Oedipus Rex: Difference between revisions

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 == Summary ==
-There is a plague in Thebes. Oedipus has sent Creon to find out news from the gods how they can get rid of the plague. When Creon returns, he tells them that Apollo told them to get rid of the murderers of Laius, their first king. Oedipus wants to find out who killed him so they call on the prophet Tiresias. He tells them that Oedipus is the murderer. Oedipus is offended by this nonsense, and after intense arguing, he sends the prophet home. Oedipus then starts arguing with Creon, because he blames him for what has happened. Jocasta enters the room and stops them from arguing. Jocasta tells Oedipus that the prophets told her that her husband would be killed by their child, and the slave told them this did not happen either because he was killed by thieves. Jocasta said her son was only a child, like three years old. While Jocasta is praying, a messenger from Corinth comes and tells her that Oedipus’ father, Polybus, is dead. They first rejoice at this news because it appears that the prophets did not know what they were talking about, because this meant that Oedipus could not be his father’s murderer. Later, the messenger informs Oedipus, that Polybus was no more a father to him than he was. They learn that this man had received Oedipus as a child, from a Shepard. He was a Shepard of Laius. He had been given to him by the queen (Oedipus’s wife; mother) to go and have killed, because the prophets had told her that her child would kill his parents. The Shepard didn’t have the heart to kill a baby, so that’s how Oedipus ended up in Corinth. Oedipus trying to keep from fulfilling the prophecy of killing his parents, left Corinth and ran into Laius on the triple road, and killed him not knowing that this was really his father.
+Oedipus, in Greek mythology, king of Thebes, the son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes. Laius was warned by an oracle that he would be killed by his own son. Determined to avert his fate, Laius pierced and bound together the feet of his newborn child and left him to die on a lonely mountain. The infant was rescued by a shepherd, however, and given to Polybus, king of Corinth, who named the child Oedipus (swollen foot) and raised him as his own son. The boy did not know that he was adopted, and when an oracle proclaimed that he would kill his father, he left Corinth. In the course of his wanderings he met and killed Laius, believing that the king and his followers were a band of robbers, and thus without knowing fulfilled the prophecy.
+Lonely and homeless, Oedipus arrived at Thebes, which was beset by a dreadful monster called the Sphinx. The frightful creature frequented the roads to the city, killing and devouring all travelers who could not answer the riddle that she put to them: What walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening? The answer was a human being, who in infancy crawls on all fours, in adulthood walks upright on two legs, and in old age uses a cane. When Oedipus solved her riddle, the Sphinx killed herself. Believing that King Laius had been slain by unknown robbers, and grateful to Oedipus for ridding them of the Sphinx, the Thebans rewarded Oedipus by making him their king and giving him Queen Jocasta as his wife. For many years the couple lived in happiness, not knowing that they were really mother and son.
-Jocasta began to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and ran off to her room telling Oedipus he should just let it die. Leave it alone. But Oedipus was determined to find out his birthright. Jocasta hung herself, while Oedipus was learning of his cursed destiny, and he took the brooches from her dress and gouged his eyes out. After being blinded, he faced his people and told them to get Creon so that he could be put to death. Oedipus asks Creon to take care of his daughters because he knows that no man would want to marry them. He asks to see his daughters one last time, and then Creon separates them and takes Oedipus to be executed.
+Then a terrible plague descended on the land, and the oracle proclaimed that Laius's murderer must be punished. Oedipus soon discovered that he had unknowingly killed his father. In grief and despair at her incestuous life, Jocasta killed herself, and when Oedipus realized that she was dead and that their children were accursed, he put out his eyes and relinquished the throne. He lived in Thebes for several years but was finally banished. Accompanied by his daughter Antigone, he wandered for many years. He finally arrived at Colonus, a shrine near Athens sacred to the powerful goddesses called the Eumenides. Oedipus died at this shrine, after the god Apollo had promised him that the place of his death would remain sacred and would bring great benefit to the city of Athens, which had given shelter to the wanderer.
 == Character Traits ==