Sophocles' play Oedipus the King

Oedipus declares, "My spirit groans for city and myself and you at once" (Sophocles 13). Oedipus vows to find the bucker and liberate the city from the plague. If Oedipus kills himself, as good as he is, and as inadvertent as his deeds with father and baffle were, then no reality in the city could be said to be shrive of self-condemnation. Of course, this conclusion would include the debatable assumption that all valet de chambre beings are capable of murder if provoked enough at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

When Creon returns from consulting with the Oracle at Delphi, he informs Oedipus that God has prescribed a cleansing of the city. The " solemnity of purification" will be accomplished "by banishing a man, or expiation of blood by blood, since it is murder ungodliness which holds our city in this destroying storm" (Sophocles 14-15).

The gods themselves, then, or the God, seems to clearly be offering a choice of punishments--banishment, meaning exile, or both(prenominal) form of bloodletting, which may or may not be death. In any case, Oedipus go throughs both of those punishments when he goes into exile and blinds himself. eve more significantly, Oedipus fulfills upon himself the judgment he himself calls fo

I command him to tell everything . . . for bitter punishment he shall have none, but leave this land unharmed. . . . But if you shall clutch silence, . . . I debar that man my land . . . and I forbid any to welcome him. . . . I command all to gravel him from their homes, since he is our pollution. . . . Upon the murderer I invoke this curse-- . . . may he wear out his life in misery to abject doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth I pray that I myself may feel my curse (Sophocles 20).

However, when his mother and wife, Jocasta, recounts for him the prophecy which was foretold before Oedipus was even born, the reader can all conclude that it was Oedipus's fate, decreed by the gods who are the origins of prophecies, that he kill his father: "There was an oracle . . . and it told . . .

that it was fate that [Laius] should die a victim at the hands of his own son, a son to be born of Laius and me." However, Jocasta says that the son born was exposed to the elements in such a way that guaranteed his death: "So Apollo failed to fulfill the oracle" (Sophocles 41-42).

The son, Oedipus, survived, however, despite the parents' grue around effort to thwart the oracle, and the oracle was fulfilled, demonstrating further that Oedipus's fate was sealed, no matter what was done to wangle that fate.

Melchinger, Siegfried. Sophocles. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1974.

However, what if Oedipus is seen as a free man, or partially free, and therefore responsible for the murders? He himself considers both god-controlled determinism and individual duty as factors in his crimes: "It was Apollo, friends, Apollo, that brought this bitter bitterness, my sorrows to completion. But the hand that potty me was none but my own" (Sophocles 68-69).

The self-inflicted punishment of Oedipus is an affirmation of the justness of the individual, even if one is controlled by the gods. If individuals do have some freedom, then adhering to the divine and civil law
Ordercustompaper.com is a professional essay writing service at which you can buy essays on any topics and disciplines! All custom essays are written by professional writers!