Oedipus: the King of Thebes

Oedipus is the king of Thebes, having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and saved the city from destruction. But now a plague is devistraing Thebes, and various oracles and bird entrails suggest it is because the murderer of the old king, Laius, still lives in the kingdom unpunished. Oedipus decides to investigate the murder to alleviate everyone, including himself, only to discover he himself is the one who killed Laius and married his queen, Jocasta. Then he finds out he and Laius have a relationship, he is his true father, and Jocasta is his mother, meaning Oedipus has had four children with his mother, tying back to an earlier prognostication, because bird entrails are never wrong.

As a result of this, Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus gouges out his own eyes with her jewelry, then goes into exile. Sophocles, the playwright of this blank and blank play,

As the audience, who is fully equipped with the plot of this particular story, listens to Jocasta’s self-confident and in-denial words, they become uncomfortable She tries to convince Oedipus, and herself, that incest is of a commonplace, by the utilization of a startling lightness that will return back to her, only to haunt her. These lines are of catastrophic nature, because Jocasta has no indication that her baffling words are ironic, inaccurate to the highest degree, and absurd. While one continues to see the story unfold, their opinion is of similarity with Tiresias, knowledge enriched, resulting in pain for others as well as the person itself. Formerly, it is of significance to realize, a fraction of the irony in the lines is dependent upon the play, and the audience, condemning Jocasta for her lack of sight. She makes a declaration of “”Since Fate rules us.. and suggest that her husband, Oedipus “”…should live only for the present day, hit the nail exactly on the head when it comes to beliefs of just about everyone related to the piece, no limited to Jocasta herself.

Oedipus sent his brother-in-law Creon to the oracle, and would not have done so if if he had faith in events that were determined unsystematically. Neither would Oedipus flee Corinth after laying his ears upon the prophecy of the oracle, stating that he would be the one at the hands of his father’s death and the man in his mother’s bed. Similarly, Jocasta would not have tied her baby’s ankles and told one to get rid of it, resulting in the abandonment of this baby in the mountains. The play continuously come back to the fact of prophecies coming true, and the expressions of the high powers must be listened to and obeyed. The audience sees Jocasta, as she truly is, one who only believes in the prophecies that suit her. It is exemplified in her abandoning her son in the mountains, because it was prophesied that her son would be the murderer of her husband, Laius, even though she wholeheartedly believed her husband’s blood was not shed by her son. Jocasta finds the words of the oracle to be of no value, worthless, making her ignorant to the inevitable truth. She does this exact thing again with Oedipus, when the truth steers into a horrific disclosure and tries to steer it another way, by saying everything is at random, including one’s actions.

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