Table of Contents

Literary Elements Setting Character List Conflict Short Summary (Synopsis) Themes Mood Sophocles - Biography Literary/Historical Information Historical Context of the Play Scene Summaries with Notes Prologue and Parados Exposition (Lines 216-462 and First Stasimon (Lines
463-512) Rise in Action (Lines 513-910) Climax (Lines 911-1222) Exodus (The Outcome) (Lines 1223-1531)

Overall Analyses Character Analysis Plot Structure Analysis Themes - Theme Analysis Dramatic Irony Questions Study Questions - Essay Topics - Book Report Ideas

THEMES Major Theme

The major theme explored in Oedipus Rex is that fate and character are intertwined. Oedipus is not only fated to perform such detestable acts but his very behavior (which leads him to doing these) determines his fate. The crimes that he committed against his father and mother were repugnant but not as detestable as that of ignoring the very signs, which could have averted the tragedy. By not paying heed to the oracle or following up on the rumors about his heritage, Oedipus set into motion the fate that was ordained him. His presumption and arrogance about who he was lead to his fall. Sophocles believed that humans have free will yet they are limited by a larger order that controls all things. By going against the larger cosmic order, Oedipus fate was determined. Ultimately, it is Oedipus who chooses his path, the one of ignorance rather than clarity, and in doing so, he must take responsibility for his actions.

Minor Theme
A minor theme is that of self-knowledge as being a key to understanding ones place in the universe. It is only through Oedipus inquiry into his heritage that he discovers the painful truth of who he is and what it means to be human. Although he must abdicate the throne, abandon his family, and destroy his family as well as his sight, Oedipus is given the insight of self-knowledge. His blindness therefore becomes ironic as it is only when he loses his sight that he actually gains the insight into himself he did not have before.

MOOD
The mood of the play from the beginning to the end is of devastation, destruction and gloom. The play opens with Thebes suffering from a severe plague due to an unresolved murder. This mood of suffering and pollution is emphasized as the play proceeds. That the whole kingdom must suffer for the sins of one man reveals how dynamic the universe in Greek tragedy is. Everything is interconnected and vindication must be

sought in order for the kingdom to regain its normalcy. The suffering which begins as a phenomenon in the kingdom eventually concentrates on the pain and suffering of the royal family. The Greeks did not permit comic interludes in tragedies, as they would dilute the effect of the tragedy. In such a case, the ultimate aim of a tragedy, that being catharsis, would become impossible. Therefore, even in Oedipus, there are no comic scenes. The somber, sad, and disturbed mood dominates the entire play

LITERARY ELEMENTS SETTING

The entire action of this classical tragedy by Sophocles is set in the ancient city of Thebes. This setting does not change because unity of place was one of the most important characteristics of Greek tragedies. Thebes is presented as a city in the grip of a crisis. A deadly plague has transformed this city into a barren land. It is against the backdrop of this sterile and desolate land that the tragedy unfolds itself.

CHARACTER LIST Major Characters

King Oedipus The king of Thebes. A man ruled by a fate, according to which he is to murder his father and marry his own mother. Oedipus is unaware of the fact that he has already committed these dreadful acts. He is highly intelligent, short of temper, and impetuous. Jocasta The queen of Thebes. She is Oedipus wife as well as his mother but is as ignorant about the latter fact as is Oedipus. She is a good and loving queen who does not hesitate to speak her mind.

Creon Jocastas brother. He is a responsible and loyal Theban citizen. Judicious, rational, and consistent in nature, he acts as a foil to the more impulsive Oedipus. Tiresias The blind prophet of Thebes, Tiresias has been blessed with immortality. He is the only one in Thebes who is aware of the facts of Oedipus life.

Chorus The Chorus plays a very important role in Greek tragedies by providing background information, commenting on the action of the play and revealing the psychological and emotional tenor of the action. In Oedipus Rex, the chorus is formed of Theban citizens who witness Oedipus tragedy. They are a link between the actors and the audience because they voice the emotions, anxieties and concerns of the people watching the tragedy.

Minor Characters
A Corinthian Shepherd An old man from Corinth, who brings the news of the Corinthian kings death. He is also the man who had presented the infant Oedipus to the Corinthian ruler after he had been abandoned by the Theban shepherd. A Theban Shepherd Another old man who was a confidante of King Laius. He is the sole witness of Laius murder and also the one to hand over the infant Oedipus to the Corinthian Shepherd. Although both these shepherds are minor characters in the tragedy, they do play a major part in unraveling the mystery of Oedipus birth and Laius murder. The two daughters of Oedipus Antigone and Ismene make an appearance in the play although they are not assigned any dialogue.

A messenger, priests, and attendants Other minor characters.

CONFLICT
Protagonist Oedipus, the king of Thebes, is the protagonist of the play. Oedipus is born with a terrible prophecy to kill his own father and marry his mother. To prevent this from happening, Oedipus father orders the baby to be killed but instead he is given to a childless king and queen who raise him as if he were their own. In attempting to deny his fate, Oedipus runs away from who he is and yet ironically ends up in the homeland of his origins, ruling as king and marrying his mother. When he finally realizes the truth of the prophecy, Oedipus must accept his punishment and his limitations as a man. Antagonist The antagonist in this classical Greek tragedy is Fate. The awful fate with which Oedipus is born is his greatest enemy. Despite attempting to flee his fate, Oedipus ends up doing exactly what it predicts and then having to confront the consequences of these actions. Oedipus destiny is engendered by Oedipus own character defects: his temper and impulsive nature and his pride (hubris) as well as his erroneous judgment (hamartia) all contribute to his eventual downfall. These character defects are governed by his fate and in turn aid his fate to take its course towards his destruction. Thus, Oedipus fate as well as his hamartia work as the antagonists in this tragedy.

Climax The character flaws of the protagonist Oedipus work in tandem with fate to take the tragedy to its climax. Oedipus, in his eagerness to solve the mystery of Laius murder and later in order to find the facts about his birth carries out an investigation. His wife and others advise him not to

do so as the results may be unpleasant. But the stubborn Oedipus does not take their advice. The climax occurs at the point when he realizes that fate has played itself out and in his ignorance he has killed his father and married his mother. This realization marks the climax of the play. Outcome The outcome of this climax is that Jocasta, Oedipus mother/wife commits suicide, as she is unable to bear the burden of her abhorrent existence. Oedipus is devastated and blinds himself as a punishment. He only wants to be exiled from Thebes, destroyed and vanquished. Through his pain and suffering, Oedipus is humbled yet he also gains self-knowledge, as he knows who he is and where he is from.

SHORT SUMMARY (Synopsis)

The entire action of the play is set in the city of Thebes, which is in the grip of a deadly plague at the start of the play. The reason for the plague is that Laius murderer has not been punished. Laius was the ruler of Thebes before the present King (Oedipus) and was supposedly killed during a journey by a group of robbers. The gods at Delphi threaten that unless the murderer is caught and tried, Thebes will continue to suffer. This is the background against which the entire drama unfolds. The present king of Thebes, Oedipus, firmly resolves to find the murderer and prosecute him. He prohibits his people from withholding any information about the man in question. He himself curses the murderer. The old prophet Tiresias is also summoned by Oedipus to be consulted over the matter, but his meeting with Tiresias takes an ugly turn. Tiresias refuses to reveal anything to Oedipus because he is aware of the dreadful fact that it is the ignorant Oedipus himself who has murdered Laius and that Laius was Oedipus father and that he is married to his own mother. He prefers to keep silent as he does not want to be the cause of Oedipus ruin. Oedipus, on the other hand, interprets Tiresias silence as treachery. He labels him a villain and a conspirator along with Creon. Later, the angry Tiresias leaves, warning that Oedipus will cause his own ruin.

A confrontation between Oedipus and Creon erupts. Creon is distraught by Oedipus impulsive behavior. As the investigations into Laius murder proceed, the fact that a sole witness is alive comes to light. Oedipus sends for this man, who is an old shepherd. Meanwhile, the plot takes a new turn when a messenger from Corinth brings the news that the Corinthian king Polybus is dead. He asks Oedipus to take up the kingship of Corinth. But, Oedipus expresses his reluctance, as he fears his fate according to which he will marry his own mother. The Corinthian shepherd tries to pacify him by revealing the fact that Oedipus was the adopted son of the Corinthian king and queen. He also states that Oedipus birthplace is in fact Thebes. This twist is significant because Oedipus now wants to find the truth out about his parentage.

Coincidentally, the sole witness of Laius murder is also the man who had handed over the infant Oedipus to the Corinthian shepherd. This man holds the key to the mystery of Oedipus birth. Oedipus persuades him to speak up. Finally this Theban shepherd reveals the horrifying fact that Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta. This crucial moment, when Oedipus realizes the truth about his parentage, is an important feature in any well-made tragedy. This is the anagnorisis or the recognition point. At this stage, the protagonist realizes the truth of a situation, discovers another characters identity or learns an unknown fact about his own self. What follows anagnorisis is peripetia or the reversal, where the opposite of what was planned or expected by the protagonist, occurs. In OedipusRex all the noble intentions of the protagonist to investigate Laius murder lead to his own catastrophic end. A shattered Jocasta commits suicide by hanging herself and Oedipus, unable to see his wretched existence, blinds himself. Oedipus curse falls on himself, and he wishes to leave Thebes. In a pathetic condition, he pleads with Creon to banish him from the kingdom. The play ends with Creons wise words to Oedipus. He says, Seek not to have your way in all things, Where you had your way before, Your mastery broke before the end.

Sophocles - BIOGRAPHY
Chronologically, Sophocles was the second in the triumvirate of great Greek playwrights, the others being Aeschylus and Euripides. Born in 496 B.C. in the rural suburb of Colonus near Athens, he lived there through most of the fifth century B.C. dying in 406 B.C. Though his father, Sophilius, owned an arms factory in Athens, Sophocles showed little or no interest in political and military affairs. Instead, he became well-versed in the competitive rites of Athenian culture, and, as a youth, won prizes in wrestling and music. At age fifteen, he led the Choral paean to celebrate the famous Greek victory over the Persians at Salamis. Sophocles produced his first set of plays in 468 B.C. They were immediately successful, and he was awarded the coveted first place at the Dionysian festival that took place every spring, winning over his own mentor, Aeschylus. He went on to win the first prize on at least 18 to 20 occasions and ranked second several other times. Ironically, his greatest play, Oedipus the King, managed only a second place, perhaps due to biased judging. Sophocles also staged his plays at the henaea, the annual feast of the wine-vats held each January in Athens after 450 B.C. The feast included elaborate processions, rituals, and dramatic contests. Sophocles learned much of his art from Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, but developed his own innovations to Greek drama. He increased the chorus strength from 12 to 15, included the use of painted scenery on stage, and introduced a third actor as a key figure in the play. (Aeschylus sometime used a third actor, but in a rather limited role.) Of the more than 120 Sophoclean plays written over a 60 year span, only the titles of about 110 of them are known. Unfortunately, only seven plays have survived intact into modern times. Their probable chronological order is as follows: Ajax and the Trachiniae/Women of Trachis pre-date Antigone (441 B.C.);Electra and Oedipus Tyranus / Oedipus the King followed; and Philoctetes is safely dated to 409 B.C. His last play Oedipus epi Kotonoi /Oedipus At Colonus was written when he was 90. Parts of his satyr playIchneutae / The Trackers were discovered as recently as 1907. Sophocles had two sons. The first was Iophon, the tragedian, by his legal wife, Nicostrate. Later in life, he had a second son Agathon (father of the younger Sophocles), by his mistress, Theoris of Sicyon. Literary critics

have speculated that his final work Oedipus At Colonus was intended as a retort to his eldest son, Iophon, who during a legal dispute over the family property had accused Sophocles of being senile. To counter this accusation, the great dramatist recited before the court an ode from this play and proved his sanity. The play was produced posthumously on stage by his grandson (also called Sophocles the younger) in 401 B.C., five years after Sophocles death. In fact, Sophocles died just a few months after his great contemporary and fellow-playwright, Euripides, in whose honor he wrote his famous elegiac chorus. On the eve of the Dionysian festival in 406 B.C., Sophocles, with his actors and chorus, appeared in mourning garb (not wearing the usual garlands) and recited it before an audience that was deeply touched by its message. The major part of Sophocles life coincided with the Golden Age of ancient Greece, when it was an undisputed imperial power and a great center of culture and learning. Some of the great contemporary statesmen who ruled Athens in this period of immense prosperity, such as Cimon and Pericles. were friends of Sophocles. Though he was never tempted to seek honors and fortunes in high places, he was twice elected strategos/general, once under Pericles and later with Nicias. As one of the ten generals, he led the Athenian expedition in the Samian war of 441- 438 B.C. He also presided over the Athenian treasury during these battle-stricken years. In 413 B.C., after a failed attempt by Athens to topple Sicily, he became one of the Proubloi (or special commissioners) mainly due to his widespread fame and popularity after writing the play Antigone.

Reliable contemporary reports reveal that Sophocles was charming, handsome, and wealthy. He had a wide circle of friends, among them Pericles and Herodotus, the great historian to whom he wrote a poem. The Greeks regarded Sophocles as a kind of tragic Homer, hailed him as the favorite of the gods, and honored him with state sacrifices long after his death. (This was not only for his great plays, but for the fact that when the cult of Asclepius, god of healing, was introduced in Athens, Sophocles housed the sacred snake, symbolizing the god, until the temple was ready). In his comedy Rogs (405 B.C.), Aristophanes has Dionysius go down to Hades to ask Euripides to remind the people of Athens what Greek drama was. When asked why he did not ask Sophocles, the character says that since Sophocles had been contented among the living, he will be contented among the dead. Phyrnicus, the

ancient biographer, agreed that Sophocles life was happy and that he enjoyed all his faculties to the very end. Aristotle considered Sophocles to be the greatest tragedian. Matthew Arnold, the 19th century poet and critic, praised Sophocles as a man who saw life steadily and saw it whole.

LITERARY / HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Greek Tragedy Although originally stemming from the Dionysia or religious festivals dedicated to Dionysius, the God of Wine, Greek tragedy was solemn, poetic, and philosophic in tone. Plays such as the ones about Oedipus often told the tale of a central character/protagonist who was an admirable but, not necessarily, a perfect person. This individual was often confronted by hostile forces from both outside (the fates or gods) and within (individual free will, pride, etc.). The protagonist often had to make difficult moral/ethical choices in order to resolve these conflicts. If the protagonists struggle ended in defeat or death, the play was labeled a tragedy. Most Greek tragedies were based on myths and, as Aristotle says, were an imitation of an action that was both serious and complete in itself. Tragedies were marked by certain common elements. They consisted of a series of dramatic episodes linked by choral odes, chanted by an on-stage chorus of 12 -15 persons. This chorus often commented on the dramatic action or analyzed, in their own fashion, the pattern of events and the behavior of the central character/characters. They sang, danced, and recited the choral odes and lyrics to the accompaniment of such musical instruments as the lyre or flute (which Dionysus himself is known to have played). The main episodes were performed by, at the most, three actors who could appear simultaneously on stage. Men played both men and womens parts and the three central actors shared all the roles in a play. Masks were worn to depict the kind of characters they represented, such as an aging man or a young woman. The use of masks was a way to surrender or submerge ones own identity -- a principle basic to all Dionysian rituals. For a clearer idea of how Greek tragedy works, one must refer to Aristotles definitive comments given in his great critical treatise about

Greek drama, entitled The Poetics (circa 335 B.C.). It deals with theories of Greek tragedy as seen in the finest plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These principles of classical Greek tragedy have influenced almost all the later tragic dramatists of the Western world. Though modern tragedy often deviates widely from the Greek classical norms, it still acknowledges the universality of Aristotles fundamental concepts, especially his ability to pinpoint those elements in human nature that are, always and everywhere, responsible for tragedy in life. Aristotles View of Tragedy In his Poetics, Aristotle claims that comedy shows man to be worse than what he is in real life. In tragedy, however, man is represented as better than he is in actual life. He defines tragedy as an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in a language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament . . . in the form of action, not narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, and has as its goal a catharsis of emotions. Thus, he identifies six major features of tragic drama: Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, and Melody. For Aristotle the most important part of tragedy is the Plot or Action, which is the structure of the incidents. Plot is the very life-blood of tragic drama. Without action, there can be no tragedy, though it is sometimes possible to have a tragedy without character. Any tragic drama must be long enough to depict a reversal, or a change from good fortune to bad in the central figure. It must be so constituted that all its parts combine to form a unified and organic whole. Character is the second most significant feature; it gives tragedy its moral dimension. The central personage in tragedy must be morally good, of fitting heroic stature, true-to-life, and consistent in action. The change in the fortune of the central figure must be from good to bad, from prosperity and success to adversity and failure. This downfall is often the consequence of a fatal flaw in a character or an error in judgment, which in Greek is called Hamartia. The failure of the tragic hero/heroine is also due to hubris or a false sense of pride in the characters own secure position. The tragic dramatist must choose suitably heroic characters and place them in a well-constructed plot which aims at the imitation of such actions as will excite pity and fear in the audience. These twin emotions are the distinctive effects that tragedy aims to invoke. The downfall of a

noble, well-renowned, prosperous, and basically good person naturally evokes pity for his/her misfortune; it also evokes terror or fear that such misfortunes can easily overtake any human. This leads to an effect of catharsis or purging of the very emotions of pity and terror evoked by tragedy. Because of this catharsis, tragedy has a psychological, as well as a social, dimension since it provides an outlet for undesirable emotions. Aristotle also draws a distinction between simple and complex plots. He states that more profound tragedy ensues when the playwright skillfully manipulates the actions in a complex plot. Complex action achieves its greatest impact through surprises and astounding revelations. The two devices that give tremendous power to the plot are what the Greeks called peripeteia and anagnorisis. Peripeteia is often wrongly translated as a reversal of fortune. More correctly, it refers to a reversal of the situation, where the action turns towards a direction just the opposite of its original course. Anagnorisis refers to recognition of a person/situation. It is a change from a state of ignorance to one of knowledge, which produces hate among the characters and the final downfall of the central character. Such changes shown through Peripeteia/Anagnorisis must be within the limits of probability and produce the effect of dramatic irony. Finally, the element of noble Thought gives to tragedy its proper intellectual point of reference. Diction is the playwrights choice of appropriate phraseology for effective communication or maximum effect. Melodyand Spectacle are useful embellishments in a tragic play and can be quite entertaining for the audience, though sometimes these, especially the element of spectacle, constitute a distraction from the essence of drama. Aristotles theories must not be interpreted as rigid rules since they were merely observations about contemporary Greek drama. Taken too literally, strict adherence to the Unities has often resulted in a stilted, artificial, and rigid drama which Aristotle would hardly have advocated.