Oedipus Rex

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the story of Oedipus. It follows his life from the savior of ancient Greece to a banished outcast. The paper also discusses unwritten moral codes in society showing how the ancient Greeks were a peace-loving society with a strong sense that the Gods would guide them and this, the author proposes, is a reason for having no written law, just generally accepted practice.

From the paper;

"Every society has its own laws and the people within that society have morals by which the laws are created. No matter where one goes he or she gets a sense of the people who live there and their moral obligations. Whether the laws are written or not there are always standards by which to live. In ancient Greece the Grecians had no written laws and had no set in stone code of conduct; they did not have one god either. Instead the Grecians lived knowing that the gods were always around them in everything and that if they were to do something wrong the gods would punish them, so in short their moral code was their religion. A Grecian man's wish would have been to have the gods leave him alone for just a moment because for the Grecians it was the gods who held them to such high standards and therefore they did not need a written moral code or law. Oedipus Rex served to illustrate these unwritten unspoken moral codes of conduct by breaking them and thus being banished from the land."

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