Category: Oedipus & Antigone

        Throughout this Greek play Antigone, there is a debate about who the protagonist of this play really is. In my opinion, I believe that Creon, the king of Thebes, is the main character of the story because of the story revolving around him and his overall power and involvement throughout the whole story. As King Creon is powerful and makes the rules, he voiced his opinion several times in almost every situation in a ruthless, ferocious manner. I think that Creon always was the center of attention and was also a very self-centred king who did not value family and used the power he had to his advantage, losing everyone he truly cared about in his life. An example of his aggression and interference is when He gets angry fast and abuses Ismene, who is innocent, calling her many names. For example, he states, “You viper, slinking undetected sucking my life-blood”!This signifies that he is very mean and unjust when dealing with Antigone and her sister Ismene. He also intrudes in a situation where he should have shown kindness towards his family member and had humility and mercy. Therefore, it is evident that Creon was the story’s protagonist and played an enormous role in the entire play.

 

In Antigone it is debatable who is really the “main character” of the play, however, I believe Creon is the main character and this is why. Creon almost perfectly matches Aristotle’s definition of the main character in a tragedy, meaning he is the “tragic hero” of this play. This is supported by the fact that Creon is generally a good ruler and normal person, but his stubbornness and pride ends up overcoming him leaving him to rule all alone. He matches Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero because he didn’t exactly do anything that was inherently bad, an average person would have made the same decision in his situation, but since Creon was kind of the “good guy” in Oedipus you see him as a man with high moral standards and you feel sympathetic for him. So when he is met with defeat, particularly defeated by himself, it seems tragic because of the things that happened to him he didn’t really deserve. To top it all off, Creon’s whole family dies not by his hand, but indirectly because of his actions, all this happens after he sees the higher good and takes back his action saying he will free Antigone, once again this supports Creon being the tragic hero because even though he made the right decision it was too late and the cost of it was heavy. So it leaves the reader with this tragic feeling: what if Creon made a decision earlier? What if Creon listened to Antigone? What if Creon didn’t let his pride blind him? In conclusion, Creon is a great example of Aristotle’s tragic hero, which is- a tragic play would make him the main character, and after reading this play you can really dissect the traits and virtues a tragic hero has.

Loyalty to the state vs. loyalty to family best describes the play Antigone.

First off, one can not fully understand  the pain and experience that led to Antigone had to go through for her to illegally  want to conduct a burial ceremony for her brother Polynices. Before taking sides, we must see both perspectives.

Creon is loyal to the state. He is loyal to Thebes. Antigone is loyal to her family. She is also somewhat loyal to Thebes but the loyalty to her family wins the race by a landslide.

The reason that Creon wanted Polynices body to rot on the earth without a proper burial for him is because Creon has so much pride in Thebes. “These laws— I was not about to break them out of fear of some man’s wounded pride” (Page 82 lines 509-510). This quotation talks about how Creon’s pride in Thebes has been damaged by Antigone’s actions. Even though Polynices had somewhat of a reason to attack the city, Creon ignored that and called him a traitor; and let his body rot on the surface of the earth.

Antigone shows her family pride, and family loyalty by conducting the burial, even with a death penalty if she was caught. I respect her actions but would not do it myself. I would be in despair if I was in the situation but would not conduct the ceremony if there was a death penalty for doing so.

In conclusion, loyalty to the state vs. loyalty to family is the best representation of the play because it is an argument between Antigone, being loyal to her family and Creon, being loyal to Thebes.

Although I had never read Sophocles’ original work for myself, I was already quite familiar with the story of the titular Oedipus, King of Thebes, when I was assigned to read it for English Literature class. Nevertheless, the play still managed to surprise me, particularly in its structure and characters.

The play begins well into Oedipus’ personal narrative. at this point, he has long since defeated the Sphinx by solving its famous riddle, married Queen Jocasta, become King of Thebes, and had several children. This was the first thing that struck me as surprising, as I expected the play to retell the whole story, starting with a baby Oedipus being given to a shepherd on the slopes of a mountain. Instead, the play is structured similarly to a classic whodunnit as Oedipus and Jocasta try to expose the murderer of King Laius.

I found Oedipus’ characterization to be largely consistent. He was represented as a brave and sympathetic man, albeit slightly dull and prone to fits of temper. The same can be said for the other characters prominently featured in the play, them being Jocasta, Creon, and Tiresias.

The role of the Chorus also came as a surprise. Originally, I had assumed that they served as a narrator of sorts explaining the events of the play but never acknowledged by the characters themselves. This was not the case, as they were instead written as a representation as the common people of Thebes, frequently interacting with the named characters.

I was particularly struck by the ending. Once the final twist was revealed, the main character emotionally falls to pieces, and the dialogue is so well written that every word Oedipus spoke felt like a punch in the gut. The conclusion of Oedipus Rex was extremely powerful, and provoked much more of an emotional response from me than I expected of an ancient Greek play.

In Oedipus The King, Sophocles invites readers to question if we control our fate or does fate controls us using Oedipus’s life.
When Oedipus was a prince in Cornith, he was told by prophecies from the gods that he would kill his father and marry his mother one day. (P.216) “Apollo told me once – it is my fate – I must make love with my own mother, shed my father’s blood with my own hands.” Thus, Oedipus tries to avoid the prophecy by leaving Cornith to move to another city named Thebes. But on his way to Thebes, Oedipus suddenly raged and killed a herald and a bunch of men. (P.206) Oedipus – “I killed them all every mother’s son.” Oedipus ended up being the king of Thebes, and from the later part of the play, we know that all prophecies did happen.
After reading this play, I often question if it is Oedipus’ fault for causing these tragic events to him or it is his destiny. From the background story, we know Oedipus wanted to go to Thebes because of the prophecies. He solved the riddle and became the king (P.182) “With no help from the birds, the flight of my intelligence hit the mark.” so was Oedipus actually intelligent or was it just his fate? Besides that, it is Oedipus’ destiny because he still killed his father and married his mother despite his parents and trying to avoid the prophecies by killing him. (P.208) “my son, poor defenceless thing, he never had a chance to kill his father. They destroyed him first.”
I believe or would like to believe that we can control our own fate, but from the play, Oedipus has no control over his own life and destiny even though he tried to avoid it.

Oedipus the king was an interesting play that really expanded my knowledge of ancient Greek life, drama and religion. The whole plot of Oedipus is very disturbing but was nevertheless interesting to read. The play is unlike anything I have ever read before, and is very different from stories I am used to reading. For instance, the choir is a very memorable part of the play because the meaning of the chorus isn’t always easy to understand, and can be very poetic. The characters in the play are well thought out and each have distinct personalities. Oedipus is a great example of this, because by the way he speaks and acts we can see that he is courageous and mostly polite, but has a very short temper and doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way. He likes to be in control of his life, but as we can tell from the prophecy, it seems that he isn’t.

The language was also quite unfamiliar to me. It wasn’t unfamiliar in the sense that I didn’t know the vocabulary being used, but was unfamiliar with the register (high register). The way the characters spoke to each other was very formal – most of the time – and old fashioned. Namely, people refer to Oedipus as “my king” and Oedipus refers to the people of Thebes as “my children”.

One of the biggest thoughts I had while reading this book is how much politics have changed. In the story, everyone bows down to Oedipus (even after certain people basically tell him he murdered Laius). In modern day, it takes a whole lot less than that to ruin someone’s career, especially a political leader.

The play was surprisingly enjoyable to read, and gave me some knowledge of ancient Greek life and drama. For those reasons, overall I liked the play.

Towards the end of story, “absurd” was the most powerful word that rung to me about Oedipus The King. This is most evident in our main character’s suffering, Oedipus. Despite being a hero by challenging the Sphinx attacking Thebes and respected by the citizens, I often finds it hard to believe that a man like him had to go through such great tragedy in his life. Therefore, I firmly believe Oedipus falls into the category of a “tragic hero”.  The play also highlights an important notion of “the truth”. “The truth” can be defined, in the context of this play, as Oedipus’s search for his roots: how he was born and who his true parents was. In this search, Oedipus had prepared himself mentally for what was about to come, but never have expected it was right under his nose: that he killed his father at the crossroads a long time ago and married his mother unnoticed. This has led to his gruesome death at the end of the play. By being exposed to this particular notion, I have realized that “the truth” can be, more often than not, hurtful and unexpected.

I have found this play to connect strongly with a school of thought by Albert Camus, Absurdism. This philosophical school of thought implies that: any search for the meaning of life is meaningless, for we can never know why we exist inherently, therefore, absurd. Again, we can link back to Oedipus’s fate, that he have suffered for no reason.  But when we extend our views broader, this philosophical idea makes more sense than we thought. If we consider the tragedies that happened in our life, we will find that sometimes, things happen for reasons that we can never understand. Despite how much we reason our way through, we will soon to meet the conclusion that things do happen, for no reason at all. Then, what we can really do at those moments of life is, to stare into the deep, endless hole of absurdity itself.

When reading the story Oedipus the King, my feelings and thoughts about this play were always changing. I felt confused or a bit lost at parts where I needed clarity (mostly when the chorus spoke), and I felt intrigued at parts where I was eager to find out how the character would respond to certain events. 

Oedipus, the main character in this story, was a character I had many different emotions towards. I did not like his character and personality because of his arrogance and the way he thought so highly of himself. He definitely had a superiority complex, which caused me to think he was just a self centered and pompous human being. Although arrogant, he did seem considerate and compassionate. He cared deeply for Jocasta and for the citizens of Thebes. He still was attentive to his wife/mother and seemed genuine towards her. Also at times, I did feel bad for Oedipus. I could imagine how devastated he would be when he finally put the puzzle pieces together, but this led me to want to continue on reading to see how he would behave when the truth was finally revealed that he was the murderer. 

I really enjoyed the irony in this story, Sophocles uses this irony to build tension because it makes the audience fully aware of what is going to occur, so they keep wanting to watch/read to find out what happens next. The audience wants to see how the characters will react. The effect of this irony was that it allowed me to have the sensation and satisfaction of already knowing how the story will unfold before the characters do. 

 

 

Oedipus retells Apollo’s words “Death for the father-killer, the curse—…” (pg. 246 Sophocles). Reading this, I couldn’t help but realize the irony of the statement. Apollo was the creator of the prophecy and he is now sentencing him to be killed. The story portrays the cruelty of the greek gods in the way they mold humans to do certain things; only to have them killed. I was slightly perturbed by the use of language, seaming as it was very informal and unlike the time it took place. It is a translation so that does affect the language but even still, I believe that it should sound like older English considering how old the story really is. On the note of age, I was somewhat surprised by the ease in which the story told of a mother and son relationship because it shocked, surprised, and even made me feel uncomfortable to talk about. It leads me to wonder if the times were so different, or if Sophocles was the type of person to think of crooked stories like this. Reading the end of Oedipus the King, it finally dawned on me. Oedipus was a coward, from the start of the story to the end. In the beginning of the story, he gets told that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Instead of facing his parents and telling him what had happened with the oracle, he instead runs away. Oedipus was so caught up in fear, that he failed to realize; his foster parents might not be his real ones. Then again, when Creon accuses him of being the cities downfall, he fights back out of pure fear for his own life. In the end, he begs Creon to spare him and let him live in exile.

The progression of ideas in this story is interesting because of the way the author organized and putted all the events together. The author joined the events by using lots of descriptive language so that the reader can clearly understand what is happening in the story and he also used the Chorus so that it is easier to understand the change of scenes.  It is easy to predict the end of this story, however, the author makes the story interesting by the different scenes, where lots of things are happening to Oedipus but in each scene, there is a different character who interferes with him and his life problems, which all of them are related to the prophecy. What it makes the story complex is that in every scene there is a deeper meaning that made me relate some events from the previous scenes, think about the character’s behaviour or think about what is going to happen next.

While reading the story of this play, I mostly enjoyed the later parts. This is because there was more action and was just more enjoyable to read in general. The majority of the reasons for this was that it was the climax of the story, the form of the paragraphs, and the lack of the “chorus”. Many things were going on. Oedipus was finding out that Polybus was not his father, and he was having a conversation with the messenger and his wife/mother Jocasta. These conversation were from page 216-232.

Character-wise, the only really main character was Oedipus. Throughout the story he was arrogant and a little bit naive as well. In the middle of the story he kept ignoring what everyone else was saying about how Polybus might not be his actual father and that he might have been the killer of Laius. He was brushing off what seemed to be obvious clues and hints. An example of this is on page 184.

Tiresais: ‘…Revealed at last, brother and father both to the children he embrace, to his mother son and husband both– he sowed the loins his father sowed, he spilled his father’s blood!'”

Ever since Oedipus solved a riddle to save the town he ruled, Thebes, he thinks that he is amazing at solving riddles. The irony that  happens during this quote is funny because Oedipus thinks nothing of this.

This story is based in Greece. I would not want to live in this time because there is a lot of killing without guilt. Everybody kills as revenge.

The diction in this play is not formal nor super casual. It is more in the middle. The words are quite simple and easy to understand but the way that they are organized makes them sound more formal.

 

 

Oedipus the King is one of the three Theban plays written by Sophocles. It is about the sad story of Oedipus who is cursed by a prophecy to kill his father and marry his mother. It is full of lots of ironic moments and vile things. I enjoyed this story because it has a main character who does everything he shouldn’t do, and fascinating ancient settings.

 

An example of Oedipus the main character doing something which is the opposite of what he should have done is when Oedipus is told by a seer that he will kill his father and then in the next few pages he does. After being told that he will kill his father he runs away from home instead of talking to his parents who he suspected to not be his parents. The entire reason he went to the seer was because of his suspicion of his parents. This scene filled me with frustration and kept me hooked onto the story.

 

The story also takes place in Ancient Greece. Ancient greece is a place which i’ve never studied and obviously haven’t been to. Oedipus travels to many different cities in the story. Every time he goes to a new place, I imagine what the area looks like and how it was to live in those areas. It’s almost as if I took a tour bus through ancient Greece while reading Oedipus. This encouraged me to read more and find out more about these ancient times.

The story of Oedipus was very disturbing and extremely complicated because of all the emotions displayed. From love, sadness to hatred, disgust and horror. Oedipus was an interesting character who puzzled me the entire play because of the person he was. From the moment the Shepard had saved him from the mountainside and gave him to the King of Corinth, his whole life was just cursed. After all the tragic, terrible events that happened to him, I sympathized for the poor guy and all the terrible encounters he was constantly facing in his life. Just as he thought he was living his life with his love and children, little did he know what his future held. He was given the honour to be a king and help his people, and in an instant, it was all taken from him as if none of it even mattered. This story just shows that in a moment, everything around you can be taken from you. Oedipus had good intentions and intended good. But, in the end, his status was gone, and everything he loved and desired was also taken in one form or another, and he was left as a pathetic, disgraced man. Throughout the story, we start to understand who Oedipus is and his unique traits and how he did indeed actually have good intentions. This reminds me of the fact that sometimes people have good intentions and want to help others; however, life can switch up so fast, and next thing they know, everyone thinks of them as the bad guy when it wasn’t her fault.

This play’s main focus is Oedipus and how his life has played out, and how he is a puppet to the gods. Although Oedipus does some horrible things I can still sympathize for him, he never asked for his life to be a prophecy and never had any way to fix it for himself. He tries his best to fix this throughout the play, this is evident when he runs away from his adopted father and mother when he first learns about the prophecy, unfortunately, this is what led him to kill his father, solving the riddle, marrying his mother, and becoming king. Although he was born into this prophecy he still could have tried harder to avoid it, all he had to do was not kill anyone and not marry a woman who is old enough to be his mother and he then did both of those things very quickly. Oedipus was also very ignorant to the whole situation, he refused to see it for a while like when the blind man came and told him everything that had happened and instead of being calm and trying to understand the situation he lashed out at the man and Creon and even accused Creon of trying to take his place as king of Thebes. I feel like Oedipus has some issues controlling his temper, he would get angry very quickly and act out without thinking it through first. He was very metaphorically blind during almost the whole play, and by the end of it, he had physically blinded himself as his own consequence. 

         Oedipus the King, by Sophocles was, in the beginning, very puzzling to me, because I wondered how anyone in today’s world could relate to the characters in Oedipus in any way. Something that Mr.MacKnight had been hinting at throughout our class discussions. The more I read, however, the more I understood how writing analysts made the comparisons from Oedpius to modern mankind. It’s not common, of course, for someone in today’s world to kill their father and marry their mother along with all the other treachery Oedipus commits, but those are simply exaggerated metaphors for things we do see in today’s world. The largest piece of Oedipus that carries over into the modern era is his infamous stubborn unwillingness to see the truth (ignorance) and short temper. We see subtly this trait in Oedipus throughout the play but a time when it is clear is when Oedipus is speaking to a messenger from Corinth,

Oedipus:  “What are you saying–Polybus was not my father?” Messenger: “No more than I am. He and I are equals.” Oedipus: “My father–how can my father equal nothing? You’re nothing to me!”

From this we can see both his ignorance, as he fails to understand he was adopted, and his fiery temper, as he lashes out at the messenger for simply trying to deliver the truth. I can see this in my life, specifically through one of my friends, who in math class will occasionally get a question wrong and instead of admitting to the mistake and correcting it they will defend their answer, thinking it’s the truth even when it’s not, as well as lashing out often with insults regarding my math. In conclusion many traits of Oedipus, including temper and ignorance can unfortunately be seen in our world today.

The entire play focuses on the main character: Oedipus, starting the search for the murder of his father Laius, which is not present in the thought out the play. Personally, I neither like, or dislike any of the characters, however, I do sympathise Oedipus, as in some ways he is like a “toy/character” cursed by the gods, my feeling could may grow stronger if I know I am in a simulation. Unlike the story/summary we initially read, the play has the part of the timeline in reverse order, an example is the play start with Oedipus call the search of the murder of his father, and the detail slowly unwrapping.The setting, and the time the play written is very different from now, the story, and the tradition in the time example: when a baby is born, and their partner wants to kill/abandon them, they tie the baby, and put them on a mountainside is inhumane, to say the least. The language of the play is very formal, and old-fashion. The tone of the play is registered in a high-register. The play, makes connections to the “big question” that was raised in the recent decade: Are we in a simulation, are we being controlled by someone else like we are in video games? Like Oedipus being cursed by the god.

The story of Oedipus the king is quite disturbing and just downright morbid. Although it is just a Greek tale, I feel sort of sympathetic towards Oedipus despite the things he’s done. Oedipus did not ask for the prophecy that made his life an absolute mess, and I want to feel bad for him because he tried so hard to run away from this prophecy, but you can’t escape your own fate. You can see this happening when he runs away from who he thinks is his mother and father to avoid killing them and bumps into his true father Laius, ending up killing him instead. When he thought he had beat the prophecy becoming the king of Thebes and settling down with his wife, once again the prophecy came for him again. Although it is not the exact same, the way that Oedipus was born into something he didn’t ask for, it reminds me of children that are born into less fortunate circumstances, who may or may not make it out of childhood, and if they do often carry burdens of their childhood that hold them back from achieving greater things in life. I think that’s why I have some sympathy for Oedipus, his story is not directly the same as the others I’m talking about, but the concept of being essentially “screwed” from the day of birth is what I’m trying to communicate. To conclude, I don’t think this story was made with the concept of being “screwed” from birth, but this has been an underlying issue since before the Greeks, and it is still something that happens today, your childhood environment can dictate your life in many ways, just like how Oedipus’ prophecy had dictated his life from birth.