Oedipus The King

- Oedipus: he was given away as a child to be killed. The man who was supposed to leave

Oedipus to die all alone didn’t have the heart to do it so he gave him to this man and lady who couldn’t have children. He later goes to crossroads and kills a man, who he finds out later on was his father. He defeats the Sphinx and is honored for that and crowned king.

He also marries Jocasta, who he later finds out is his wife. He is stubborn and determined to find out who Laius’s killer is. He curses the murderer and puts a horrible fate for them. He is really determined to find out the murderer to save the people and city. He is stubborn and accuses everyone who he questions of the murder. He gets angry when he is told that he, himself is the killer.

Creon tells Oedipus that the curse will be lifted if the murderer of Laius is found and killed. Laius was murdered at a crossroads. Oedipus spends a while trying to the discovery and prosecute Laius’s murderer. Oedipus starts to question a couple of citizens. He questions Teiresias, the blind prophet, and Teiresias informs Oedipus that Oedipus himself killed Laius. This news angers Oedipus, but his wife Jocasta tells him not to believe in prophets because they've been wrong before, or though she thinks. She tells Oedipus about how she and King Laius had a son who was prophesied to kill Laius and sleep with her. She told him that this had never came true, but in reality it did but neither of them knew. Jocasta's story doesn't help Oedipus’s situation because an oracle told Oedipus that he would eventually kill his father and sleep with his mother. Also because Oedipus once killed a man at a crossroads. Jocasta urges Oedipus not to look into the past any further, but he ignores her. Oedipus goes on to question a messenger and a shepherd, both of them have information about how Oedipus was abandoned as an baby and adopted by a new family. Jocasta then realizes that she is Oedipus’s mother and that Laius was his father. Horrified at what has happened, she kills herself. Shortly thereafter, Oedipus, too, realizes that he was Laius’s murder and that he’s

Messing with one’s fate can have devastating results.

Point of View: First person and third person limited

Style: Dramatic Irony

Tone: Disgusted, shocking, and enlighten

Irony:

1. Oedipus is supposedly the savor of Thebes, but a plague happens where crops are not growing and women cannot get pregnant. This is ironic because he is supposed to be the savor when the plague is caused because of him.

2. Oedipus makes fun of Teiresias, who is an old blind prophet, about being blind and having to be carried around when at the end of the story he himself will become blind and will have to have his daughters carry him.

3. Jocasta, Oedipus’s wife, says that he should not believe in oracles because she had one and it never came true. When in reality everything her oracle said was coming true without her realizing it.

Symbolism:

1. The place Oedipus killed his father was where three roads crossed. This is a symbolism because the number three in literature means betrayal and Oedipus betrays his father by killing