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 through to his discovery. First he suspects, then he realizes what the outcome of his investigation will be. This does not stop him, and he continues until he has found the full truth and the final proof.
Oedipus' reaction to the full truth is dramatic: "Perish the man, whoever he was, that freed me in the pastures from the cruel shackle on my feet, and saved me from death, and gave me back to life--a thankless deed! Had I died then I would not have been so...