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Research Paper On Oedipus The King

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Oedipus the King is a tragic play written by Sophocles. The setting is in Thebes during the mythical past of ancient Greece. Oedipus sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to Apollo’s house to ask the priest how to get rid of the plague. Creon later comes back to Oedipus telling him that once the killer of the previous king, Laius, is found Thebes will be cured from the plague.
Oedipus then decides that he shall find Laius, and then proceed to murder him. Oedipus kills
Laius not knowing that Laius is his biological father. A tragic hero is described as a literary character that makes a decision making error that leads to his or her own suffering, destruction, or anxiety. The play, Oedipus the King, considers Oedipus as being a tragic hero because …show more content…
I answered the riddle with my own intelligence” (Sophocles, 1048). Oedipus made the sphinx read the riddle to him. Oedipus answers the riddle correctly and destroys the sphinx. Oedipus destroying the sphinx and getting rid of the plague over the city is another reason why Oedipus is a tragic hero.
When Oedipus was just a baby, Oedipus’s parents sent him away to be murdered.
Towards the end of the play, Sophocles begins telling readers Oedipus’s true birth story. Jocasta ends up marrying Oedipus and bearing his children, not knowing that Oedipus was her son.
Jocasta finds out that she married her son and ends up hanging herself. Oedipus goes crazy and begins to stab out his eyes with two gold pins. Readers see that Oedipus has gone crazy when the prologue says, “You will not see the horrors I have suffered and done. Be dark forever now— eyes that saw those you should have never seen, and failed to recognize those you longed to see”
(HDSCKJ). When Oedipus blinds himself with the two gold pins, readers see another one of
Oedipus’s tragic defects, craziness.
Oedipus the King is a play that is written in order to describe a tragic hero named
Oedipus. Oedipus learns that his entire life was a lie. Oedipus learned that his parents were

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