Oedipus Greek Delphic Oracle oracle of Apollo at Delphi place where you could talk to the priest and talk to the gods Thebes is Oedipus birth place and where he ends up in the end Corinth is where Oedipus leaves to escape the oracle s prophecy Moira means fate o Humans fated day to die o Decided at birth by 3 goddesses the Fates Moirai Fate and free will o Fate is determined by your character o Born with a certain character o Character guides actions free will o Character leads to fate Characters o Oedipus Greek hero with 2 mortal parents o Laios King of Thebes o Jocasta Queen of Thebes o First shepherd Thebian servant o Second shepherd messanger o Polybus King of Corinth o Merope Queen of Corinth o Creon Odeipus birth uncle o Sphinxes monsters o Teiresias blind prophet Story 1 Laios and Jocasta are childless 2 Laios and Jocasta go to the Delphic Oracle and ask about having kids a If Laios has a son by Jocasta he will kill the father Laios Jocasta gets pregnant with Oedipus 3 Laios gets drunk and forces himself on Jocasta 4 5 Laios wants to expose the baby because it s said that he will kill Laios 6 Laios pierces the baby s ankles with metal pins 7 Laios gives the baby to a shepherd to expose on a mountain 8 The shepherd doesn t want to let the baby die so he gives the baby to a second shepherd 9 The second shepherd gives the baby to Merope and Polybus 10 Merope names her baby Oedipus a oed swollen and pous foot b because he had the pins in his ankles 11 Oedipus always thinks that Merope and Polybus are his real parents 12 Oedipus is taunted by his peers as a young man saying that he is illegitimate Merope and Polybus are not his real parents he s not the aire 13 Oedipus asks the oracle if he is legitimate 14 Delphic oracle tells Oedipus that he will kill his father and marry his mother 15 Oedipus leaves Corinth so that he will not kill his father and marry his mother to save his parents 16 At the crossroads an old man Laios will not get out of the road 17 Laios hits Oedipus carriage with a stick 18 Oedipus is so mad that he kills everyone except one of Laios servants 19 Oedipus fulfills the prophecy of killing his father 20 Oedipus comes to Thebes and Creon is now the king 21 Sphinx are terrorizing Thebes a Head of a woman body of a lion and wings of a bird 22 Passersby must answer the sphinx s riddle a b What has one voice but four legs then two legs then three legs humans If the passersby can not answer the riddle correctly then the sphinx eats them c The sphinx will leave Thebes when the riddle is solved 23 Oedipus solves the riddle 24 The sphinx jumps to her death because she is so mad the riddle is solved 25 Creon rewards Oedipus with his own kingship and Jocasta Creon s sister and Oedipus mother 26 Oedipus and Jocasta have children together a Sons Eteocles and Polyneices b Daughters Antigone Ismene Oedipus the King Athenian tragedian Sophocles 496 406 BCE o Wrote over 120 plays but we only have 7 Oedipus the King 420s BCE Philosopher Aristotle 384 322 BCE Aristotle uses literary criticism in poetics Aristotle uses Oedipus the King as a model tragedy Hamartia is the mistake made by the hero of a tragedy Oedipus hamartia o He shouldn t have left Corinth o He won t give up trying to find out the truth Anagnoris is the moment of realization for the main character Oedipus anagnoris is when he realizes that he killed his father and married his mother Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more than the characters A chiton is a dress with pins on the shoulders and a belt Themes in Oedipus the King o Knowledge divine vs human Certainty divine Apollo s oracle and Teiresias everything that they say comes true Story Uncertainty human Oedipus and Jocasta humans that criticize divine knowledge even though it s always right o Blindness vs sight Teiresias physically blind but sees the truth Oedipus physically sighted but blind to the truth Becomes physically blind in the end o Knowing seeing and Oedipus name Puns by Sophocles Oed linked to Oida verb I know Idein verb to see o Sexual desire of son for mother o Jealousy of son for father Sigmund Freud suggested the oncept of the Oedipus Complex Freud says that it is the metaphorical meaning of Oedipus the King Freud is missing the point of Oedipus the King o For Oedipus marrying his mother and killing his father was a bad thing and he tries to avoid it Greek historian Herodotus tells of exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias o Hippias has a dream that he s going to have sex with his mother o Thinks the dream is a good thing o Invading Persians to restore him to Athens o Old Hippias loses tooth on the beach so now he does not get to sleep with his mother or because he slept with his mother 1 There is a plague in Thebes 2 Oedipus wants to figure out why this plague is happening in Thebes 3 Creon is sent to Delphi 4 Oracle says that the reason why there is a plague in Thebes is because Thebes is polluted a Thebes is housing a murderer b Get rid of the murderer get rid of the plague 5 The Oracle says that the murderers that killed Laios must leave Thebes 6 Oedipus says that he s never seen Laios 7 Teiresias is summoned by Oedipus 8 Teiresias doesn t want to tell Oedipus but eventually tells him that Oedipus is the murderer 9 Oedipus accuses Teiresias and Creon of trechary trying to overthrow him 10 Oedipus kicks Teiresias out 11 Teiresias tells Oedipus everything a Says that Oedipus is really from Thebes even though it doesn t seem like it b Says that the man in the house is the brother and father of his children 12 Oedipus tells what the oracle says 13 Oedipus says that it won t come true though because his father Polybus died of natural causes 14 Messenger from Corinth says that Polybus is dead 15 Messenger also says that Oedipus is adopted Coincidence 1 this messenger is the one that brought baby Oedipus to Merope second shepherd 16 Messenger got the baby from Thebian servant Laios servant 17 Jocasta realizes that whole truth first a may you never realize who you really are Coincidence 2 the first shepherd is the sole survivor of the attack on Laios 18 The shepherd admits that there was only one murderer of Laios not several 19 Oedipus realizes the truth anagnoris 20 Oedipus finds Jocasta s body hanged a She was wearing a chiton 21 Oedipus blinds himself with Jocasta s chiton pins Jabs the pins in his eyes a b Last thing Oedipus sees are Jocasta s …
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