Emotions In Oedipus The King

Over the course of a lifetime, humans experience many different types of emotions. They come about by your thoughts. Happiness, excitement and joy are caused by an increase in serotonin levels, and by thoughts of what one considers to be pleasant. Anxiousness, depression and guilt are also emotions humans experience, but they are caused by a drop in serotonin levels. Rage and anger are also among some of the most common emotions that affect humans. It is a psychological feeling described as “ an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong.” (“Anger and Aggression”). There are different types, but they are caused by a triggering situation and, they all have different causes and ways to calm yourself down. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus himself shows signs of, self inflicted anger, volatile anger and chronic anger. Anger in itself is a simple emotion, one

Oedipus himself shows signs of an anger disorder, due to his uncontrollable outbursts. A specific type of anger Oedipus shows is self inflicted anger. Self inflicted anger is caused by guilt, which Oedipus suffers from once he figures out he killed King Laius and slept with his mother and bore her four children. The guilt and disgust gets to be so much oedipus, he gouges his eyes out as a punishment. As he takes Jocasta 's brooches and stabs them into his eyeballs he declares, “You will no longer see all those atrocious things I suffered, the dreadful things I did! No. You have seen those you never should have looked upon, and those I wished to know you did not see. So now and for all future time be dark” (Oedipus Rex). Self inflicted anger in the real world could be acts of self harm, anorexia and bulimia due to the guilt someone may feel. Oedipus’s inflicted anger most closely resembles self harm because he stabs his eyeballs out so they will no longer see anything and remember what he had