer. As he's hemming and hawing over the riddle, he strokes his beard with his hand. The sphinx takes this motion to mean that Oedipus is pointing at himself, thus answering her question. She is defeated and the city of Thebes is given to him. This image and explanation make sense to the reader because Oedipus is never portrayed as an especially intelligent man. This image is also very important to my unit because there is another image of Oedipus stroking his beard during the scene when he finds out the truth about his life, although he isn't ready to accept it until the last shred of evidence is shown to him. He strokes his beard as if to symbolically say, "it's me; I'm Laius' killer."

Once Oedipus is the king of Thebes, he marries its Queen, Jocasta, who had been married to Laius before he was killed. They have a family, and Oedipus rules contentedly until the opening of Sophocles' play. The tragedy opens on the scene of the priest asking Oedipus to help his people, who are suffering from the plague. Oedipus says he has already sent Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the god Apollo to find out how he can save the city. This is the exposition. When Creon returns he relays Apollo's news that in order to save the city, they must find and bring to justice the man or men who killed the former king, Laius. Oedipus vows to find whoever it was and immediately starts an investigation by asking questions about Laius' death. This is the complication in the story that starts the chain reaction of questions and answers that lead to the inevitable truth that he has unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.

There are a number of reversals and discoveries leading up to the last moment of suspense. For example, Teresias the prophet tells Oedipus that he is the murderer, but Oedipus doesn't believe him and ends up fighting with Creon. Another discovery happens when Jocasta tells Oedipus the story of Laius being killed at a crossroads. Jocasta tries to counsel and comfort Oedipus, and while trying to make him feel better about the prophecy he has heard, she tells him that Laius also received a prophecy that he would be killed by his son. The fact that as the story goes, Laius was killed by a band of people at a crosswords tells her that the prophecy couldn't possibly have been true. However, this is probably the worst news for Oedipus because he knows that he once killed a man at a crossroads. Even though this might seem like enough information to convince the audience, Oedipus, who is still in denial, calls for the herdsman who was with Laius when he was killed.

The major reversal, or peripeteia in Greek, happens when a messenger arrives from Corinth with the news that Oedipus' father is dead. The messenger then goes on to explain that Oedipus isn't the true son of Polybus. He explains that he was ordered to take Laius and Jocasta's son to the mountains and kill him so that the prophey given to Laius that his son would kill him wouldn't be fulfilled. He tells them that he didn't kill the child, but instead gave him to another shepherd who then gave the child to the king and queen of Corinth. (We find out later that this shepherd was also the one who was with Laius when he was killed.) The messenger thinks this is good news, for it means that Oedipus can return to Corinth without fear of marrying his mother, because she isn't his real mother. The tragic irony is that in telling Jocasta and Oedipus this good news, Jocasta realizes that Oedipus is in fact her son. This is enough for Jocasta, and she goes into her room and hangs herself. Oedipus needs to know the final details from the shepherd who has been summoned and describes the death of Laius, before he can admit the truth, and this is the climax of the tragedy. Very soon after comes the anagnorisis , which in Greek refers to the big discovery—obviously this is Oedipus' discovery that he has unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Some scholars add in the moment of catastrophe, a word that literally means fall down, to describe the reported suicide of Jocasta and Oedipus' act of blinding himself. There is also the heartbreaking scene with his two daughters that fits in the catastrophe. Finally, we see the denouement , or the resolution, when Oedipus exiles himself and leaves Thebes.

A Note on Images

Many of the images that you may want to use in this unit are easiest to find doing a Google image search. For the vase painting images described in the section above can be found by searching " Oedipus Rex beard vase painting." The image is a circular painting that is from the Etruscan Museum in the Vatican. The image of Oedipus and Jocasta can be found by searching on Google Image for "Oedipus messenger." The image shows Oedipus and an old man in the center and then Jocasta is off to the left, while two small children are on the right and left of Oedipus. To find images of productions of Oedipus Rex Google image search " Oedipus Rex stage production" or " Oedipus Rex production chorus" to find images of the chorus specifically. Most songs to Broadway musicals are available on YouTube, including "La Vie Boheme" and "Oklahoma!"

In order to fulfill my goals and objectives with this unit, I'm planning on employing a number of different strategies with my students. In regards to my objectives for class discussion, I'll use a few different discussion strategies, including small-group and whole-class discussions. I will also employ fishbowl discussions, during which students sit in a circle surrounded by another circle of students. Only students in the center can discuss, and students on the outside take notes on the discussion. Students then switch places. Both group and small-group discussions will be used, to give students an opportunity to share and learn in a whole-class style as well as in small group in order to allow students who generally don't like to talk in front of the whole class an opportunity to share. These small groups will also serve as Literature discussion groups. which give students the opportunity to talk in small groups about what they are reading. Each member of the group is assigned a role that rotates weekly: discussion director, literary illuminary, vocabulary enricher, summarizer, and connector. These roles give students a responsibility within the group they are in and a reason to participate. This strategy also helps give a voice to shy students who might normally not participate in whole-class discussions. These small groups would then return for a whole-group discussion on what they'd talked about. 23

In order to address my objectives for student writing, I will be employing several strategies including timed writes. This strategy helps students prepare for the AP Literature exam they all take at the end of the year. I give students a surprise prompt related to the text we are reading, and they have thirty minutes to construct and write an essay that answers the prompt. Most likely I will give them prompts about the main purpose and message of the chorus; I may also create a prompt that asks them about interpreting the play using both a modern and ancient Greek viewpoint. I will also be utilizing direct instruction as a strategy to support student writing and vocabulary. This will appear as a short lecture or PowerPoint presentation. I will use this strategy to give them specific vocabulary words that they will need throughout the unit, for example, dramatic irony, strophe , antistrophe , tragedy, etc. I will also use this strategy in a power point presentation to show students what a theatre in ancient Greek looked like, and what aspects make up a Greek tragedy. One last strategy involves taking a longer passage and distilling it down to the main message by asking students to restate the passage as a tweet, in no more than twenty-five words. This both engages my students, since many of them are active tweeters, and it requires them to interpret the passage in a clear, concise manner. Tweets will be voted on to decide which tells the message most clearly to add a competitive edge to the activity.

Another objective of this unit is to help students make connections, both with other types of literature and with other types of performance. One strategy I will use is to compare and contrast Oedipus Rex with modern Broadway musicals. Students will look at specific aspects of both and discuss the similarities and differences. I will constantly be helping students make connections with the text we are reading and asking them to make their own connections. These connections will help them more deeply understand the messages in the text and it will also help them write with more expertise in their essays. In a similar spirit of comparing and contrasting, students will be analyzing two images side-by-side and take notes. These notes will aid them in our discussion after the viewing. Depending on the subject and the day, we will have small-group or whole class-discussions. The point of this strategy is to compare and contrast (as with an image from a traditional Greek production and a modern Broadway musical) or to try to discover the theme between the two images (as with two images of Oedipus Rex in two different scenes).

Chunking the chorus

This activity will likely take two hundred-minute class periods. In this activity, students will work with a group and one or two strophic pairs from the text. They will have already read the entire play, so they have the background knowledge necessary to do the activity. Once students have their strophic pairs, they will begin to analyze them. They will need to do this with the full text so that they have all the necessary context in order to analyze the verses of the chorus. Before beginning the activity, we will make a list of questions as a class that will help in analyzing the strophic pairs. I will take input from the class, but I'm imagining the questions will be similar to:

Are there allusions present in the ode?

Are there metaphors in the ode?

What are they and what are they referring to?

What is the point of view of the chorus?

What other literary devices are present and what is their purpose?

Student will come up with other helpful questions as a class.

Once students have worked together to analyze the strophic pairs and answer the questions set out, they will work together to create a visual depiction of the strophic pair or pairs. (Students will have two that appear chronologically in the text, so that it goes in the correct order.) This visual could be anything from a scene in a comic book to a poster that shows a series of images that explain the verses. Doing this will help each group of students reach a better understanding of their parts of the chorus, and they will also need to work together to decide what type of visualization will work best to explain the verses. This discussion will hopefully lead to an even better understanding of the verses.

After all of the visuals have been created, we will create a gallery of all of the visuals in the order that they appear in the play. At this point, we'll do a "gallery walk" in which students walk around and look at each strophic pair and the visual that was created with it in order. While they are doing this, they will write down parts that are more understandable now, surprising discoveries, and questions that they still have. Finally, we will have a whol- class discussion about the activity and students will have a chance to bring up the questions they still have and ask each other questions about other groups' visuals.

Side-by-side viewing

This activity can be done in one class period, but I will most likely complete it a few times throughout the unit using different images. This activity involves showing students two images side-by-side. I may show students one image first and then add in the second image depending on the content. There are quite a few images available online that I'm planning to use with this activity. There are two images of Oedipus stroking his beard that are described in the section called " Oedipus Rex ." There are two vase paintings that illustrate these images. (See resources.) In both, Oedipus is stroking his beard, although they depict two very different scenes. Oedipus regards the Sphinx in one, and in the other he is depicted with a herdsman, Jocasta and their two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

I will ask students to look first at the image with Oedipus and the Sphinx and take five minutes to write as much as they can about the image. They can write what they see, what they think it means, anything. After the five minutes we will discuss in class what they wrote down. Next I will show them the other image of Oedipus with his family, presumably when he and Jocasta find out the news from the first messenger. I won't give any information to the students, and again they will have five minutes to write down their interpretations, observations, and anything else they see. Again we will discuss the image with the class.

At this point I will show students the images side-by-side, and I will again have them write for five minutes. I will ask them to write about how the images interact with each other, or to compare and contrast them, or to write about what they mean together. We will then discuss again as a class, and at the end of the discussion I will have students write the opening sentence to an essay they would write about the two images. (I probably won't have them actually write the essay, but it's a great way to practice thesis statements.) There are other images that I will do the same activity with, including images of different types of productions of Oedipus Rex as well as images of Oedipus that are very different from the two that I have described above.

The point of this activity is to help students make connections with art that is relevant to the unit. It also helps students practice looking at and analyzing art. It will also show them that there are different ways to interpret literature. It also helps them practice writing, an activity that is very helpful for students preparing for the AP exam.

Performance

This will be the culminating activity of the unit. I will divide the class into two groups of sixteen students each. Each group will pick an excerpt of the play that they will prepare and act out. Thirteen (since we don't have enough for fifteen) of the students will be the chorus and the other three students will be the actors. The task is to change the original language into modern language but to keep all of the meaning and the messages intact. The length will need to be about one act.

Students will have to work together to divide up the act and interpret and change the language into a modern style. I'm planning this as the culminating activity because at this point they hopefully have a good handle on the play as well as on the messages of the chorus. This activity pulls together the chorus-chunking activity as well as all of the work they will have done in class interpreting the play. Once they have changed the language, they will turn their versions in to me so I can be sure they have understood and kept the meaning of the original text. Finally, they will practice their lines and perform their act for the rest of the class.

Bibliography: Resources for Teachers and Students

Bloom, Harold. Oedipus Rex . Updated ed. New York: Infobase Pub., 2007. This is one of the foremost collections of interpretations of the text. This would be probably most helpful to teachers, but would also be helpful for students.

Daniels, Charles B., and Sam Scully. What Really Goes on in Sophocles' Theban plays. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996. This is a very helpful book for both teachers and students. It covers the history and goes into the themes of the three plays as well as looking at Greek viewpoints.

Frey, Nancy, and Douglas Fisher. Teaching Visual Literacy: Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2008. This book would be very helpful to a teacher looking to use more images in her classroom.

Grene, David.Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Harsh, Philip Whaley. A Handbook of Classical Drama,. Stanford University, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1944. This book describes specifically the history of Greek tragedy (among other forms of classical drama) and goes into detail about every aspect of Greek tragedy.

Howells, Richard. Visual Culture. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003. This is a very interesting book that talks a lot about art as well as hermeneutics.

Langer, J. A. "Beating The Odds: Teaching Middle And High School Students To Read And Write Well." American Educational Research Journal 38, no. 4 (2001): 837-880. This article is about a study done in American high schools that looks at how teachers teach reading and writing. It has great ideas for strategies that work well.

Papapostolou, A. " Oedipus Rex Theatre Performance in Pakistan," Greek World Reporter. Jan., 2009. http://world.greekreporter.com/2011/01/09/%E2%80%9Coedipus-rex-play-in-pakistan/ This article has an image of a production of Oedipus Rex that is very interesting and would be great to discuss with students.

Puppi, Lionello. Il Teatro Olimpico. Vicenza: Pozza, 1963. This book has many photos and information about the Olympic Theatre, which was designed to look as close as possible to theaters of Ancient Greece. This will be very helpful for classroom materials.

Scodel, Ruth. An Introduction to Greek Tragedy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. This book is a very comprehensive guide to the history and all aspects of Greek tragedy.

Sheehan, Sean. Sophocles' Oedipus the K ing: a Reader's Guide . London: Continuum, 2012. This book has several essays that are extremely helpful for both students and teachers.

Common Core Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

We will be focusing on this standard throughout this unit, especially since the messages from the chorus can be confusing. Students will be looking directly at the text for evidence in the text as well as making inferences when the text is confusing or uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.2

Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

This will be one of the main goals in this unit—although we are focusing on the chorus, we are doing so in order to interpret the main messages in the text. Students will write an essay that both summarizes the text and looks at the main messages and analyzes how they interact with one another.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.5

Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.

Students will be studying the structure of tragedy and how it affects the action and theme in the play Oedipus Rex .

1. Daniels and Scully, What Really Goes on in Sophocles' Theban plays?, xii.

2. Scodel, An introduction to Greek tragedy, 4.

3. William Moebius, "Introduction to picturebook codes." Word & Image 2, no. 2 (1986): 148.

4. Oklahoma, Musical, written by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein (1943; New York City: Broadway), Live.

5. Joseph Roach, interviewed by Sara Delman, July 10, 2013.

6. Scodel, An Introduction to Greek Tragedy, 2.

7. Daniels and Scully, What Really Goes on in Sophocles', xiv.

8. Scodel, An Introduction to Greek tragedy, 3.

9. Harsh, A Handbook of Classical Drama, 4.

10. Scodel, An Introduction to Greek Tragedy, 12.

12. Daniels and Scully, What Really Goes on in Sophocles', xii.

13. Scodel. An Introduction to Greek Tragedy, 3.

14. Harsh, A Handbook of Classical Drama, 5.

15. Ibid. 3

16. Ibid. 5-7.

17. Daniels and Scully, What Really Goes on in Sophocles', xii.

18. Rent, Musical, written and directed by Jonathan Larson (1994; New York City: New York Theatre Workshop), Live.

19. Scodel, An Introduction to Greek Tragedy, 3

20. Ibid. 4.

21. Grene, Sophocles I, 17-18.

22. Ibid. 3.

23. J. A. Langer. "Beating The Odds: Teaching Middle And High School Students To Read And Write Well." American Educational Research Journal 38, no. 4 (2001): 859.

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Oedipus the king fate vs. free will help on thesis statement

chalumeau / Mar 23, 2012 #2 Why don't you try to come up with something, and I'll tell you if it's a thesis. I don't want to write your thesis.

OP lovedance888 1 / 7 Mar 23, 2012 #3 Both the concept of fate and free will played an intregal part in Oedipus' destruction. I need 3 points to support it though

chalumeau / Mar 23, 2012 #4 It's been years since I read Oedipus but I'll try to show you an example. Decisions based on fear, haste, and superstition contribute to fate overcoming free will in Oedipus Rex. Not the best example of a thesis, but it's a start. See how I use three general points to say that something else occurs. X + Y + Z ------> A > B

chalumeau / Mar 23, 2012 #5 It's a good essay. Here's the thesis: "His pride, ignorance, insolence and disbelief in the gods, and unrelenting quest for the truth ultimately contribute to his destuction." I would narrow it down to the pride, the disbelief and the quest. Everyone is ignorant of something at sometime. He's a king how can he be insolent? How are these related? Disbelief in the gods-----> disbelief in fate? Quest for truth-----> Free will? You have to become a philosopher in order to write about these old plays. :) I live in modern times and don't believe in fate or superstitions, so it's hard to convey these archaic systems in modern terms.

OP lovedance888 1 / 7 Mar 25, 2012 #6 how should i fix my essay?

chalumeau / Mar 25, 2012 #7 Start with the thesis as I described above. Disbelief in the gods-----> disbelief in fate? Quest for truth-----> Free will? Do you see the connections that were on the tip of your tongue? "Oedipus' unyielding desire to uncover the truth about Laius' murder and the mystery surrounding his own birth, led him to the tragic realization of his horrific deeds." Good sentence Find two or three quotes that support 1) pride 2) disbelief in the gods 3) quest for truth. The quotes you found are good ones, but they don't necessarily support your thesis. Also try to use the PRESENT TENSE. Almost all teachers want you to use the present tense in an analysis essay. I would love to read another draft.

OP lovedance888 1 / 7 Mar 29, 2012 #8 ok thank you, but I am still struggling on finding 3 points and quotes to use in my essay. Could you please edit the essay I wrote? Thanks :)

OP lovedance888 1 / 7 Mar 29, 2012 #10 ok, how would you rewrite the things you edited in my paper?

chalumeau / Mar 29, 2012 #11 Find two or three quotes that support 1) pride 2) disbelief in the gods 3) quest for truth. The quotes you found are good ones, but they don't necessarily support your thesis. Also try to use the PRESENT TENSE. Almost all teachers want you to use the present tense in an analysis essay. Does the pride counterbalance the disbelief in the gods? Does pride support the quest for truth or is there some other reason? I'm not writing the essay for you. (I already wrote one my senior year of high school and did receive an A on it.) What works best in Oedipus is finding simple relationships and describing them. I think that you had a good start, but if you are unwilling to do anything else--your fate will be not much better than I predicted. Most teachers these days don't even write comments. I remember getting a few words at the ends of my essays. You are fortunate that you found someone willing to work with you. For free! I'm an unemployed A student! And, you still aren't using this opportunity?

OP lovedance888 1 / 7 Mar 29, 2012 #12 alright.. and fyi- im not asking you to write the essay for me... and i appreciate you helping me,,your just not clear for me to understand...Just please use nicer words, what you said was alittle mean and insulting... thanks for the help

chalumeau / Mar 29, 2012 #13 "ok, how would you rewrite the things you edited in my paper?" Yes, you were asking me to rewrite the paper. It's the one rule of the edit. If I choose to help you construct sentences, then it's a gift. It's something you can't expect or ask me to do. Would you say, "Dad, give me $50 I want to buy something?" No. But, if your Mom or Dad said, "Here's $50 for your birthday," then you take it and thank them. It's the same rule. How am I being unclear? Maybe if you ask some additional questions, I'll figure out where you're stuck.

OP lovedance888 1 / 7 Mar 31, 2012 #14 Yes, but I phrased what I ment to say wrong. And clearly, you are bragging about being an "A" student after graduating, i am also an "A" student. i didnt know you were this mean and rude...

chalumeau / Mar 31, 2012 #15 Dear Saran, You are taking what I'm saying the wrong way. I was hoping that you would take my advice after learning that I received mostly A's my senior year and in college. I was not the A+ writer (although I admit I did receive a couple A+'s on college papers). I'm not your teacher. I'm not bragging. You don't know me from any other stranger. Right? I don't know you. I just thought you should take me up on my offer to help you with your paper. It's friendly advice on my part. "i didnt know you were this mean and rude..." This sort of comment you make to someone you know? I can't believe anyone on this website would have hard feelings. It's free advice!! I'm not judging you as a person. I don't know you, nor will I ever know you. I pointed out the weaknesses in your introduction. I would have continued with the remainder of the essay, but you are stalling at every point. I received a C on an essay my junior year in high school. It was a bump up from the D my classmates gave me! Ouch. That really hurt. (It was a girl from my old church too.) I'm glad that I received the low grade, because it taught me something important that I didn't know before. (NOT humility.) It was that my parents were wrong sometimes. I asked them for a little help with the paper, and it was the wrong advice!! Before this time, every single question I ever asked them they answered correctly. Every single question, so I obeyed them unconditionally. At that time, I realized that everyone made mistakes including my parents. After that, I didn't feel as badly receiving a bad grade. What sort of comments does your teacher use? If you were paying for advice, what would you expect me to say?

pinkflutter - / 2 May 2, 2012 #16 Analysis on Oedipus the King quotations Hi, My english told me to dig deeper (have depth in my analysis) of the following quotes. I don't know how to have depth in my analysis. The analysis should be 4-5 sentences, and have a deep and meaningfull meaning Here are the quotes: 1.Oedipus says, "What can I ever see? What love, what call of the heart/ can touch my ears with joy? Nothing, friends." 2.Oedipus says, "Listen to you? No More. I must know it all, / I must see the truth at last" 3.Oedipus says, "Now my curse on the murderer, Whoever he is, / alone man unknown in his crime or one among many, let that man drag out his life in agony, step by painful step" 4.Jocasta said, "Stop- in the name of god, / if you love your life, call off this search! / My suffering is enough." Thank You!!

alan alvarado - / 1 Mar 17, 2013 #17 Oedipus the king uses symbolism to show fate unfolds truth;Advice on thesis statement Hi I needed help with with my thesis statement for oedipus the king in making sure that my literary element and theme go together. Thesis: In Oedipus the king, Sophocles uses symbolism to show that fate unfolds truth. Im confused on how to find words to put a good thesis together. help please. Thanks!

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Thesis Statement #1: Family as Defined in Oedipus. To the character of Oedipus, his biological parents are not his real parents. He views his adoptive parents as his true parents. He interprets the prophecies based on his beliefs about his family. When he marries his mother and has children with her, he is both their father and their half-brother.
The tragedy of Oedipus: [Essay Example], 974 words GradesFixer
The writer should consider constructing a hook sentence which relates to the themes of the thesis statement to be discussed later. The introduction is effective since the extensiveness adds context to the thesis statement. ... Throughout the tragic play Oedipus Rex, Jocasta, the mother and wife of Oedipus, is portrayed as a victim of ...
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Oedipus the King, a timeless Greek tragedy penned by Sophocles, unfolds the tragic descent of Oedipus, a heroic figure ensnared in the ominous prophecy of patricide and matrimony with his mother/incest. Confronted with the formidable choice between unraveling the intricacies of his lineage and preserving the foundation of his perceived reality ...
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The document provides guidance on developing a thesis statement for an analysis of Oedipus Rex. It discusses how writing a thesis can be challenging due to the complex plot, symbolism, and themes of the play. It offers assistance from a team of experts who can help the student craft an original, thoughtful thesis statement that demonstrates their understanding of Oedipus Rex and provides a ...
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Thesis Statement Oedipus Rex - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. The document discusses the challenges students face in crafting a thesis statement for the play "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles. It notes that the play explores complex themes of fate, tragedy, and the human condition, making it difficult to distill the key insights into a concise thesis.
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Thesis statements for essays on the tragedy Oedipus Rex Developing a Thesis for an Essay on Oedipus Rex Interpretations of Sigmund Freud's Oedipus Complex in relation to Oedipus Rex
Fate vs. Free Will Theme in Oedipus Rex
Fate vs. Free Will ThemeTracker. The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Fate vs. Free Will appears in each section of Oedipus Rex. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis. How often theme appears: section length: Lines 1-340. Lines 341-708. Lines 709-997.
92 Oedipus the King Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
The Role of Prophecies in Oedipus the King. Laius is the rule of Thebes; he learns from oracle that his son Oedipus will kill him and usurp his throne. Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Aeschylus' Agamemnon. On the other hand, Clytemnestra, a character in Agamemnon, is the daughter of a king and a Greek leader.
Thesis Statement For Oedipus
This is my thesis statement. The Greeks contributed many things to our culture, such as olives, gyros, Lenny Kravitz, ... Oedipus Rex is the story of a King of Thebes upon whom a hereditary curse is placed and who therefore has to suffer the tragic consequences of fate (tragic flaws or hamartia). In the play, Oedipus is the tragic hero.
Who Is More Resilient: Hamlet or Oedipus
In Sophocles' play, King Oedipus appears a persistent seeker of the truth who disregards the dangers this truth might bring to him. Shakespeare's drama discloses Hamlet as a doubting philosopher whose search for truth destroys his inner balance and necessitates a change in his personality. Oedipus and Hamlet shall be compared in this essay.
Oedipus Rex Position Paper Thesis Statement
The document discusses the challenges of crafting an effective thesis statement for a position paper on Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex. It notes that analyzing the intricacies of the classic tragedy, including its themes, characters, and messages, requires a sophisticated approach. Students must present a unique perspective while staying true to the nuances of the play, which involves a ...
Seeing Oedipus Rex: Using the Chorus to Understand the Tragedy
The image shows Oedipus and an old man in the center and then Jocasta is off to the left, while two small children are on the right and left of Oedipus. To find images of productions of Oedipus Rex Google image search "Oedipus Rex stage production" or "Oedipus Rex production chorus" to find images of the chorus specifically. Most songs to ...
Oedipus Rex Critical Essays
Aristotle considered Oedipus Tyrannus the supreme example of tragic drama and modeled his theory of tragedy on it. He mentions the play no fewer than eleven times in his De poetica (c. 334-323 b.c ...
Oedipus the king fate vs. free will help on thesis statement
lovedance888 1 / 7. Mar 23, 2012 #1. Im trying to think of a thesis satementent for the oedipus the king topic free will vs. fate. the thesis statement should include: 1) 3 points (ABC) examples. 2) good vocab usage. 3) be 1 sentence.
What's a good topic sentence for Oedipus the King
What would be a good topic sentence for Oedipus the King? A topic sentence sets forth the central idea of a paragraph. In order to create a topic sentence, one first needs to develop a thesis for ...

Oedipus Thesis Statements and Essay Topics

The Tragedy of Oedipus

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Seeing Oedipus Rex: Using the Chorus to Understand the Tragedy

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Function and form of the Chorus

Structure of Greek tragedy

A Note on Images

Chunking the chorus

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Bibliography: Resources for Teachers and Students

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Oedipus the king fate vs. free will help on thesis statement

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