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Dramatic Irony In Oedipus The King

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Greek tragedies are known for their fateful plots and calamitous endings. Sophocles delivers such a dramatic play with his tragedy Oedipus Rex. Oedipus is a tragic hero with unusual origins. His actual origins are unknown to him at first, but when all is revealed, his tale ends in an inevitably tragic resolution. A prophecy that cannot be ignored or altered, no matter how much Oedipus tries, tells a twisted tale of Oedipus’ actions, and its fulfillment reveals Oedipus’ crooked relations with his mother and father. The dramatic irony in the play reveals how Oedipus’ unusual origins cause his ignorance and lead to the events that cause the destruction of his family. For much of his life, Oedipus’ true origins are not known to him. The beginning of the play reveals Oedipus to be the “powerful king of …show more content…

/ It is a deathly thing, beyond cure; / We must not let it feed upon us longer.” - Oedipus hastily that the defilement, which is revealed to be the murderer of the former leader of Thebes Laios, must be removed. Little does he know, he is the the murderer that killed Laios and married his wife, and his murder “brought the plague-wind on the city,” a fact that is known to the audience but lost on Oedipus. An oracle revealed to him long ago when he went searching for the truth about his parents: “I went to the shrine at Delphi… The god dismissed my question without reply; / He spoke of other things. Some were clear, / Full of wretchedness, dreadful, unbearable: / As, that I should lie with my own

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In the beginning of the play, the author portrays Oedipus as a proud and arrogant man which causes him to initiate the search for the answer of the mystery. Oedipus is introduced with a problem in his kingdom so he sends “Creon, Jocasta’s brother, to Apollo, to his Pythian temple.. [to] learn there by what act.. [Oedipus] could save this city” (78-82).

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In Sophocles’s Oedipus The King, there are numerous examples of dramatic irony. First, Oedipus mocks Tiresias with dramatic irony. The chorus, also known as the people of Thebes in the play, are talking to Oedipus the king of Thebes about how their city is dying. The chorus tells Oedipus to see Tiresias, the blind prophet of Apollo but Creon, Oedipus's uncle and brother-in-law, has already sent for him to come. When Tiresias came he explained that Oedipus was the killer of Laius, confirming a prophecy that Oedipus, the son of Jocasta and Lauis, would kill his father and marry his mother.

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The gods talked, spoked, stated that the plaque would be undone when the murderer of king Laius was finally found, being Oedipus. The reason Oedipus deserved his fate was because he promised, to himself , to the land of thebes and to its people, to help them in any way they needed him, again acting like a god . He must remain a man of his word just as he made the law of exile , to keep those words and not try and erase what was his actions or his land would be doomed. “ it was murder that brought the plague wind to this city” (prologue 7).This quote is significant because it shows us the truth , the murder of the king was the reason the plaque was a problem to begin with,why it started. Now to undo has has been done , to get rid of this evil plague , the murder being Oedipus himself must be exiled or killed.

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A) Dramatic irony, something that gives play that sense of je ne sais quoi; to have the audience have and edge of knowledge that the cast/character doesn’t. In Oedipus, Oedipus is a child of Jocasta and Laius. Prophesied to murder his father, to lay with with mother and bare children. As the play entails Jocasta and Laius decide to take heed to the oracle 's prophecy and kill their newborn in fear of what was yet to come. King Laius was to have his babies ankles pinned and put on a cliffside left to die.

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Two wrongs don’t make a right, and in the play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the characters had to learn that the hard way. Almost every tragedy of the play is caused by a character seeking revenge which usually ended up making the situation worse. Wrath was the leading sin responsible for all these misfortunes because it caused multiple strains in relationships, revealed the true nature of the characters, and created the desire for revenge. The play doesn’t really address the relationship of Hamlet and his mother before the death of his father and her remarriage to his uncle, but it would be hard to believe that it was worse than how it was after those two events.

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While all this is happening, the play also discusses the concept of irony. To sum up, Oedipus is to blame for the plays ending because he thought he could change his fate. Specifically, sight and blindness are shown in Oedipus through irony in the character

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Oedipus the King is a tragedy that was written by Sophocles that emphasizes the irony of an irony of a man who was determined to trace down, expose and punish an assassin who in turn became him. Oedipus the King is also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus. The art is an Athenian play that was performed in ages approximated to be 429 BC. Oedipus the King would later in the play fulfill the prophecy that he would kill his father and later on marry his mother. There is a twist of an event in the play where Oedipus is looking for the murderer of his father to bring to a halt the series of plagues that are befalling Thebes but only to find he is in search of himself (Rado, 1956).

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As more information is uncovered, Oedipus’ legacy is exponentially diminished as a childhood prophecy revolving around Oedipus, murdering his father and marrying his mother, is brought to light. Knowledge possesses the power to catalyse devastation in stages as demonstrated through Oedipus’ ignorance, his overwhelming curiosity, and his psychological anguish. From the beginning, Oedipus was raised in a legion of lies, believing Merope and Polybus to be his true parents. This cloak of ignorance not only shielded Oedipus from the knowledge of his biological parents, but allowed the prophecy to act as a catalyst for his fleeing of Corinth.

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First, he was blind to the truth about his own life. Oedipus had no idea that his real parents were Laius and Jocasta, he was so blind that he got mad at anyone that would even suggest an idea such as that. As the story went on though, Oedipus could no longer run from the truth; he was forced to open his eyes to the reality and truth of his life. Oedipus killed his father and married his mother; he is the brother to his own kids and the son of his own mother. Oedipus was the one that was causing all of the downfall and bad times in Thebes.

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Oedipus was a tragic hero he was seen as a great man and was king,but he fell to misfortune because of his disability to see past his pride and anger which led to his demise. By not being able to see past his pride and anger Oedipus was not able to to avoid his prophetic destiny. He was blinded by his pride and anger so much that it became his tragic flaw ultimately leading him to his

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Introduction The story of Oedipus the king is gloomy, yet captivating. Going from a child bond around the feet and abandon by the mountainside, to marrying his mother, his story is intriguing. In search of the truth about the prophecy and putting an end to a plague Oedipus, search for king Laius’s killer, did somethings inadvertently, making him a tragic hero. His search for truth in the death of Laius the king, as well as his birth led to the ultimate destruction and downfall of his life.

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Brilliantly conceived and written, Oedipus Rex is a drama of self-discovery. Achieved by amazing compression and force by limiting the dramatic action to the day on which Oedipus learns the truth of his birth and his destiny is quite the thriller. The fact that the audience knows the dark secret that Oedipus unwittingly slew his true father and married his mother does nothing to destroy the suspense. Oedipus’s search for the truth has all the tautness of a detective tale, and yet because audiences already know the truth they are aware of all the ironies in which Oedipus is enmeshed. That knowledge enables them to fear the final revelation at the same time that they pity the man whose past is gradually and relentlessly uncovered to him.

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Oedipus shortly after is escorted away by Creon after realizing that he had slept and procreated with his mother and killed his father. There are many characteristics of Greek tragedy; it always depicts the downfall of a good person who is called the protagonist. In the play ‘Oedipus the King’, Oedipus was the protagonist and soon met his demise at the end of the play by no one

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Everybody everywhere knows who I am: Oedipus. King” (Sophocles 23). His role as king defines him; this is not a mere title, but rather his entire identity. Oedipus is determined to continue being the perfect leader and he will do anything to end the suffering of his people. Thus, as soon as he learns that the presence of Laius’ killer in Thebes is the cause of the plague, he does

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