Theban Plays

Antigone is the third play by Sophocles to address some element of the legend of Oedipus, but the three plays are not a formal trilogy as they were written at different times. The essence of the Oedipus myth revolves around personal responsibility in the Greek conception. Even though Oedipus appears to be the victim of a series of circumstances so that what happens to him should be no fault of his own, in the Greek view this is not the case. The structure of the three plays shows that Oedipus should have known even if he did not and that his stubbornness in the face of growing evidence as to his crime leads to his downfall. Antigone appears with her father first in the second of these plays, Oedipus at Colonus, after her father's crime has been revealed. The key play for the character of Antigone is the third, Antigone, in which she is shown to be very much like her father, ultimately leading to her downfall as well.

These plays are known as the Theban plays because they tell the story of the royal house of Thebes. Thebes was founded by Cadmus, son of the king of Phoenicia, who was told by the oracle of Apollo that he was to settle in a certain country where he would find a cow in a field. He should follow the cow, and where she stopped, there should Cadmus found a city and call it Thebes. King Laius was the third in descent from Cadmus, and he married his cousin, Jocasta. The oracle of Apollo warned Laius that he would die at the hands of his son, so the king tie

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