Comparing Love And Hate In Sophocles Oedipus The King

Everyone who is human has certain things he or she lusts for. For some, it may be the need for speed and adventure. For others, the need of solitude and peace. Out of all the feelings we feel, love and hate I think override the rest. These are the two main categories that things fall under. There is very little to nothing that falls in the middle.

In the Sophocles play Oedipus Rex, there are very many different signs of love and hate. The main character, Oedipus, shows us how these feelings changed his life forever. He killed a band of men that disrespected him because of his hot head and hatred towards the god Apollo, and after that, solved a riddle that made him a King and husband. He reigned as King of Thebes for a while, then

Oedipus grew up a prince in Corinth, but one day some drunk said “I am not my father’s son” (1.1,860). After this remark, Oedipus went to search for the truth. He first looked at his parents for answers, but unsatisfied with their answers, he went looking for the god Apollo. Apollo wasn’t very helpful, in fact, he brought some more frustrating news to Oedipus. “You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see- you will kill your father, the one who gave you life” (Sophocles,1.1,73-76). Oedipus must have felt discontent,All of this new found frustration and anger would have broken most people, like how It broke Oedipus while he was walking home. So many violent things were going through his head that it was no surprise that he took this hostility out on the next person he came upon. Oedipus unknowingly filled part of his cursed prophecy as soon as he killed his father, king of Thebes, and his servants. This relates to Freud’s analysis by him writing “It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to have...our first murderous wish against our father.”(Freud, 1180). He found that Oedipus’s first murderous wishes ended towards his father, by Oedipus actually killing

Throughout the play, Oedipus always looks towards Jocasta for support and comfort. When he figured out that he might have killed his father, the first person he told was Jocasta.

“And so you shall - I can hold nothing back from you, now I’ve reached this pitch of dark foreboding. Who means more to me than you? Tell me, whom would I turn toward but you as I go through all this?”(I,847-853,1151). Even though Oedipus new Jocasta might be his mother, he still treated her as wife. He loved her, no matter what happened. Freud said, “Here is one in whom these primeval wishes of our childhood have been fulfilled, and we shrink back from him with the full force of the repression by which those wishes have since that time have been held within us.”(Freud, 1180). Freud shows that people have hidden these feelings towards theirs mother, but yet still have them. It is an embarrassment to show these feelings, but Freud suggests that they are there in every