"Oedipus the King"

Paper Summary:

This paper studies the Greek play "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles. The paper attempts to understand the play within the framework of the traditional tragedy. The paper shows how the main characteristics experience a sense of moral dilemmas associated with Oedipus and his mother's tragic demise within the play. Specifically, the paper demonstrates Sophocles' use of tragedy in classical form with his portrayal of deviant family relations and violent instances of madness. The paper also underscores the stylistic elements, in order to elucidate the play's subtext.

Outline:
I. Introduction
A. Traditional Text Analysis
B. Summary of Text
C. Presentation of Text
D. Thesis: Tragedy in Classical Form, Deviant Family Relations, and Violent Instances in Tragedy
II. Critique
A. Tragedy in Classical Form
B. Deviant Family Relations
C. Violent Instances in Tragedy
III. Conclusion
IV. Works Cited

From the Paper:

"The first stylistic theme of using the tragedy as a format is the structure of the characters in the play is easy to be seen. They all seem ignorant of what the other is doing, and this eventually causes the tragic scenes in the play. This forms "the criterion for the tragedy in the textual format of character relations within the plays of Sophocles." (Bloom p.133) By understanding this element of the text, we can see why Sophocles sets a tragic tone by the utter ignorance the characters have of each other. A second point in the stylistic aspects of the text are the pride that causes the characters to act unreasonably. They tend "to refuse the offers of the Oracle of Tiresius," (Jebb p.67) and think they are exempt from this. By adding this sense to the play, we can learn by accepting the destiny handed to Oedipus and his mother, a tragedy will eventually bring them to death and misery."

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