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Who Is Oedipus The Most Round Character

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Recommended: Analysis of oedipus character

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is one of the main characters that cares more about himself than anyone else. He puts everyone else’s problems into his perspective to show how his problems are worse. He thinks that since he is king, he has more power over the people of Thebes and has excessive Hubris. Mostly, Oedipus bites his nose off to spite his face just to show everyone else that he is tough and a good king. It is clear that Oedipus is the most round character, that he is constantly changing for the worst, and that he is most likely the king’s killer. Oedipus is one of the most round characters in the story as he goes from changing his view to changing his mood. He mostly is seeking to find a cure throughout the story and it just so happens that he is searching for the killer(s) of the king before him. During this he talks to fortune tellers and people more wise than him. He begins to blame people based on his views of them. Oedipus shows that he does not necessarily care about the people of Thebes when he says, “‘I pity you, children. You have come full longing, but i have known the story before you told it only too well. I know you are all sick, yet there is not one of you, sick though you are, that is as sick …show more content…

He begins to doubt himself as a king but still says he is more wise than others. Oedipus claims he is right, showing that he does not care what others say even if he is wrong.“‘What I have done here was best doneーdon’t tell me otherwise, do not give me further counsel. I do not know with what eyes I could look upon my father when I die and go under the earth, nor yet my wretched motherーthose to whom I have done things deserving worse punishment than hanging.’” (sophocles p. 643). This shows that even though Oedipus is at his wits, he still pushes to show everyone that he is right and that people should not go against his

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This further emphasizes his dominant trait, compassion. Despite being a compassionate person, when Oedipus thinks that Creon collaborated with Teiresias to frame him as Liaos’ murderer, Oedipus says he wants Creon’s death, in which Creon questions Oedipus’ trust in him, and Oedipus questions how he can believe in him and that he isn’t a fool to want to save himself” (Fritt 32-33). Here, Oedipus becomes selfish, which is shown when he is asking for Creon’s death to save himself. This shows that even though he typically is compassionate, when his position as king is at risk, he chooses to be a selfish person to protect his

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Oedipus: Significant or Uninformed? By: Jonathan Hayman Do people really know themselves? This is a question that people ask themselves all the time, and can be a question brought up in your day’s worth of thinking. In the playwright entitled “Oedipus The King” by Sophocles, Oedipus is the main character in the play. He is the classic example of a man whose central problem is that he does not know himself.

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825 Words | 4 Pages

The significant archetypal elements that make up the exciting plot that is Oedipus are the tragic hero, anagnorisis, and hubris. Oedipus is a tragic hero because he starts off as a loved and admired king who later finds that he has killed his father and is married to his mother! Oedipus is blinded by his pride, or hubris, when he doesn’t accept the truth that he has committed a sin and accuses his close friends and family of it. Anagnorisis is when the character realizes that he has made a mistake and that is too late to fix things.

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1103 Words | 5 Pages

Although Tiresias may be blind, he is by no means powerless since he is the sole character that can see past the lies blinding Oedipus. This accentuates Oedipus’ blindness towards the truth and helps the audience fully grasp his personality, and in turn, his ignorance. The confrontation between king and prophet is a critical event that enhances irony in the play. Oedipus consults in Tiresias expecting a solution to rid the plague cast on the city, but he only provides answers that Oedipus doesn’t wish to hear. Instead of respectfully asking Tiresias to elaborate, Oedipus furiously seethed at the prophet: “You have no power or truth.

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Oedipus Tyrannus illustrates that Reason is an elusive concept that humans are often unable to rely on, due to external forces, such as having incomplete knowledge of a situation. Even when humans are able to effectively use reason and have it inform their actions, ultimately it is far less influential and powerful than Fate, and the Will of the Gods. Sophocles characterizes Oedipus as being an extremely likeable and worthy hero. In the first scene of the play, he is shown to care greatly about the people of Thebes, is a caring husband to

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1443 Words | 6 Pages

In Oedipus The King, Oedipus is introduced as a wise king who cares about the well-being of the people as he solved the Sphinx riddle and saved the country. He is praised as “a bird from the god, [he] brought good luck the day [he] rescued [the people]” (Oedipus The King. 61-62). He identifies himself as a good king, and a son of Polybos and Merope. However, during his investigation into Laius’ murderer, he finds out that he is in fact the culprit; “All!

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1294 Words | 6 Pages

After the injustice of banishing Tiresias from Thebes, he blindly continues to seek answers he later regrets to learn. Oedipus has a strong character and wishes to help the town, even at his own costs. The dramatic irony kept building up as Oedipus kept cursing the individual responsible for his

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898 Words | 4 Pages

past. Throughout the play, we notice that Sophocles makes the center of attention Oedipus's family origin, where we can tell that his true identity is still very much so attached to the past. In the forms of dramatic irony, the reader can see that Oedipus displays that he has been living a lie. The boy who didn't know he was adopted, not knowing he killed his own father, and certainly not knowing he was involved in incestuous relations with his own mother. Anger is a trait that King Oedipus definitely possess.

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816 Words | 4 Pages

One major symbol in the play is that Oedipus has scars on his feet from being tied up as a baby which symbolizes he cannot run away from his fate. The reason this is a symbol is because the scars were permanent on his skin, just as his fate was permanent for him, which says he cannot change it or try to escape it. The messenger tells Oedipus, “I was the one who cut the bonds that tied his ankles together” (3. 978). Then, Oedipus tells him, “ I have had those marks for as long as he could remember, (3. 979). They keep going back and forth with one another and slowing explaining to Oedipus what exactly happen and that’s when he starts saying how much he hates the guy who saved him.

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701 Words | 3 Pages

Oedipus proved to be an extremely curious man who was constantly seeking answers, but regardless, when he was told the information he sought by someone else, he always refused to acknowledge it. Oedipus often had the answers he searched for right in front of his face. Yet somehow, he managed to dismiss all of them completely, because he did not like the idea of them. For one, after Creon tried to deny Oedipus’s accusation against him, instead of listening to what Creon had to say, Oedipus chose to ignore it and insult him by telling Creon, he had the, “art glib of tongue, but [Oedipus was] slow to learn from [him]; [as Oedipus] kn[ew] too well [Creon’s] venomous hate” (Sophocles and Storr 547-548).

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898 Words | 4 Pages

In Oedipus Rex, both themes of individual action and fate strongly play and overlap each other and ultimately help in determining the overall destruction and demise of the king, further analysis of the play shows that free will itself and the actions that Oedipus takes determines his own downfall due to flawed characteristic traits that if were happen to not exist would lead to a totally different end product and outcome. Oedipus possesses free will, and even though the Oracle predicted his fate, prophecy, and what he will do, his drive for knowledge and unveiling these prophecies merely helped it all become a reality. Throughout the play, it is evident that Oedipus is not only ignorant and temperamental, but he also goes through life with an impulsive nature and an indefatigable, remorseless, and persistent attitude to find out the truth. Oedipus’s flawed character aspects and traits

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1178 Words | 5 Pages

He believes he has the power to grant prayers. This becomes a flaw to Oedipus because he now believes he has outrun his fate when in reality he already fulfilled his fate. Oedipus is also impulsive, short-tempered, and tends to jump to conclusions. He becomes enraged when Tiresias refuses to share the truth and calls him “scum of the earth” (245). He irrationally accuses not only Tiresias, but also Creon, his uncle, and brother in law.

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820 Words | 4 Pages

Oedipus was destined by a terrible curse by Pelops because of the crime that incurred when Laius committed the crime of rapping the young Chrysippus, son of King Pelops. That curse was to persuade King Laius and to punish him and his lineage to the third child, and his first victim was supposed to be King Laius himself, and was destined to die from the hands of his own son. Tragic is hidden in every death in this play. Like

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Oedipus is a Tragic hero because of the fact that he has a fatal flaw, his hamartia, which can be seen as determination, pride, or anger. Oedipus demonstrates multiple times throughout the play, his hamartia, and we see as it leads him to his ultimate

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In literature, the tragic hero is the character that makes a judgement error which eventually leads to their own tragic downfall. The tragic hero is the one that has everything to lose if they make one little mistake. Every tragic hero has a tragic flaw, which is the trait the hero possesses that leads them down their dreadful path. Sometimes, however, a character’s downfall is not due to the decisions they make, but because of the unfortunate way events happen to play out. In the story Oedipus the King, Oedipus is definitely the tragic hero because he commits a certain action that ultimately destroys him.

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