Obille, Vince Paolo F.

LIT110 / B9

GEO-01 ONLINE ACTIVITY #1

1. How do dramatic irony and the motif of blindness and sight further develop in the
characterization of Oedipus as the truth about the prophecy is unfolded. Copy lines
and line numbers in our text to substantiate your discussion.

- Understanding the story from the start of Oedipus journey he’s already blind by the truth
because he lives with his foster family and as the story progress his blindness of the truth
comes to him but he’s blind by running away from it example of that is the irony line of him
saying to punish the killer of King Laius Now my curse on the murderer. Whoever he is, a
lone man unknown in his crime or one among many, let that man drag out his life in agony,
step by painful step—But the killer is Oedipus himself, also another example of irony and
exposing Oedipus blindness story is that when he mocks Tiresias blindness which also
same with Oedipus as Tiresias predicted that Oedipus will be blinded soon which became
true after he was exposed of the truth that he killed his father and marry his mother just
like the prophecy says

2. Discuss the the power of the gods in the fated destiny of Oedipus. Quote lines and
line numbers to substantiate your explanation.

- The power of the gods in the story is inevitable and can’t be reversed because it is known
that Greek gods are very vengeful and cruel to people who defies them so in the story
Oedipus is the one who’s cursed by the gods as we can see from the line 96-100 as said
by Kreon to Oedipus “Then I will tell what I heard in Delphi in plain words the god
commands us to expel from the land of Thebes an old defilement we are sheltering. It is
a deathly thing, beyond cure; We must not let it feed upon us longer.” In this line we can
see that the gods especially Apollo cursed the land of Thebes for the death of their king
Laios and the curse will only end if the Thebans get their revenge on the murderer of their
king.

3. Why did Sophocles choose to structure his tragedy or story around a powerful king
rather than a common or ordinary man?
- The idea of Sophocles choosing to structure his tragedy around a powerful king in my
opinion is that after all even if we’re commoner or a high-ranking official we still do the
same mistake as a human being which is a very good thing to show to the people because
people think that the kings before are the perfect people who doesn’t commit mistake but
Oedipus Rex shows that even a powerful king is still the same human being just like the
other who make mistakes

4. Reflect on the quotation: “Temper gets you in trouble, pride keeps you there.” What
is your thought on this idea? Have you experience this already? What happened?

- The idea states that never, ever jump into a problem or rather never ever escalate a
problem either it’s small or big without calculating the consequences. It’s true that temper
really gets you in trouble there is a concept of blind rage in which people mishandle their
temper and throw temper tantrums which may cause injuries or death and there is pride
which blocks the people to solve the problem because people think that lowering their
pride into the problem hurts their ego which makes them think that they are weak.
I have experience this already when I was younger and the story was I was being bullied
before because I was a target of bully and there was this one time that they hide my bag
during lunch time and I was unable to eat and I was very angry and punched my classmate
and I did beat him up and broke his nose in the process of anger I feel it was right and I
am strong because I beat him up but in the long run I am the one who lose the situation
because I’m in the premise of the school and violence is not permitted to do even I am not
the one who’s at fault.