...The Oedipus and Antigone As in the story The Oedipus, they “said that their baby would grow up to kill his father”, but the father, Laius King of Thebes, and his mother, Jocasta, ordered their baby too exposed. The infant's feet were pinned together too result in the swollen feet that gave him his name Oedipus. A shepherd had pity on Oedipus and then brought them the baby to the king of the Corinth who had brought him up as to be his own son. When he grew up, Oedipus had heard that a prophecy that he would kill his father and then sleep with his mother, but he didn't know the identity of his real parents, so he headed away from Corinth to sidestep this fate. Then one day had passed and a rude man who he didn't know that was his birth farther and on the road, Oedipus had killed the stranger and then proceeded to Thebes, where then he happened to married the recently widowed believed he was fated to murder Polybus and marry Merope, so left for Thebes. On his way he met an older man and quarreled, and Oedipus had killed the stranger. Oedipus is...
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...Creon has returned from the Oracle at Delphi. He comes back telling Oedipus that the plague that has come upon Thebes will be lifted once the man that killed the former king is banished. The prophecies of the Oracle are an overwhelming theme of Oedipus Tyrannus. This is the question of fate versus free will. Or in the case of the Greeks, it corresponded to how much the gods may have meddled in their lives. At one point, Oedipus and Jocasta talk about whether prophecies from the Oracle at Delphi should be believed or not. During this conversation, Oedipus tells Jocasta about the prophecy he found out when he was young that he would kill his father and sleep with his own mother. Jocasta tells her of a similar prophecy that Laius was told about their son killing him. What is surprising is that Oedipus and Jocasta do not realize the remarkable coincidence about what they just told one another about those prophecies. Either they realize the possibility or they are blinded by the fact that they don’t believe either of those prophecies will come true. Sophocles could be inserting his own beliefs while writing this play. He could be trying to stress to everyone that the prophecies of the Oracle at Delphi are to be taken seriously. What is somewhat paradoxical in the play is that although it feels like Oedipus and his family had their fates pre-determined by the gods, the choices made by Laius, Jocasta and Oedipus themselves led directly to what happened. Was this all a part of some...
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...The Theban Plays are composed of 3 plays all written by Sophocles a Greek tragedian. He was born in 496 BC, and became one the most prominent public figure of his time: elected treasurer and general and grew into one influential writer of Ancient Greece. These plays were all written at different dates and it took him about 4 decades to complete them: Antigone (441 BC), Oedipus Tyrannus (430 BC) and Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC). They all tragedies they were performed in front of thousands of people, all male; they relate the story of King Oedipus and his descendants in Thebes: Oedipus after freeing the city of the sphinx’s curse became a Hero and a King but fall by his past. Murderer of his own father Laius, he then married his mother unknowingly and had four children out his union. The two sons let the crown to their uncle Creon being underage but had a change of mind later on and failed to come with an agreement on who will become the king; this failure was deadly to both, letting the throne to their uncle. However, their death wasn’t created an ongoing problem between Creon and Antigone their sister. A problem which led to her death and resulting to Haemon and Eurydice deaths as well. Throughout these plays, several themes are evoked....
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... Students name: Professor`s name: Course: Date: Antigone Antigone is a tragedy, in this play two key characters, king Oedipus and his daughter Antigone seem to be followed by tragedy and misfortune. Their seemingly innocent and just actions to them initiate a series of unexpected tragic events such as their deaths and those close to them. The tragic misfortunes that Antigone and her father king Oedipus face can in part be attributed to their shared flaws such as; pride, rash decision making, and rebelious attitudes. Their misfortues can however be partly blamed on their seemingly shared dark fate that manifests itself through their actions. Defiant Antigone and her father Oedipus are defiant for both choose to go against oders given by authority figures. In King Oedipus`s case he failed to heed a warning by a revered prophet named Tiresias, not to look for who killed king Laius resulting into a heated exchange between the two with Tiresius saying “this day will bring your birth and destruction”. Due to his defiance he later finds out that he is the killer and this leads to his downfall and death. Defiance can also be seen as the reason that led to Oedipus killing his father as he refused to let King Laius go first where the three roads crossed each other wanting to go first instead, and when King Laius`s chariot proceded first in an act of defiance Oedipus killed him. Like her father Antigone defies the order by king Creon requiring that nobody performs burial...
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...Oedipus Rex and Antigone- Sophocles “Oedipus Rex” and “Antigone”, plays by the Greek playwright Sophocles take place in the land of Thebes and have their central ideas as the question of justice. The two plays have several attributes in common and also have some differences. Both plays fall under the tragedy genre where the respective kings, King Oedipus in “Oedipus Rex” and King Creon in “Antigone”, display lack of justice and get punished as a result. In “Oedipus Rex”, King Oedipus displays lack of justice by killing the former king (Laius) and all his servants, except one, mercilessly. He also committed a sin by marrying his own mother. Similarly, King Creon displays lack of justice in the play “Antigone”, by denying the burial of Polenysis and he displays cruelty by being the immediate cause for the death of Antigone, the death of his son and the queen as well. In both plays, the curses on the land of Theses came out of the sins of the respective kings. Fate has a critical role in both plays. In “Oedipus Rex”, King Oedipus knew that he would kill his father and breed children from his own mother. That made him leave Corenth to get rid of his supposedly parents. But the return of Oedipus to Thebes paved the way for the prophecy to occur. In “Antigone”, King Creon couldn’t listen to the words of the blind prophet and paid the price for his ignorance. In the two plays, justice was realized in a similar way; which is through the punishment of the kings who disrespected...
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...It is several years after OEDIPUS was banished from Thebes, the city he once ruled. The play begins in the GROVE OF THE FURIES at Colonus, which is close to and ruled by the great city of Athens. Oedipus is now a sorry sight, blind and hobbled, dressed in rags, led by his daughter ANTIGONE. OEDIPUS tells ANTIGONE that acceptance is the lesson taught by his suffering. He then asks Antigone to find a place for them to rest, and wonders where they are. Antigone recognizes Athens in the distance, though she doesn’t recognize their precise location. But from the landscape she believes they are on holy ground. They decide to rest. A CITIZEN of Colonus approaches and demands that they move from their resting place, because it is holy ground, THE GROVE OF THE FURIES. OEDIPUS responds that this is a sign and that in fact he must not move from this place, which will be his refuge. He asks the citizen to send for the king, THESEUS, and promises that if Theseus does Oedipus a small service, great good will come of it. The citizen leaves. Oedipus prays to the Furies. In his prayer, he says that, in the same prophecy in which the god Apollo foretold Oedipus’s terrible fate, the god also spoke of the grove of the Furies as a place where Oedipus could rest, and where the last chapter of Oedipus’s life would take place. More citizens (the CHORUS) come looking for the stranger who has dared to set foot on the sacred ground of the terrible Furies. When OEDIPUS speaks to them, they tell him he...
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...through their stories of Greek mythology. This is best expressed in the Greek plays and stories such as Sophocles’ Antigone and Oedipus the King. In the story of Antigone and Oedipus theKing, male are predominantly superior to women, yet some of the women in the stories transgressed their roles in society to their own. The roles of women in Greek society were very similar to the roles of women all around the world. Their role in society was to be the care takers and was known as nothing more than a child bearer and object of sex. They were portrayed as weaker and obedient to men. In Sophocles play of Antigone, Antigone’s sister says, "We who are women should not contend with men; we who are weak are ruled by the stronger. . . Pardon me if I obey our rulers since I must" (Sophocles, Antigone 61-66). This shows us how typical women act and believe in Greek society. In Oedipus the King, the inferiority of women is shown through the portrayal of Jocasta, being shown as the weaker sex. As we have learned from history, in these Greek plays, the women were played by men, showing that they did not trust women because of the presumed inability to do so or they believed that they were not mentally capable. This is shown in the line "Go, one of you, and bring the shepherd here. Let us leave this woman to brag of her royal name."(Sophocles, Oedipus the King, 749), as said by Oedipus. This line suggests that women of high power just brag about what they have, even though they are...
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...“Antigone” is a play about struggle and passion. To fully understand the play, the previous plays needs to be understood. Antigone and her sister, Ismene, are the daughters of Oedipus, from the play “Oedipus Rex”. Eteocles takes control of Thebes and his brother Polynices raises an army to attack the city; both are killed in the battle. This is where the story of Antigone comes into play. Creon, Oedipus’s brother in law and uncle (Oedipus married his mother) is now King of Thebes. He issues a decree for Eteocles to be buried but for Polynices to be left where he was killed and not to be buried. He honors Eteocles for defending the city, but leaves Polynices body lying out for the people to see and the dogs to eat. However, as part of Polynices family, it is Antigone’s duty and obligation to bury her brothers, and she does so against the orders of the King. Under Creon’s decree, this places the death penalty upon the stubborn young girl. Creon becomes increasingly stubborn as well, eventually showing hubris, which means immense disrespect and excessive pride, this being his hamartia. He imprisons her alive in a tomb, not knowing that his son, Haemon, who is in love with her, follows them to the...
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...author who wrote many plays. Three of which being a trilogy called The Oedipus Cycle. Within the three plays, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, three characters experience pride in various degrees. Creon and Oedipus, who both exhibit an excessive amount of pride, eventually come to regret the poor choices that they have made because of the trait. Antigone, who exhibits an appropriate amount of pride, is able to use it in order to become more confident when justifying what she thinks is right. Sophocles is able to prove through portraying different degrees of pride and the different outcomes that it causes that pride can either be a good trait or a bad trait. One of the main characters throughout The Oedipus Cycle, Creon, is able to show that excessive pride leads to regret through his actions when he is in power. In the final play of the trilogy, Antigone, Creon becomes a leader who possesses so much hubris that he thinks he knows what the Gods want when it comes to Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, death: Creon: Stop! Must you doddering wrecks Go out of your heads entirely? ‘The gods!’ Intolerable! The gods favor this corpse? Why? How had he Served them? … Is it your senile opinion that the gods love to honor...
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...Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Summary When the play opens, Thebes is suffering a plague which leaves its fields and women barren. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, has sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the house of Apollo to ask the oracle how to end the plague. Creon returns, bearing good news: once the killer of the previous king, Laius, is found, Thebes will be cured of the plague (Laius was Jocasta's husband before she married Oedipus). Hearing this, Oedipus swears he will find the murderer and banish him. The Chorus (representing the people of Thebes) suggests that Oedipus consult Teiresias, the blind prophet. Oedipus tells them that he has already sent for Teiresias. When Teiresias arrives, he seems reluctant to answer Oedipus's questions, warning him that he does not want to know the answers. Oedipus threatens him with death, and finally Teiresias tells him that Oedipus himself is the killer, and that his marriage is a sinful union. Oedipus takes this as an insult and jumps to the conclusion that Creon paid Teiresias to say these things. Furious, Oedipus dismisses him, and Teiresias goes, repeating as he does, that Laius's killer is right here before him - a man who is his father's killer and his mother's husband, a man who came seeing but will leave in blindness. Creon enters, asking the people around him if it is true that Oedipus slanderously accused him. The Chorus tries to mediate, but Oedipus appears and charges Creon with treason. Jocasta and the Chorus beg Oedipus...
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...Oedipus the King and Creon in “Antigone” had many characteristics that led to their downfalls. Both men showed similar characteristics throughout the two stories. Oedipus’s characteristics that led to his downfall and ultimately his death was his pride and determination. Creon’s characteristics that led to his downfall and left him all alone at the end of the story was his pride and stubbornness. These characteristics are not a bad characteristic to have but when you can’t let go of them they will only lead you into a negative direction. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is a very prideful and determined man. His determination to find the killer of King Laius led to a very tragic ending for Oedipus. His pride wouldn’t let him give up on finding the killer and he wouldn’t rest until he did so. Oedipus wife, Jocasta, wants Oedipus to...
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...Antigone Antigone is very much her father’s daughter, and she begins her play with the same swift decisiveness with which Oedipus began his. Within the first fifty lines, she is planning to defy Creon’s order and bury Polynices. Unlike her father, however, Antigone possesses a remarkable ability to remember the past. Whereas Oedipus defies Tiresias, the prophet who has helped him so many times, and whereas he seems almost to have forgotten his encounter with Laius at the three-way crossroads, Antigone begins her play by talking about the many griefs that her father handed down to his children. Because of her acute awareness of her own history, Antigone is much more dangerous than Oedipus, especially to Creon. Aware of the kind of fate her family has been allotted, Antigone feels she has nothing to lose. The thought of death at Creon’s hands that so terrifies Ismene does not even faze Antigone, who looks forward to the glory of dying for her brother. Yet even in her expression of this noble sentiment, we see the way in which Antigone continues to be haunted by the perversion that has destroyed her family. Speaking about being killed for burying Polynices, she says that she will lie with the one she loves, loved by him, and it is difficult not to hear at least the hint of sexual overtones, as though the self-destructive impulses of the Oedipus family always tend toward the incestuous. Antigone draws attention to the difference between divine law and human law. More than any...
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...Lots of people with power do not know how different they truly are without their power. The two plays Oedipus Rex and Antigone by sophocles is about greek tragedy. The main character Creon starts to change from not wanting power to enjoying his power when he gets it. When Creon gets power he starts to become mad with power. When Creon is mad with power he starts to lose all his family. Creon is slowly making his family lives miserable because he wants everyone to obey him causing them to kill themselves. While in Oedipus Rex when Creon did not have so much power Creon is nice and merciful to oedipus even thought he killed the previous king, however, when Creon gets more power and the title of being king in Antigone Creon starts to become selfish and greedy....
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...Dani Kaiser December 3, 2015 3rd period Sadness and Tragedy in Antigone and The Things They Carried Tinged with sadness and tragedy, both Antigone by Sophocles and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien show reactions of characters to tragedies. These great moments of sadness in both books reveal the inner traits of many characters. In Antigone, Antigone reacts to her tragic life. In The Things They Carried, supporting character Mary Anne Bell reacts to the tragedy of war. The way the aforementioned characters acted after these events affirms their real identity. A large part of background needed to understand Antigone can be found in Oedipus Rex. In Antigone, the main character Antigone lives what most would consider a very tragic life. Antigone and her sister are the daughters of Oedipus. Banished from Thebes, Oedipus never got to see his daughters again. Oedipus’ son and Antigone’s brother, Eteocles, takes control of Thebes, and, bitter and angry, his brother Polynices raises an army to march against the city. Both are slain in the ensuing battle. This is where the story of Antigone picks up. Creon, Oedipus’ brother in law and uncle is now King of Thebes. He issues a decree to give funeral honors to Eteocles, but not Polynices. Creon leaves Polynices out as food for animals. As their sister, Antigone feels obligated to bury both of her brothers, and she does so. Antigone’s criminal actions cause Creon to sentence her to the death penalty. Antigone’s tragedy...
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...Throughout time, women have always been thought to be insignificant and less important when compared to men. The role of men in history had always been that they were to handle the dirty work and provide for their family while the women were seen as only an outlet to reproduce more children. In The Oedipus Cycle, the role of women have been portrayed as helpless and owned possessions of men. The statement that Sophocles tries to show in the plays is that women are for more capable to reach the same goals as men and prove the equality of the two sexes. Throughout the two plays, women are seen as unimportant objects. However, women convey a greater deal to society in both stories. Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, portrays the importance of...
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