Contextual Criticism In Oedipus The King

Contextual criticism is used in text to gain a better understanding, along with more knowledge of the text. In “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles and “The Night Face up” by Julio Cortazar. Criticizing these texts contextual for their content will help the reader have intelligent and knowledgeable interpretation of the stories. Using historical events, life experience and looking at the dominant culture we can find the context of certain passages enhances and creates a more accurate reading experience. This validates that contextual criticism is vital to a accurate and more intelligent interpretation of a text.

In both of these stories using the historical knowledge can help grasp a more accurate interpretation. Oedipus talking to Jocasta “On

This can also give a perspective to help the reader understand the bias and opinions that the author might have had. This will in turn give the reader themselves a new perspective on how to interpret the text. This occurs in “The Night Face Up” when the main character is in his dreams and thinking to himself “And it was all so natural, he had to run from the Aztecs who had set out on their manhunt,”(Cortazar,69). The relevance of the author's personal life experience is that Julio Cortazar lived majority of his life in Bueno Aires Argentina. So from the basic perspective of analysis we see that Cortazar can express how Aztec rituals often included human sacrifices and hunting. But what we learn when looking at out authors past experience is that he grew up in Argentina a country which had their own indigenous and native people. As a person who grew up an lived most of their life in Argentina he was able to use his knowledge of how important the culture and traditions of his countries traditions. This allows him to use the knowledge of one civilization to compare and be able to portray the same kind of support and traditional lifestyle that his culture contains. This then as a reader allows for a very accurate representation of what the main character is going through. This allows the reader to understand that the character truly is in utter fear of the

Using characteristics of the authors themselves and their stories looking at historical events, life experience and the dominant culture we can receive a more accurate understanding of these texts. The reader will only gain new and diffrent unique insights from using contextual criticism while analyzing passages of these texts. After analyzing the context of the texts it will give any reader the most accurate and genuine interpretation of the story and truly allow them to experience the story in another