Justice Within Oedipus the King Justice is a highly well known term that our society says to be an act of a fairground of the process of equality. In the range of the Oedipus the King, justice as well as injustice, is widely presented throughout several characters and actions of the people. Ultimately, Oedipus himself had given a clear understanding of justice in the midst of his life, which furthermore provides several obstacles that then leads to a moral overview of the following acts that each of the characters possessed. Although Oedipus was given a sense of disadvantages, he was still able to give a reality of objectivity and honesty to himself and his own well-being. Oedipus defines justice by his final and truthful pain. Despite the ideas that people gave him, he made sure to stay strong with his views and morals. He respected his people and desired a longing for equal boundaries. His town was an important factor to his guide for justice. When the truths of his childhood and process of marriage and murder appeared …show more content…
More specifically, Oedipus faced an unknown truth, a task to save his people, and a moment of grief to represent is blind ending. Throughout the events he represented self-justice and an idea that the people were eventually going to respect and understand. As a lifetime of searching became a norm for Oedipus he discovered such a truth that hurt his soul and caused his wife and mother to kill themself. Although obtaining this notion, the king himself took risks that were greatly empowering and laborious. The whirlwind of emotions produced by each of the characters allowed justice to become more real and visual as the end became more authentic than ever before. Altogether, this process of truth and identification arranged an abundance of phenomenon that helped find the meaning of justice as a
In the tragedies, Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus and Oedipus the King and Antigone by Sophocles the idea of defining justice becomes a distinct repetitive theme throughout the plays. Based on the situations pertaining to family relationships Clytemnestra, Oedipus and Electra, define justice through family relationship, while Oedipus, Jocasta and Antigone define justice through personal forms by feeling guilty and sacrificing their own lives. Throughout these family tragedies, a never ending vicious cycle of taking a life for a life is used to avenge others in order to gain justice, which ultimately leads to destruction of family. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra acts in order to achieve familial justice, by avenge her daughter, and as a result destroy her
Oedipus’s duty as King is to resolve any conflicts, including the mystery of the murder of King Laius. His pride takes over, and Oedipus becomes very single-minded. His cynical stubbornness writes the story itself, “Let the storm burst, my fixed resolve still holds, / To learn my lineage, be it ne’er so low. / It may be she will all a woman’s pride /
For Oedipus, his kingdom felt unworthy because he exclaims, “Expel me quickly, purge me far from Thebes” (Sophocles 76). He wanted to leave Thebes for he was the cause of all the suffering. Ultimately Oedipus was ashamed at what he had done to his beloved kingdom. He was the reason Laius and Jocasta died. Due to his ignorance, Oedipus blinds himself because “all that’s sweet has parted from [his] vision” (Sophocles 73).
When one considers that Oedipus’ actions involving his actual parents were unwitting it is easy to see that he is in fact innocent of a true crime and in classical scholar E. R. Dodds’ essay “On Misunderstanding the ‘Oedipus Rex’” he concludes that Oedipus is fundamentally innocent and states “I hope I have now disposed of the moralizing interpretation, which has been rightly abandoned by the great majority of contemporary scholars. To mention only recent works in English, the books of Whitman, Waldock, Letters, Ehrenberg, Knox, and Kirkwood, however much they differ on other points, all agree about the essential moral innocence of Oedipus.” and while details of these other scholars would take too long to explain in a simple essay it is agreeable that the thought of Oedipus’ misfortune being in punishment for unwittingly fulfilling his prophecy is false. However, the consideration that his misfortune is a result of his indifference is indeed a viable explanation and allows for the concept of Oedipus’ life being rectified if only he had listened to his
Oedipus as a king has hubris or excessive pride and sees himself as having superiority over all others. “I thought it wrong, my children, to hear the truth from others, messengers. Here I am myself—you all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus” (Lines 1-6). This sets up the view that exactly from the beginning of the story, Oedipus is worshipped as this highly renowned king. This sets up the dramatic irony that even though Oedipus is praised, the people reciting the story are the ones who along with Oedipus will discover the truth about his life.
Oedipus Rex essay Final draft Oedipus certainly deserved his fate. Oedipus and his actions are clearly disrespect to the gods , he faces the fate he deserves. He was doing things that would eventually lead up to the unfortunate event of his death , he was even warned by the great and wise Teiresias , but he being himself was to stubborn and did not listen. All the things Teiresias said would happen became the truth. He killed his father, married his mother, yet he tempted his fate , he deserved everything that came his way .
He is stubborn in resisting the truth but he still seeks for it and that is his final undoing. Wanting to know the truth is not necessarily a bad thing but it is often the cause for bad things to happen. Oedipus is a key example of this when he finally realizes that he was the one who killed his father when he is faced with his dead wife and mother. He reacts harshly to this, stabbing out his eyes and banishing himself all over again. There is no denying that Oedipus caused a lot of his pain himself with no one else to blame.
With the realization of his demise, Oedipus tries to protect himself from punishment and shame by gouging out his own eyes and exiling himself out to die in the place destiny prevented him from dying originally. After many years of luxurious living, Oedipus’s predestined fate tears his life apart and returns him to the place he should have died as an infant, the mountain. Through the use of, departure, initiation, and return, Sophocles displays the journey of Oedipus. Not only is Oedipus the King evidence of the use of the hero’s journey throughout many famous plays, movies, and books across all cultures and time periods, but it also seen as a perfect tragedy, in which the audience experiences both pity and fear for the main
Oedipus’ past led to him to a destructive fate. King Oedipus’ arrogant personality led him to break had moral law. Moral laws are the standards we set for ourselves, or our belief’s in the way that we should live our lives. For Oedipus, he ran from the thought of his moral laws being broken. His opinion was
As the precise definition of justice cannot be definitively stated, the line separating just from unjust actions is incredibly obscure. Many factors may influence an individual’s perception of what constitutes justice, such as time period, culture, or personal morals. Thus, while an act may be considered righteous in one context, the same act may be ruled unjust in other contexts. For instance, when Odysseus finally returns home to Ithaca, as retribution for defiling his home and attempting to court his wife, Odysseus murders all of Penelope’s suitors. The extremely graphic depiction of his retribution had appeared almost superfluous, causing the morality of his actions to be brought into question.
Introduction The story of Oedipus the king is gloomy, yet captivating. Going from a child bond around the feet and abandon by the mountainside, to marrying his mother, his story is intriguing. In search of the truth about the prophecy and putting an end to a plague Oedipus, search for king Laius’s killer, did somethings inadvertently, making him a tragic hero. His search for truth in the death of Laius the king, as well as his birth led to the ultimate destruction and downfall of his life.
Upon discovering his crimes, Oedipus states, “Apollo, friends, Apollo has laid this agony upon me; not by his hand; I did it. What should I do with eyes where all is ugliness?” (62). His powerful emotional reaction to this revelation again brings up the question of his moral
In Oedipus Tyrannus, Sophocles offers a perfect juxtaposition of the ancient Greek concepts of divine and secular justice, and he does so in a particularly powerful, illuminating, and poignant manner. This juxtaposition warrants an analysis of both the ancient and modern notions of justice. Additionally, as divine justice possesses an ubiquitous nature in the play, it is pertinent to contrast the classical and modern conceptions of divine justice. Furthermore, Oedipus' love for the sovereignty of the individual makes it seem as though he belongs in modernity rather than in ancient Greece, which is why it is also vital to compare classical and modern notions of secular justice.
Oedipus was a tragic hero he was seen as a great man and was king,but he fell to misfortune because of his disability to see past his pride and anger which led to his demise. By not being able to see past his pride and anger Oedipus was not able to to avoid his prophetic destiny. He was blinded by his pride and anger so much that it became his tragic flaw ultimately leading him to his
It is ironic how he talks about what could possibly be his own consequences for his actions. While giving the speech Oedipus says “I pray, too, that, if he should become an honoured guest in my own home and with my knowledge, I may suffer all those things I’ve just called down upon the killers” (Sophocles). Oedipus explains how the suspect will face bad things, and that if the murderer was let into his own house, with his knowledge, he shall be punished for it. The reader can infer that Oedipus may be the culprit considering he may ironically be the “honored guest in his own home.” This can seem like a reasonable outcome considering the reader knows that the position of a king is honorable.