Pride In Oedipus The King

In Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus the King, the conflict of Man vs. Fate along with values such as pride and determination for the truth present in Oedipus can be witnessed throughout the story.

The conflict of Man vs. Fate is very apparent throughout the story. Prior to the birth of Oedipus, his birth parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes received a prophecy from Apollo’s oracle that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. In hopes to avoid fate the prophecy foretells; Laius and Jocasta send Oedipus with a shepherd servant with orders to leave him for dead on Mount Cithaeron. However, the shepherd servant gave baby Oedipus to another shepherd from Corinth and that led to him being given to King Polybus and Queen Merope of

At the beginning of the tragedy, you see just a bit of Oedipus’s pride when he is addressing the chorus and he states “You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers.” (Sophocles, line 245) It seems to me that Oedipus shows a little of that heightened self-regard mentioned earlier in that line. However, you can more clearly see how prideful he is during his talk with Tiresias. When Tiresias states that Oedipus is the corruption of the land and the murderer he seeks, Oedipus begins to throw insults and accuses him of conspiring with Creon, his brother-in-law, in order to overthrow Oedipus and rule the kingdom. He doesn’t listen to what Tiresias says, he regards the prophets’ statements as futile, obscene, and he speaks in nothing but riddles that are murky and dark. His confrontation with Creon as well shows how steadfast he is when it comes to his character and pride being targeted. Even after Creon defends himself, Oedipus holds that Creon is a traitor, and rather than banish him he wants him dead. When Creon states “What if your wholly wrong?”, Oedipus even replies “No matter-I must rule.” (Sophocles, lines 700-705) It’s only when the chorus intervenes and begs Oedipus to be sensible does he let Creon go. One could say as well that Oedipus’s belief that if he ran away from Corinth, he would be able to avoid the

As he begins to piece together who he is and what he has done, there were many moments where he could have decided to stop. He could have decided he did not want to know anymore when things started to look bad, but he continued until he learned everything. We see just how important knowing the truth about himself is to Oedipus when Jocasta begs him to abandon the search for the truth, and he replies “Listen to you? No more. I must know it all, must see the truth at last.” (Sophocles, lines 1168-1169) You can also see his determination in lines 1180-1190. When Jocasta leaves the room in grief, the leader states that something monstrous may come forth and Oedipus states “Let it burst! Whatever will, whatever must! I must know my birth, no matter how common it may be-I must see my origins face-to-face.” (Sophocles, lines 1183-1185) A few lines down he also states, “That is my blood, my nature- I will never betray it, never fail to search and learn my birth!” To write Oedipus as a character who was fated with something horrendous yet still determined to find out the truth about himself, no matter how ugly it was coming to be, goes to show that truth was a very important value to not only Sophocles but to the culture around him. “Whatever else the Greeks may have valued, they valued the truth. And no truth was of more value to them than the truth about oneself.” (Harkey