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| Character | Oedipus | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Angry, Insane, Depressed, Lamenting, Complaining, Frustrated, Reminiscing life story/Telling a story | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Period | Ancient Greek | |
| Genre | Tragedy, Drama | |
| Description | Oedipus curses his fate | |
| Location | End of play | |
Summary
In the background story of Oedipus the King, King Laius, Oedipus' father, learns from an oracle that he will die by the hand of his son. As a consequence, Laius orders his wife Jocasta to kill their infant son. A servant saves the baby and abandons him in the fields where he is found by shepherds who later bring him to Corinth where he is adopted by King Polybus and raised as his own child. One day Oedipus learns from an oracle that he will be responsible for his father's death and that he will marry his own mother. Thinking that his father is King Polybus, he leaves Corinth and heads towards Thebes, the city where he was actually born. By chance he meets his real father and in a quarrel, he kills him. Later he also solves the riddle of the Sphinx, liberating the city of Thebes of her curse. As a reward he becomes king and is offered the hand of Jocasta, his real mother. The prophecy has been fulfilled.
The play starts with a plague, sent by Apollo, hitting the city of Thebes. An oracle says that the plague has been sent by the gods because the murderer of the city's previous king, Laius, has never been caught. Oedipus doesn't know the person that he killed was Laius and therefore he is the cause of the plague.
Oedipus asks a blind prophet, Tiresias, to help him find the murderer. Tiresias knows the truth but refuses to speak, angering Oedipus. He then reluctantly tells him that he is the murderer but Oedipus does not believe him. Jocasta, to appease Oedipus, tells him not to believe in prophets and tells him about the oracle they received years before and never came true and Laius was killed by bandits at a crossroad.
Oedipus begins suspecting the truth, that the man he killed in the quarrel was Laius and eventually the evidence becomes overwhelming. Oedipus goes mad and blinds himself in desperation. In this monologue he curses his fate.
The play starts with a plague, sent by Apollo, hitting the city of Thebes. An oracle says that the plague has been sent by the gods because the murderer of the city's previous king, Laius, has never been caught. Oedipus doesn't know the person that he killed was Laius and therefore he is the cause of the plague.
Oedipus asks a blind prophet, Tiresias, to help him find the murderer. Tiresias knows the truth but refuses to speak, angering Oedipus. He then reluctantly tells him that he is the murderer but Oedipus does not believe him. Jocasta, to appease Oedipus, tells him not to believe in prophets and tells him about the oracle they received years before and never came true and Laius was killed by bandits at a crossroad.
Oedipus begins suspecting the truth, that the man he killed in the quarrel was Laius and eventually the evidence becomes overwhelming. Oedipus goes mad and blinds himself in desperation. In this monologue he curses his fate.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| OEDIPUS What's done was well done. Thou canst never shake My firm belief. A truce to argument. For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes I could have met my father in the shades, Or my poor mother, since against the twain I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone. Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys A parent's eyes. What, born as mine were born? No, such a sight could never bring me joy; Nor this fair city with its battlements, Its temples and the statues of its gods, Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all, Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes, By my own sentence am cut off, condemned By my own proclamation 'gainst the wretch, The miscreant by heaven itself declared Unclean--and of the race of Laius. Thus branded as a felon by myself, How had I dared to look you in the face? Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make A dungeon of this miserable frame, Cut off from sight and hearing; for 'tis bliss to bide in regions sorrow cannot reach. Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never Had shown to men the secret of my birth. O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home, Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called) How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul The canker that lay festering in the bud! Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit. Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen, Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways, Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt, My father's; do ye call to mind perchance Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work I wrought thereafter when I came to Thebes? O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth, And, having borne me, sowed again my seed, Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children, Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood, All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun, Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet. O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me Down to the depths of ocean out of sight. Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch; Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear The load of guilt that none but I can share. |
