According to Aristotle, Oedipus, the King is a perfect and supreme definition of tragedy. Aristotle defines tragedy in the aspects of its actions, plot, and characters. Oedipus fits the model of a tragic hero based on a number of factors. First, he has a great personality with the goals and commitment to find the truth and save his country from the problems it is experiencing. However, he has a tragic weakness where he becomes disrespectful and careless to the gods...
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Although it is widely alleged that destiny is by choice, there are a vast number of people who believed that it is by fate. Those who believed it is by choice follow the directions and guidance of their elders. For example, they will try to hold on to the values that their parents instilled in them and use them to guide their entire lives. Others who believed that destiny is by fate, believe that the outcome of their lives is...
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According to Sophocles, one must not only see something but also understand it. The only ones who can truly see are the blind. This is a popular theme, especially in Oedipus Rex where Sophocles rears the idea that in real vision the eye is not needed to see the surface things. Sophocles uses the theme of light vs darkness in his play Oedipus. He utilizes the imagery of light and darkness. In this play, light shows us the image of...
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King Oedipus is a prominent example of how fate inevitably controls his life and leads him to his predestined denouement. He attempts to escape Delphi’s prophecy by committing acts of sacrifice to save his family and his citizens. Though the intentions were there, Oedipus ultimately brought the prophecy to life because of these same actions. He banished himself from Corinth to save his father but killed his father on the way to Thebes. He answers the Sphinx’s riddle correctly, but...
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According to Aristotle, “ a tragedy should arouse in the spectators the feeling piety and fear – ‘pity’ mainly for the hero’s tragic fate and ‘fear’ at the sight of the dreadful suffering that occurs the characters, particularly the hero. By arousing these feelings of pity and fear, a tragedy aims at the catharsis or purgation of these and similar other emotions.” By Aristotle’s definition “ ‘ hamartia’ or ‘tragic flaw’ is an error of judgment that was made by...
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Aristotle in his famous book ‘Poetics’ describes the traits needed to complete the tragedy. As in accordance to Aristotle, any tragedy is a perfect tragedy when the action has soberness, expansive, and ideal in it. Some of the important factors of a perfect tragedy are Peripeteia, Anagnorisis, and catharsis. King Oedipus of Greek mythology owns all the features of a complete tragedy. Oedipus epitomizes these aspects by adding an exclusive breadth, exemplifying a complete flow, presenting a tragic complex plot,...
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Sometimes the road of life takes an unexpected turn and you have no choice but to follow it to end up in the place you are supposed to be. Your fate is like a car crash an accident you never asked for but happens because it’s your destiny. Sophocles highlights the irony of a man who wants to track down and execute the criminal who murdered King Laius who turns out to be himself. The play Oedipus Rex unravels King...
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The Invisible Enemy Some people believe their destiny is predetermined, created long before they were born. They believe prophecies are messages from above that an individual chooses to follow or not. Destiny is a term for the development of a course of events beyond a person’s control. Prophecies act as guidance for them to mostly make an attempt to change their destiny which in some unusual cases they try to find its completion (though in these situations the prophecy is...
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“Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain” (Sophocles 1651-1853). Oedipus’s tragedy could be abridged simply like this but reading through the play in its entirety induces an obligatory and profound catharsis. Oedipus the King follows the story of how the Theban king unknowingly killed his father and married his mother when he thought he had escaped his appalling fate. He was convinced he could...
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Oedipus the King and Aristotle In his Poetics, Aristotle made public the ingredients necessary for an honest tragedy and primarily based his formula on what he thought to be the proper tragedy, the playwright s King Oedipus the King. in step with Aristotle, a tragedy should be an imitation of life within the kind of a significant story that’s complete in itself; in alternative words, the story should be realistic and slim-focused. an honest tragedy can evoke pity and concern...
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Sophocles’ The Three Theban Plays explores the faults in one’s character that triggers irrational and unlawful behavior. A specific fault seems to recur throughout the plays and pushes characters to commit the greatest crimes. To find this fault, it is vital to retrace the motivation of each character’s actions. The root of all their actions is pride. Oedipus, Antigone, and Creon all succumb to this fault. These characters’ pride drives their every action and clouds their judgment. Pride is the...
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In our daily lives, we encounter people who hold themselves above others, and not often do we find ourselves wanting to be around these people. This feeling is frustrating in the fact that these people see themselves as better than others, and that pride is what makes them insufferable. The topic of pride in abundance is not a new idea. It has been around for generations, taking place as one of the most notable tropes in Greek plays. This character,...
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Sophocies’ Oedipus is believed to be a tragic hero, in the past times of theatre. Oedipus’ odd destiny primes him for a catastrophic collapse that gives each reader and listener a feeling that affects them emotionally. Aristotle believes that Oedipus’ upsetting story meets the necessities as a heartbreaking protagonist through his competence to reserve his quality and insight, in spite of his faults and difficulty. Aristotle’s interpretation of a sad hero will not depict the absence of morals or even...
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For us as individuals to have free will it suggests that as human beings, we have the ability to express and elect our own personal choices. Whereas the notion of fate entices the idea that our lives are simply determined by physical or divine forces. When focussing on the treatment of free will and fate in relation to Greek tragedies, one can recognise that this theme was often established as the driving forces of conflict. In ancient Greece, the lives...
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In the entirety of both Medea and Oedipus the existence of Gods are shown as dominant throughout. In Modern time, Theorists and dramatists are turning the pages every day to find answers to the questions at hand, are the characters of these plays in control of their own destiny? Or is their fate already inevitable? Ancient Greek people believed that Gods set the destinies for some people as its what they were born to do and there is a level...
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Oedipus the King, assembled by Sophocles, indicates an underlying association between fate and free will. In today’s society, we let our lives be led by a distinct force that we believe in. Yet, a widespread controversy that still rages today is whether we, as a species, have free will or if some divine source, some call it fate, governs our destiny. Whether it be an elevated power deciding your life for you or the alternatives that people make. Fate compromises...
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Pride a feeling that has both a good connotation and a negative connotation, it is also a feeling that we can possibly have too much of, so when do we know we have had too much of it? Reading the plays Othello by William Shakespeare and Oedipus by Sophocles we are able to see how Othello and Oedipus are alike through pride. Both characters favor in being hubris, causing these characters to make life long decision that which causes their...
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“In truth, pride is double-edged: destructive and ludicrous in the wrong place and the wrong proportions, but heroic and admirable in the right ones” (Aicinena). Pride has perplexed philosophers and theologians for centuries, and it is an especially paradoxical emotion. People think that they win when they look like “the best” and when their ego has not been touched. In fact, we become slaves of our ego as soon as we follow it, when we start feeding our pride, so...
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Through the whims and wills of the Gods, humans play a preconceived part in the story of life, and our every deed is simply a line in the play. This idea that the span of a person’s life is nothing but an allotment of misery and suffering doomed upon oneself can be held as a precept among many. No matter the amount of action taken to divert from one’s destiny, characters are almost always unable to evade or prolong their...
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Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is, according to Aristotle, the ideal tragedy. Various reasons influence Aristotle’s position on the matter. One of them is the peripeteia, which refers to a drastic turnaround. In Poetics, Aristotle defines the element of surprise that peripeteia denotes as “a change by which the action veers round to its opposite” (Cain et al. 98). He argues that in Oedipus Rex, a messenger visits Oedipus to confirm to his him that his mother is indeed the woman that...
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Long before daytime soap operas, Sophocles regaled the masses with the tragic tale of Oedipus the Tyrant. It is the first of its kind to enmesh the reader in a complicated web of incest, patricide, and regicide whilst featuring a protagonist who evokes rage and pity in the same breath. Centuries after its first performance, the tragedy remains a focus of political discourse, not only because it is one of the most celebrated plays of the ancient world, but also...
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In the play “Antigone”, Sophocles at first portrays Creon as a just leader. He has good, rational reasons for his laws and punishments. By the end of the play Creon’s hubris, or excessive pride, has taken over him, which leads to his demise. He does not realize how badly his hubris has interfered with his dealing with problems until Teiresias’s prophecy. By then it is too late. This is the path of a tragic character. The protagonist has a hamartia...
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Throughout all three plays the authors used many literary devices to make their plays better, but one that I noticed in all three is metaphors or a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action in which it’s not literally applicable. In fences, Oedipus, and a sound of a voice there are many uses of metaphors, in this paper, I will be focusing on one specific metaphor from each and describe how...
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Jocasta: Oedipus’ mother and his wife, Jocasta represents the most immediate victim of Oedipus’ fate, second only to the tragic hero himself. Unlike Oedipus, Jocasta does not trust the oracles and believes that whatever happens, it will happen by unpredictable chance. Nevertheless, she was careful enough to pay tribute to Apollo in the crisis. Smart and capable, but not as keen on exploration as Oedipus, Jocasta has his own philosophy on things that should be known or investigated. ‘The King...
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In the beginning, I want to introduce the background information about this play. First, the name of this filmed performance is ‘Oedipus the King’ It is written by Sophocles, the most famous playwright of ancient Greece. He is one of the three tragic writers in Athens. He not only believes in the supreme power of God and destiny but also requires people to have an independent spirit and be responsible for their own actions, which is the feature of ideology...
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Brilliantly interesting and convincingly demystifying was Joseph Campbell’s revelation of the hero monomyth. This revelation is detailed in his prominent work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which Campbell stresses the significance of the hero monomyth present in all heroic myths. And because the monomyth can be identified in any work presenting a hero, similar patterns emerge among the many different myths. These patterns consist of phases and sub-phases of the hero monomyth. And although the main phases can...
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In the play, Oedipus King Sophocles portrays two characters, Oedipus and Creon, as rulers of Thebes. These two men each have notable potential to be kings and both were but, one did significantly gain greater recognition. After the homicide of Laius, former King of Thebes, Oedipus became the leader when he efficiently solved the riddle of the Sphinx with Creon with the aid of his aspect except soon after Creon has been given the opportunity to lead as well. In...
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The “The Tale of Sohrab” and “Oedipus Tyrannus” are two distinct stories that showcase the timelessness of the Shahmaneh. The two stories are not only entertaining but also reflect on various themes that are relevant to the social structure of society and can also apply to the individual lives of people. Upon reading the tales, one can see the undeniable similarities between the stories. This essay makes a comparison between the two tales, with a focus on the themes that...
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Oedipus submits the offensive demonstration of slaughtering his dad and wedding his mom. The grievous occasions that pursue appear to be able to discipline for this wrongdoing. However, in Sophocles’ Oedipus the Ruler, Oedipus is just ‘an offspring of Fortune’ (Sophocles, 1080), not blameworthy of his wrongdoings since his destiny was resolved before birth. In endeavoring to keep away from his destiny, Oedipus perpetrates his wrongdoings unconsciously. He comprehends the shocking idea of the wrongdoings told in the prediction so...
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”We are only as blind as we want to be -Maya Angelou. There are a variety of connotations to the phrase ”blind. Some people tend to view blindness as a physical disability that resembles inferiority. Others believe that blindness defines ignorance as one is unaware of their surroundings or actions. However, the public’s attitudes towards blindness are misconceptions as even a person who can physically see can also be blind. As people become biased toward certain views, it can cause...
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