SOPHOCLES' OEDIPUS THE KING Oedipus the King by

Oedipus the King by Sophocles is generally regarded as the greatest of the Greek tragedies, and this paper is a psychological and analytical character analysis of the play's protagonist. Oedipus has become such an important part of contemporary psychology (witness Freud's "Oedipus Complex" at the core of his teachings) because the character raises such fundamental questions: how much of one's life can be controlled by the will? Is everything in life determined by Fate?

The play begins with the city of Thebes stricken by a plague. Oedipus is the king and, consulting a blind seer, he soon discovers that he is responsible for the sickness in his city. There is the horrifying proclamation that he has murdered his father and married his mother. Teiresias is the seer and he cautions Oedipus that "the future will come of itself though I shroud it in silence" (Sophocles 121). Oedipus' insistence brings Teiresias to confess that you are the slayer of the man whose slayer you seek" and "you have been living in unguessed shame with your nearest kin, and do not see to what woe you have come" (122).

The structure of this play is unique: Sophocles doesn't deal with the crucial events directly, but with the even more terrible aftermath. Oedipus committed his sins in ignorance, yet he will still have to pay the rice for what he has done. The tragedy lies in the hero's knowledge of his guilt rather than in the guilt, itself. Oedipus is a very subtle character as he works thro

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emently that Oedipus tries to keep the oracle from taking place, the sooner its fulfillment is brought about. What the playwright leads up to is that a man must go through a series of trials until he gains insight into his own nature. This will give him a much better understanding of who he is and what his purpose is on earth. Oedipus finds his wife/mother Jocasta hanged by her own hair. He blinds himself in shame for the sins he has committed. In the end, Creon leads Oedipus off into exile which is marked by blindness and torment. "Let my fate go where it will . . . Yet of this much I am sure, that neither sickness nor anything else can destroy me; for I would never have been snatched from death except to be reserved for some strange doom" (Sophocles 147). The end of this tragedy is marked by Oedipus' act of contrition. As the King walks off into exile, one must wonder how the Gods will redeem him or condemn him. Oedipus is a sympathetic character, because he does try to avoid the prophecy and still winds up committing his sins. He also "pays" for his transgressions, and he is truly sorry for the suffering he has caused his wife and children. Oedipus is a different type of tragic figure than, say, MacBeth, who senses

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