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Oedipus Rex Research Paper

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Prior to the story, Oedipus was a hero to the people of Thebes because of his heroic efforts protecting against the Sphinx. As Oedipus rules as king for a few years after this incident, a curse plagues Thebes, and the leaders of the people come to their King to help with this tragic event. After learning this horrific news from the people, Oedipus sets out to seek a way to lift this ungrateful plague that is on his people. The king then sets his brother, Creon to receive the word from God at the shrine of Apollo on how to lift this curse that was brought onto his people. Later the word was that the curse would be lifted when the murderer of the late king Laius was unveiled and dealt with in the right way. Through many avenues, Oedipus tries …show more content…

"Speak to us all. I bear the pain of everyone, not merely my own" (Sophocles 93-94). From this point, Oedipus was able to summon certain people of importance that would lead to solving who killed Laius, and as well bring out the information in which ones were trying to hold back. Teiresias, a blind man who can see all, spoke great words that brought out the fact that Oedipus was the killer. "I repeat that you yourself are the murderer you seek" (Sophocles 361). Later, Oedipus discovers that his wife, was indeed his mother, and after Jocasta discussed the information, in which she held, went back inside to hang herself. Oedipus, from this point, rushed back inside and pierced his eyes out, to not be able to see anything else that in which does not give him joy after he found out that he was indeed the one who killed his father Laius. "But it was my own hands, no one else's, that blinded me. What need for eyes when there was nothing I could see that gave me joy?" (Sophocles 1331-1333). Finally, Oedipus was very heroic in the end to bring himself to justice for the cruel thing in which was done and went through with the punishment which spoke at the beginning of whoever killed the late king Laius. "I'll go to the peak of Cithaeron- that is the name of the place my mother and father chose for me to die- so that I can

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