Oedipus

Characters

The major characters are Oedipus, Creon, and Tiresias. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, is completely stubborn. He doesn’t want to listen to Creon or Tiresias about the truth of who he is. Creon, Oedipus’s brother-in-law, is businesslike. When he brings the news from the oracle, he suggests that they should go into a more private place to talk. He also makes a lot of deals to reason with Oedipus’s rage towards him. Tiresias, the blind prophet, is secretive. He doesn’t tell Oedipus his knowledge at first, keeping the truth away from Oedipus.

Events

The first event is when Oedipus and the priest are talking. I think this event is included because it signifies how much the city relies on Oedipus. Since he stopped the plague once, they believe he can stop it again, which shows their faith in their king. When Tiresias is trying to tell Oedipus that he is the cause of the plague, Oedipus snaps back, not believing a single word. I think this shows that Oedipus really doesn’t know how his past connects to the present problems. Also, we get a better insight into Oedipus as a person. COG Blindness is a big idea throughout the reading. Tiresias is literally blind in his eyes, which allows him to “feel all the more what sickness haunts [their] city,” (l. 342 – 343). Oedipus is also blind. Not literally blind like Tiresias, but mentally blind to “the corruption of [his] life,” (471). Truth is another big idea in this section. Throughout this reading, the characters are constantly trying to tell the truth apart from the lies. Oedipus doesn’t think that Creon and Tiresias are being truthful with the prophecy.

Oedipus doesn’t seem to know the truth about his real parents, which is causing him to deny the truth of the prophecy that Creon and Tiresias bring.

Chorus

The chorus is a summary of what happened. Also, the chorus is like the voice of the audience. Near the end of the reading, when the chorus comes in, the chorus and Oedipus seem to have a conversation. The chorus is also trying to convince Oedipus to stop this outrage towards Creon. That reflects the feelings of the audience because we, the audience, feel sympathy for Creon.

Observation and inference

Observation: Oedipus: “I’ll rid us of this corruption. / Whoever killed the king may decide to kill me too,” (157 – 158). Inference: Oedipus doesn’t make any connection between him saving the city and the story that Creon tells. To save Thebes, Oedipus solved the Sphinx’s riddle and in Creon’s story, the Sphinx was the one who told them to forget about the mystery of the death of the king. Oedipus tells Creon that this killer “may decide to kill [him] too,” (158). This proves that Oedipus has no idea that he is involved in the mystery.

A Story Creates a Strong Power: Adichie and King’s Critiques of the Power of the Story, especially the Single Story Many stories matter to our lives and our ways of thinking. A story is the only way to activate part of our brain and then make the listeners turn the story into their own idea and experience (Widrich 4). As we know, our lives and our cultures are composed of many overlapping stories. When we are being told a story, things change dramatically. Once we have heard a story, we may always make it as our own knowledge.

Then we would like to retell this story to others by verbal form, or turn it into a show or a movie. Every time we retell a story, we like to change some details into what we want or the way we understand. As a result, after the story has being retold a thousand times, the story may be changed into a different story. If we take in all the stories we have heard, then we might risk a misunderstanding adventure. Think about that: if our president gives a speech without any researches and just from others’ stories, then how would people think about him. His speech would just be a joke, and will lose credibility.

Therefore, we need to be very careful about the story we heard and the story we are going to tell others, especially if it is a single story. In some cases, the dominant story often becomes a single story, which makes the story be curious and dangerous. Chimamanda Adichie and Thomas King both showed us the importance of the story and the danger of a single story. They showed that the single story makes the differences in people stand out. In Chimamanda Adichie’s Tedtalk, “The Danger of Single Story,” she begins by telling us a story about what she would think about reading a novel as a child.

She would then write stories that were similar to the foreign stories she had read, which contained white skinned children with blue eyes who were nothing like her. Until she found African stories is when she realized that people like her could be in stories (Adichie). Many times, we would feel the same way as Adichie felt. Stories have a power to set us in a dangerous opinion when we are talking about countries, nationalities, religions or any human group. If we hear or read stories about a part of the world, we would tend to perceive that part of the world as the stories describe the whole orld. For example, Chimamanda Adichie eloquently tells us if she had not grown up in Nigeria and if all she knew about Africa were from popular images, she too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves, and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner (Adichie). However, how many of us hold the same definitions and images as Adichie’s story of Africa? Instead, many people continue to be fed the other side of those stories.

Those stories describe Arica as a continent that is full of poverty, disease and the constant fighting. Thus, those stories we receive make us feel certain emotions, like pity, toward the people that live in those places. As Adichie said that stories have been used to “dispossess and to malign but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of the people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity” (Adichie). A story is endowed with a very story power. Adichie also warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

She said that “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story” (Adichie). When hearing a story, the invaluable lesson is that by only hearing a fraction of the truth (whether in the media, in school, or in popular culture), we are creating damaging misrepresentations. The reason is that “when we show people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again and that is what they become” (Adichie). That is the consequence of the single story about a person, place, or issue.

A single story is an incomplete description and it robs people of dignity and emphasizes how different people are. On the contrary, by engaging with all the stories of a person, place, or issue, the trap of a single story can be avoided. Adichie could have looked at the Mexican and the U. S. side of the immigration issue, so she would have balanced the stories and not fallen into the single story trap. Anything we have experienced, we can get others to experience the same. By simply telling as story, the world would plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into people’s mind.

That is the reason why story is very powerful and we all need to be careful about every story. In the Truth about Stories, novelist Thomas King explored how stories identify who we are and how we understand and interact with other people. From personal experiences to creation stories, King illustrate how stories have shaped and continue to shape our societies, as well as our personal mythologies and therefore our choices in life. He begins with the story about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle.

People was been told that the earth was on the back of a turtle and there were infinite turtles below that turtle (King 1). It is a single story for us, but it is also very powerful for us for the reason that we could never forget this story even though it is not reality for some people, while it is a belief for others. “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (King 2), no matter they are fairy tales or nonfiction. A true story shows us our true world; a fairy tale leaves us with the hope that we can create a better world.

King’s mother, for example, was living in an era when women were not welcome in the workforce. After her husband left their family alone, she had to be “visible” and self-supporting as a man. She worked very hard among a man’s world, but she was treated unfair. When she went to her supervisor for an answer on unequal treatment, she was told that if her work was good, she would get promoted at the end of the first year. Then she waited and waited for many years, and that year never came up. However she still believed that “the world as a good place where good deeds should beget good rewards” (King 4) was possible (King 2-4).

It is the story that forced her how her life would be. It is also the story that she believed that gave her hope and energy to fight back the unfortunately life. The truth is that every story is endowed with power. As for King’s father, it was another different story. King never knew why his father left his family, but his brother told their family the truth that his father had another family in another place. King would never forgive his father for deserting him and his family, so he told people that his father was dead.

As King said, “a part of [him] had never been able to move past these stories, a part of [him] would be chained to these stories as long as [he lives]” (King 5-9). This story shows us how stories can control our lives and affect our minds. King was chained to this single story of his father and could not move from it. No matter what reasons or other stories he had been told later as to why his father left him, he would not heal his painful heart. Thomas King warns us that we have to be careful with the stories we tell, and we have to watch out for the stories that we are told. Stories are wondrous thing, and they are dangerous” (King 9). Another example, King compares two creation stories: one Native and one the Christian genesis story. The Native story is very animated and full of dialog. King described in detail how the first woman fell from the sky and created the world by cooperating with other animals. It places us right in the thick of things. The Christian creation story was just told and sterner. However, this Bible creation story has in many ways become the single story. For example, other cultures like mine, we do not think the human was created by Adam and Eve.

We believe in another story about how Pangu opened with body made heaven, earth, moon and stars, and how NuWa used soil and water to create man. Most western people do not know the Native creation story and other cultures’ stories, thus see others as less than the Bible story (King 10-22). “If we believe one story to be sacred, we must see the other as secular” (King 25). We would be less likely to doubt a story that is stranger to us because new things can always attract us and make us feel curious and interested.

Nonetheless, we would not believe sometimes sine the stories we learnt before have already rooted in our mind and can never be replaced. This is the power of a story and how stories create a framework for understanding the world around us. When we tell stories to others that have really helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on them too. The power of stories identifies who we are and who we are going to be, no matter what cultures we have or what religion we believe. We are not born to know everything. All we know is from many stories that have been told over and over again.

The message of seeing a culture or people from many different points of view, or from many different stories, rings true once you spend time actually there in person. We have all experienced this, and might even be unaware of the line between what we believe to be true and what is actually authentic. As educated adults, it is sometimes difficult to get our news from various sources and perspectives. We can seek out stories on-line, speak with people from both sides and analyze issued using various sources to gain understanding of many angles that compose a subject.

We all need to open our eyes and look at the whole picture not the single story, since stories can create power that push us into a dangerous situation. Works Cited Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of the Single Story. ” TED Talk, 2008. King, Thomas. “The truth about Stories. ” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2005. Widrich, Leo. “The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains. ” Communication, what storytelling does to our brains, Dec 5, 2012.

Chosen Plays: Death of a Salesman and Oedipus Rex This essay will not be focusing on the entire play but three dramatic devices use by the two playwrights and in terms of the audience response. Arthur Miller is known as one of the best writers of the post war era and Great depression through his experience with his life at the time, complied some challenging, intriguing work. Biography. com writes “Arthur Miller was an American playwright whose biting criticism of societal problems defined his genius. His best known play is Death of a Salesman”. Death of a Salesman the title alone gives everything away.

The play is entirely filled with lots of element and device such as plot, spectacle, irony and tragedy this is the work of a great piece of work. We will pay attention to plot, irony and tragedy in the play. The play triumphs in keeping the reader and by extension the audience’s attention and intrigue. Taking a scene from the play Act one. Willy while playing a game of cards with his friends Charley, Willy mind wander off to his dead brother Ben. We will take the scene after Linda speaks to him about pawning his watch and he exits, in slippers, to take a walk.

Throughout this scene many thing are revealed. I will pay attention to plot that is reveal in this scene. Plot, according to the Poetics of Aristotle, is the first principle and the soul of tragedy. In this scene the focus is on the complexity of the plot. According the Poetics the things that make a tragedy complex are reversal of situation, Recognition and the scene of suffering (Butcher). We can see the plot in this scene when Biff father mental state to worsen since he return and the financial state of the household is not concreted. Willy is dying and lastly believe that he is trying to kill himself.

Firstly through the little interaction with his father Biff knows that his mind is not well. It is revealed to him by his mother that it gets worse when Biff indicates the he is coming home. It seems a bit manipulative but the intent of her telling him this isn’t shown in this scene. Both sons recognize through the conversation with their mother that William is holding the household together on little or no money. The line said Happy “but I gave you my last…”showed that although he seemed interested in his family he didn’t know the extent of his father’s struggle.

The irony of Willy’s philosophy is that being well liked will get you places and his whole life is based on that “That’s just what I mean…. the man who creates personal interest is the man who gets ahead… Be like and you would never want”, yet he is not well liked. He even admits that he is not well liked to Linda near the middle of the first act. Miller has a very tactful way of writing a great tragedy which included characters that were not larger than life but ones that by all means were true to life.

The scene was filled with suffering which made it a tredgey because Willy Loman is a very proud man and set his mind to understand the period of life that he is living in ,with his traits that pushed him through life. The play itself was realistic and plausible to life that can catch and audience with leaving them with a learning experience and a chance to be in someone else shoes. If we look at Sophocles he is the second best Greek playwright and known best for what he wrote about the play Oedipus Rex, “the mythological figure who proved central to Freud and the history of psychoanalysis”.

His play has audience aware of the outcome of the tragedy with various situation in which dramatic irony play key roles. This is when the audience know before the character the truth. We can say through the use of irony Sophocles manage to avoid retelling an old tale through the audience, they can already predict how the play ends and intrigued by irony present in the play. Sophocles was the first to create that ever exciting paradox of the theatre in which ,knowing perfectly well what will happen, we are yet absorbed in the contemplation of how and why it happens and can watch it time and again as if new and unforeseen (15).

Spectacle is mention Both playwrights Miller and Sophocles plays were tragedy which questioned every aspect of life which would explain why many of the plays were written in a curtain frame both plays holded up there expectations. In terms of audience response it would be a learning experience with life that is pride. It is the same pride and power that blinds us into thinking that things will be okay and you can take on anything which would push one to do a regretting act no matter what the truth would be told sooner or later. The plays were both realistic and plausible so it was easy to grasp and fully understand what was going on. At this time, a Corinthian enters and asks Oedipus to come back to Corinth and rule since his father has died. Afraid of his fate, Oedipus refuses, as he does not want to harm his mother. However, when Oedipus explains to the Corinthian his fate, the Corinthian says that Merope and Polybus were not Oedipus’ real parents and that he had given Oedipus to them as a gift. When he asks where he was found, Oedipus is told that a herdsman had given him to the Corinthian in Mount Kithairon where he used to be a shepherd, and that his feet were tied together.

When the survivor from Laios’ killing enters, the Corinthian identifies him as the man who had given him Oedipus, and the herdsman admits that Jocasta had given him the baby to get rid of it, and that he had thought the Corinthian would take him far away, never to be seen again. As a result of discovering all of the horrible prophecies have been fulfilled, Jocasta hangs herself. Oedipus discovers her body and takes her brooches off her dress and pierces his eyes until they bleed and he blinds himself.

Then, he asks to be exiled from Thebes, which Creon grants, and he leaves to return to his starting place, Mount Kithairon. His daughters, Antigone and Ismene, are left in the hands of Creon, who proves to be a true friend of Oedipus. Work Cited Arthur Miller. Biography. com 18 Oct 2012. http://www. biography. com/people/arthur-miller-9408335 Sophocles . About . com. Ancient/Classical History http://ancienthistory. about. com/od/sophocles/p/Sophocles. htm Arthur Miller. “Death of a Salesman”. Script. Sophocles “Oedipus Rex”. Script

Oedipus Rex the Tragedy Aristotle created elements to prove a story is a tragedy. Aristotle was a philosopher and a scientist. Aristotle wrote his definition of a tragedy twenty years after Sophocles wrote the play Oedipus Rex. The play Oedipus Rex uses these elements. Oedipus Rex uses suitable language, dramatic form, and fear and pity wording throughout the play. Oedipus Rex is a true tragedy according to Aristotle’s prescribed elements. Oedipus Rex includes appropriate and pleasurable language.

Oedipus Rex uses personification. An example is “now I remember, O Healer, your power, and wonder; will you send doom like a sudden cloud, or weave it like nightfall of the past? ” (Sophocles 210). Oedipus Rex uses words that are lyrical and the audience can go along with the chorus. Oedipus states “though fools will honor impious men, in their cities no tragic poet sings” (Sophocles 234). It is powerful because it describes Thebes as honoring Oedipus, but they do not know all of the crimes Oedipus has committed.

A quote like this makes the audience think and wonder about Oedipus and his real character. Oedipus Rex uses powerful, imaginative language to enhance the audience’s theater experience. Oedipus Rex is written in a dramatic rather than a narrative form. When watching or reading this tragedy, the audience needs to think about what the author is trying to say through the character. Everything is written in a harder more complex way. When Oedipus talks about what he will do to the murderer or to whomever is hiding the murder, he is being dramatic.

He describes everything he is going to do in a specific way. This is dramatic irony because Oedipus is the murder. An excellent quote is “listen to me, act as the crisis demands, and you shall have relief from all these evils” (Sophocles 211). This is an exceptional quote because it shows power and command. When the chorus speaks they talk dramatically so the audience can tell what Thebes is feeling. A quote from the chorus states “but no man ever brought—none can bring proof of strife between Thebe’s royal house” (Sophocles 220).

The quote stated before means Thebes is feeling confused on the whole situation. The quote brings out that no one could prove anything and no one could prove the fight or problem in the royal house. Oedipus Rex is written in dramatic form so the audience can experience everything as if they are at the actual scene. Oedipus Rex shows fear and pity throughout the play. Oedipus and Teriresias argue back and forth about the murder of Lauis. Both characters are scared and it is a stichomythia.

Stichomythia is an argument back and forth at a fast pace. Oedipus says in the play “no matter what he fears for having so long withheld it” (Sophocles 211). Oedipus fears for his daughters’ futures, because he believes his crime will cause them to remain unwed. No matter his punishment, death or exile, Oedipus knows he will not be able to ensure a secure future for them. Jocasta wants pity from everyone because she slept with her son and her son killed his father which is her ex-husband.

The audience knows that Jocasta wants pity because she commits suicide. Oedipus Rex has the elements of fear and pity which makes it a true tragedy. The audience can bring to a close from the elements of Aristotle that Oedipus Rex is a tragedy. Oedipus Rex uses proper and enjoyable language throughout the play. The words have a rhythm and flow. The tragedy is written to be acted out to enhance the emotional appeal of the character’s experiences. Oedipus Rex is a dramatic play that has become the model of a tragic drama.

A snake, which weaves itself throughout the veins of a family, spews its fatal venom into capillaries and infecting the soul. The poison of betrayal, despair and the disease of the psyches cloud the mind in both Oedipus Rex and Hamlet. In both instances, all characters fall victim to a shattered world, ripped apart by failed expectancies. Prince Hamlet and King Oedipus both watch as their families become dismembered. There was a pattern of ideals that were violated and corrupt, progressing the plays’ actions.

The helping hands which aided the unraveling of their lives were perverted concepts, everyday characteristics needed to lead a sane life. These corrupt philosophies which color the pages of these plays touch on the ideals of cursed love, crumbled loyalty, a broken family and the virtue of suffering; all of which aid in the destined doom of the characters. Love is golden, pure. It’s the saving grace which sheds light in the darkest of nights. But in our main characters’ stories, it’s part of their downfall. In both novels, love is one of the threads that are snapped.

The tainted, incestuous love of Jocasta and Oedipus Rex helped to prove the prophecy true. It was essentially a mockery of what love is, for they believed it to be true but in the end what they really felt was the love of a mother to her son. Teiresias lays the first seed of their crime, crying to him, “I say thou livest with thy nearest kin in infamy, unwitting in thy shame. ” As the truth unfolds and the couple begins to realize the depth of their sins, the love which they once knew morphs into an ugly, distorted perversion. It resulted in Jocasta’s suicide and Oedipus’s loss of sanity.

The revolting reality that the truth posed was too much for the characters to rationalize. In the case of Hamlet, Ophelia’s rejection only added to the deep depression that already colored the Prince’s mind. Hamlet’s spurned desire caused him to alienate Ophelia, leaving him lonelier and believing that there was no one there for him. As he was contemplating suicide, he includes the “pangs of despised love” as one of the wounds that ravage his mind. Our Prince is angered by Ophelia’s rejection and unleashes his wrath on her, accusing that “God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.

You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. ” His isolation and cruelty left Ophelia reeling and despairing, thus ending with the taking of her own life. Another instance of “incest” was between Claudius and Gertrude. The taboo of their relationship brought about Gertrude’s death and added to Hamlet’s reasons for avenging his father by murdering Claudius. When the cement bonds of family are crushed and ground into dirt, it could cause one to question their life, their worth. All they’ve known vanishes.

Family is the stoic rock that is supposed to support you, be there for you in times of need. As Oedipus inadvertently betrays himself and his family, he spells out the demise of his blood line and all others involved. His family becomes a perversion of what a true one should be, spawned out of betrayal and sin. His realization of his broken family snaps his sanity, crying out, “Then had I never come to shed my father’s blood nor climbed my mother’s bed; the monstrous offspring of a womb defiled, co-mate of him who gendered me, and child. Was ever man before afflicted thus, like Oedipus? because of the God’s will, he kills his own father and sleeps with his mother. He’s fulfilling the prophecy and his destiny, committing taboos that will end up ripping apart the seams of his rational mind. The betrayal of Jocasta and Laius helped the story to progress as well. If they’d never abandoned their newborn son for death, Oedipus might have avoided ignorantly sleeping with his mother and carelessly murdering his father. The cursed King also broke the trust of his people. He alone was the cause of the plague that claimed so many innocent citizens of Thebes.

Oedipus only wasted time and effort trying to search for the culprit when it was he who was the villain, accusing the innocent of treachery and pointing his finger at all the wrong places. The lover’s tryst between Ophelia and Hamlet could be categorized as betrayal as well as spurned love. Hamlet looked to the woman he loved for support in his dark time, but she refused him and sent him away at the advice of her father. He illustrates his sense of deception when he says, “Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.

This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. ” The advice Ophelia received from Polonius to stop seeing Hamlet made the Prince believe that she was just a whore, playing with his emotions. The relationship of Gertrude and Polonius also created a sense of disloyalty for Hamlet. The Queen hardly endured the mourning period of her late husband before diving into bed with King Hamlet’s murderer. Hamlet formulated a distrust for women as a result of his mother’s actions, lashing out at Ophelia exclaiming, “Get thee to a nunnery.

Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. ” Once Hamlet learned that his mother was not only sleeping with the King’s brother, but his murderer as well, the knife of disloyalty cut even deeper. Revenge then began to taint his mind with the realization of this great betrayal. But, the driving force behind the thirst for the death of Claudius came from the broken trust between brothers. As Claudius poured the venom into King Hamlet’s ear, it sealed his own death.

In both Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, the drama revolves around a broken and disjointed family. Your relatives are those you trust, a net to catch you from any treacherous fall. Oedipus tears apart his family as he taints it with murder and incest, incurring his madness and his parent’s demise. He knows that because of his dark deeds, he has set a life for his daughters in which they’ll always be haunted by his actions. His knowledge of this sin makes him spurn himself, “Their father slew his father, sowed the seed where he himself was gendered, and begat these maidens at the source wherefrom he sprang. Jocasta and Laius also aided in the destruction of their family’s foundation when they tried to kill their own son. Oedipus narrates this when he claims, “No, let me be a dweller on the hills, on yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine, my tomb predestined for me by my sire and mother, while they lived, that I may die slain as they sought to slay me, when alive. ” But, destiny won out and punished them for their cruelty, for the prophecy was still fulfilled. In the case of Hamlet, Claudius takes a sledgehammer to the Royal family of Denmark when he kills his own brother.

This action was the spark which ignited the flame that would engulf the entire family. The Ghost of King Hamlet exposes the treachery of his brother, revealing “But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown. ” The loss of his father was the initiating action that commenced Hamlet’s depression and the discovery of Claudius’s role spurs him to consider murdering Claudius. When Hamlet finally avenges his father, he makes his uncle’s broken brotherhood known, “Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, drink off this potion. Is thy union here?

Follow my mother. ” Another family wrecked in the play was Polonius’s family. As a conspirator to Claudius, he received his karma when Hamlet killed him. His action brought down his children as well. He convinced Ophelia to disregard Hamlet’s advances, thus incurring the Prince’s loathing for her and making her commit suicide. Claudius convinced Laertes that Hamlet was sick in the mind, dangerous, and the cause for the death of his family. The actions of the two men brought down this second family, as Polonius’s children were lured into the deceiving web of lies which they had spun.

Like the venom poured into King Hamlet’s ear, another type of poison seethed into the minds of our plays’ characters. These doomed persons both endured torturous suffering of the mind and the heart. In Oedipus Rex, Jocasta couldn’t bear the knowledge of the terrible sins she had committed. In her last despairing words, she cries “O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word I leave thee, henceforth silent evermore. ” Oedipus couldn’t stomach his own tainted self and whatever was left of his corrupted family.

His plea cries for blindness, to blacken all that is sinful, “Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud. Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot, what pangs of agonizing memory? ” But no matter what he does, he cannot escape his sins, even as he stabs his eyes. The suffering of these characters, brought on by the knowledge of what they had committed, was the ultimate weapon which ended them. Our Prince Hamlet was inflicted with the disease of the mind, depression.

It lingered in the corners of his mind, a black cloud which fostered his dark thoughts and wishes to avenge his father and all who has wronged him. Hamlet also questions the validity of living, whether it was worth it. “To be or not to be? ” To live or not to live? He’s outlining his depression in that soliloquy, debating “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take to arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. ” He paints the image of his tired mind set, for “who would be the whips and scorns of time? There is also poor Ophelia, who has cracked underneath her ex-love’s cruel words. “Well, God’ield you! ” She cries in her insanity, “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table. ” She cries her nonsensical words, demonstrating her fragile state of mind. She ultimately becomes so haunted by the stinging words of Hamlet that she cannot bear her life any longer, thus drowning herself. Both of these characters’ sufferings gave rise to their final death.

In the works of Oedipus Rex and Hamlet, the main characters all suffer a tragic end. It’s the themes that permeate the pages which causes their ultimate doom. When a chain of events are set into motion, un-foretold consequences may lurk behind. And so those consequences begin to taint the concepts that we all inherently rely on for a happy life. As human beings, we strive to attain love, to be accepted into one’s heart and to do the same. Accompanying love is the expectancy of fidelity. When Prince Hamlet witnessed the countless deceptions, he lost faith in his fellow man.

Also family, in which there are ties that are stronger than ever, is expected to remain truthful and just to their relationships but this is violated in both plays. As a result, the violation of all the expected concepts brings about the plague of despair that infects one’s mind. At the realization that life isn’t living up to what they hoped for, questions of existence arise. And so these ideals of cursed love, crumbled loyalty, a broken family and the virtue of suffering all spelled out the imminent demise of our poor characters.

Caitlin Lacy AP English Literature 11/12/12 Persuasive Essay Everything happens for a reason. You were born for a reason, there’s a reason you got an F on your math quiz. Everything happens for a reason. Most of the time the reason for something bad happening might not be very clear to you, but it’s there. Everything that happens to you happens because it all leads up to your ultimate fate, you can’t change your fate because for one, you probably don’t know what it is, but if you happened to know, everything you do to prevent it will eventually lead up to it.

Think back to why you got an F on your math quiz, you didn’t study at all. So, you get your quiz back and your teacher asks you to stay after class, after her lecture you walk out of class late and you bump into a guy, long story short, he’s your soul mate and fifteen years later you’re happily married. Imagine if you had studied. It was fate, you weren’t supposed to study. No one is to blame for Laius’s death, not even Oedipus, it was fate, and fate can’t be avoided.

Before reading the play, we’re already aware of Oedipus’s story. We know what his ultimate fate is, so we know what that all of Oedipus’s actions led up to his ultimate fate. One of the first clues we are given is also one of the biggest clues proving that fate can’t be changed. King Laius didn’t kill Oedipus himself, he ordered the shepherd to do it for him. There was no way for Laius to know whether the shepherd would kill the infant or not because he wasn’t present.

Naturally, the shepherd didn’t kill Oedipus because Oedipus was just an infant, and a person with a heart probably wouldn’t kill an infant just because, the shepherd then proceeded to give Oedipus to a messenger who then took the baby to Corinth where Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen. This leads to another clue, which is the fact that Oedipus was raised to believe that the king and queen of Corinth were his biological parents. Had he known they were his adoptive parents he most likely wouldn’t have gone to the oracle to Apollo at Delphi.

The very fact that he went to see the oracle is just another example of fate prevailing. Once Oedipus learned his fate he left Corinth because he obviously didn’t want the prophecy to come true. Fate is the strongest theme in the story, another reason why fate is to blame for King Laius’s death. He had to be killed by his son no matter what; every single action in the play shows that. From the very beginning there was a way around this terrible fate, but Laius lost the chance when he ordered someone else to do his dirty work for him.

Also, Oedipus was a baby at the time so he had no control over what was happening to him, and it would also be ridiculous for Oedipus to be blamed for his father’s death, because he was destined to fulfill this prophecy from before he was even born. If there was no prophecy, and Oedipus had killed his father, then he could be blamed, but there is too much evidence suggesting otherwise. From the way everything plays out you can see that fate is the cause of the whole ordeal. The minute Oedipus found out what he was destined for, he fled Corinth, because, as mentioned before, he believed that his adoptive parents were his biological parents.

If you found out that you were destined for something as terrible was what Oedipus was destined for, you’d probably leave home too. No one who is sane wants to marry their mother and kill their father, Oedipus found out and tried to prevent this from happening, one might argue that his efforts to prevent his fate led to his fate, which is true, but he had no way of knowing that among the men he killed in the road that one of them was his father, and that the woman he married was his mother. “Now my curse on the murderer.

Whoever he is, a lone man unknown in his crime or one among many, let that man drag out his life in agony, step by painful step-“ Oedipus, 280-283. Although this quote is extremely ironic, it shows that Oedipus has no idea he killed his father, and also that he believes that the act was wrong, and that the murderer needs to be punished. We also know that Oedipus murdered his father and his father’s men at a triple crossroad, there were two other roads for Oedipus to follow after killing the men, but for some reason, fate, it happened to be the road that led to Thebes.

Fate, once again. Oedipus, once again, had no way of knowing that he had chosen the path to Thebes, it was just supposed to be that way. At the time of Oedipus’s arrival in Thebes, there was a sphinx keeping people out of the city, anyone who guessed the sphinx’s riddle incorrectly was devoured. Also, Oedipus had already fulfilled half of the prophecy, which meant that he was going to answer the riddle correctly because he had to get to Thebes to be able to wed Jocasta.

Because Oedipus saved Thebes, and because the king was mysteriously murdered, it was custom for Oedipus to marry the widowed queen, it had always been that way and there was no reason for Oedipus to reject her, he had no idea that he was about to marry and have kids with his mother. By this time, the prophecy was then fulfilled, and no one had any idea about it. The prophecy ended here. There wasn’t anything anyone could do anymore. Many years passed and Oedipus came to be one of the greatest kings Thebes had ever seen.

Until the city of Thebes fell under a terrible plague, and everything Oedipus knew went downhill from there. When Oedipus was informed that finding Laius’s murderer would help bring happiness back to Thebes, he was set on it, because he was a good king. “OEDIPUS: From whom of these our townsmen, and what house? ?SHEPHERD: Forbear for God’s sake, master, ask no more. ?OEDIPUS: If I must question thee again, thou’rt lost. (1164-1167)” This exchange between Oedipus and the shepherd shows that Oedipus will stop at nothing to save his people and find the murderer.

It wasn’t fate that led Oedipus to the truth, it was his own determination. He was completely blind to the truth, but when he figured out that all the clues pointed to him, he did something that most people wouldn’t do, he punished himself, he kept his word that Laius’s murderer would suffer, and Laius’s murderer did suffer indeed. He begged Creon to exile him; he gouged his own eyes out. Oedipus might be the one to blame for uncovering the truth, but he definitely isn’t the one to blame for killing Laius, it was set in stone for him, and there was no way around that.