Oedipus the King

Prepared by: Dr. Abeer Refky

By:
Sophocles
Prepared by: Dr. Abeer
Refky
 Biography
Sophocles (496 BC– 406 BC)
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• In his Poetics (335 BC), Aristotle outlined the ingredients necessary
for a good tragedy, and he based his formula on what he
considered to be the perfect tragedy, Sophocles's Oedipus the
King.

• According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the

form of a serious story that is complete in itself; in other words, the
story must be realistic and narrow in focus.

• A good tragedy will evoke pity and fear in its viewers, causing the
viewers to experience a feeling of catharsis
("purgation" or "purification“).
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• Aristotle states a tragic hero must be "better than we are," a
man who is superior to the average man in some way.

• In Oedipus's case:
he is superior not only because of social standing, but also
because he is smart. He is the only person who could solve the
Sphinx's riddle:

• The tragic hero must evoke both pity and fear, and Aristotle
claims that the best way to do this is if he is imperfect: a
character with a mixture of good and evil
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• Oedipus is definitely not perfect; although a clever man, he
is blind to the truth and refuses to believe Tiresias's
warnings (a prophet who claims to be able to tell the
future).

• A tragic hero suffers because of his hamartia, a Greek word that is often
translated as "tragic flaw" but really means "error in judgement."

• Often this flaw or error has to do with fate. A character tempts fate,
thinks he can change fate or does not realize what fate has in store for
him.
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• In his search for the truth, Oedipus shows himself to be a
thinker, a man good at unraveling mysteries, especially
about his birth.

• His intelligence is what makes him great, yet it is also what makes
him tragic how?

• His intelligence brought him to Thebes; he was the only man

capable of solving the Sphinx's riddle, which made him the
city’s saviour.
 Oedipus the KinG as Tragedy
• Oedipus’s marriage to Jocasta was the prize for ridding Thebes of the
Sphinx. Thus Oedipus's intelligence is what causes him to commit the
most heinous sins of, i.e. incest.

• In showing stubbornness and excessive pride by killing Laius, Oedipus

also commits regicide, patricide, and becomes the cause of the plight
that has struck the city at the play's opening: religious pollution,
plague.

• Oedipus the King achieves that catharsis of which Aristotle speaks by

showing the audience a man not unlike themselves, a man who is great
but not perfect, who is a good father, husband, and son, and yet who
unwillingly destroys his parents, wife and children.
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• The focus on fate reveals another aspect of a tragedy as
outlined by Aristotle: dramatic irony: the audience knows
the outcome of the story already, but the hero does not,
making his actions seem ignorant or inappropriate in the
face of what is to come. Give examples
• The oracles’ prophecies
• Oedipus’s words cursing the murderer
• Tiresias’s words
• The answer to the sphinx’s riddle
• Whenever a character attempts to change fate, this is
ironic to an audience who knows that the tragic outcome
of the story cannot be avoided.
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• Dramatic irony plays an important part in Oedipus the
King. Its story revolves around two different attempts to
change the course of fate:

• Jocasta and Laius's killing of Oedipus at birth and

Oedipus's flight from Corinth later on to escape the
prophecy which still comes true.

• Each time a character tries to avert the future predicted by the

oracles, the audience knows their attempt is futile, creating
the sense of irony that permeates the play.
Oedipus the King as Tragedy
• Even the manner in which Oedipus and Jocasta express their
disbelief in oracles is ironic:

In an attempt to comfort Oedipus, Jocasta tells him that

oracles are powerless; yet at the beginning of the very next
scene we see her praying to the same gods whose powers she
has just mocked.

Oedipus rejoices over Polybus's death as a sign that oracles

are fallible, yet he will not return to Corinth for fear that the
oracle's statements concerning Meropé could still come true.
 Oedipus the KinG as Tragedy
• The Sphinx's riddle echoes throughout the play, even though
Sophocles never mentions the actual question she asked.

• "what is it that goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at midday,
and three feet in the evening?" Oedipus's answer, of course, was "a
man."

• Oedipus himself proves to be that same man. There is much talk of

Oedipus's birth and his exposure as an infant crawling on four

• Throughout most of the play, he is an adult man, standing on his own

two feet instead of relying on others, even gods.
 Oedipus the KinG as Tragedy
• And at the end of the play, Oedipus will leave Thebes an old
blind man, using a cane.

• Thus, Oedipus is more than merely the solver of the Sphinx's

riddle, he himself is the answer.

• In conclusion, Oedipus is human, regardless of his pride, his

intelligence, or his stubbornness, and we recognize this in his
agonizing reaction to his sin. Watching this, the audience is
certainly moved to both pity and fear: pity for this broken
man, and fear that his tragedy could be our own.