Oedipus the King

Introduction

The play “Oedipus the King” is a play based on tragedy, which has been written by Sophocles. This play, first performed in the year 429 BC., was one of the three Theban plays was of Sophocles', and comes in the first place in the internal arts, followed by Colonus and then Antigone (Ramphos, pp. 179). This play called one of the best Greek plays that have been produced up-to date. In the play, Oedipus was a man, who had a number of flaws and his flaws were the main reason for his downfall.

Greek tragedy, befell the fate of men; the feelings of horror and pity that tragedy inspires outweighed by the sense of the fatal. Almost all the classical writers of tragedies claim the concepts of nobility, heroism, beauty and esteemed truths, and uplifting characteristics of the genre. Sophocles frames built its way its themes and characters simultaneously arouse pity and fear, this led Aristotle and other Greek critics to regard him as the greatest writer of tragedies. His Oedipus the King provides a synopsis of tragedy.

Argument

An oracle warned Laius King of Thebes, that he would be assassinated by his own son; determined to avoid this fate, Laius tied the feet of his newborn son and left him to die on a desolate mountain. A pastor picked up the boy and gave him to Polybus, king of Corinth, who gave the name of Oedipus (swollen foot) and adopted it as his own son. The boy did not know he was adopted, and when an oracle proclaimed that he would kill his father, he left Corinth (Sophocles, pp. 55). During his journey, met and killed Laius, believing that the king and his companions were a gang of thieves and so unexpectedly, fulfilled the prophecy.

Believing that King Laius had died in ...