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Aristotle/Plato Oedipus the King

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Submitted By kdymon107
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Karolina Dymon
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Oedipus the King
Aristotle,
In the play Oedipus the King, the city of Thebes is under a plague and many people are dying. Kreon, Oedipus’s brother in law ventures to find an oracle to get some answers on how he can help the city. He finds out that the only way the plague can be stopped is when the murderer of the late King Laius is caught and expelled from the city. King Oedipus vows that he will catch the murderer and help his city. Oedipus sends for a prophet and asks him about the murder. The prophet tells Oedipus that he is the murderer. Oedipus refuses to believe the prophet, before the prophet leaves he says a riddle saying that,” the murderer of Laius will turn out to be both father and brother to his own children, and the son of his own wife.” Oedipus angry at what the prophet has said threatens Kreon with death for conspiring with the prophet and telling lies.
Jocasta, Oedipus’s wife explains to him that all prophesies are false and as proof tells him that the Delphic oracle told Laius that he would be murdered by his son, but his son was cast out of Thebes as a baby and Laius was murdered by a band of thieves. The description of Laius’s murder sounds very familiar to Oedipus and he asks more questions. Shocked, Oedipus tells his wife that he might be the one that murdered Laius. Outside of the palace a messenger approaches Jocasta and tells her that Oedipus’s father has died and that he has come all the way from Corinth to ask Oedipus to come and rule the kingdom. Jocasta and Oedipus rejoice, because the prophecy that said Oedipus will murder his father has not come true. With one half of the prophecy being false Oedipus fears that the other half of the prophecy that says that he would sleep with his mother might have been true. The messenger tells Oedipus that the king and queen of Corinth were not his real parents. He

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