Group Activity – Structure, Character, Action
Oedipus Rex
Prologue
Oedipus, Creon, Priest
Oedipus talks to the priest who is a representative of the people of Thebes. There are conversations.
Oedipus says that he feels their pain and sent Creon to get a prophecy. Creon returns and says that the
city’s luck will improve if they can expel the previous king’s Laios murderer.
Parados
Chorus
The chorus asks the gods to help them end the plague which is taking the lives of innocent people lying
in the streets. Oedipus reenters.
***
Scene I
Oedipus, Teiresias, Choragos
Oedipus announces the punishment for Laios’s murderer. Oedipus and Choragos they discuss that they
aren’t the murderer, and they don’t know who is. They give Oedipus some advice. Send for a
clairvoyant. T. comes in and O. interrogates him about L’s murderer. Who is he?! How?! T. doesn’t want
to tell him at first, but O gets really mad. Eventually, T tells him who and why? (riddles)
Twice, T tells O you are the polluter of the country and that O starts to believe that Creon sent T to O to
lie about him being the murderer.
O will lose his father that day.
Ode I
Chorus
Anger of the gods – strophe 1; speaks what will happen to murderer – antistrophe. T had told O that he
killed the king – strophe; ___ - antistrophe.
***
Scene II
Oedipus, Creon, Jocasta, Choragos
O accuses Creon of being part of plot to overthrow him. Creon says he has no need to do so because he
already has everything. Jocasta enters, and when she finds out about the situation (what O is worried
about), she tells that a guy survived the attack, and she knows where to find him. O sends for him.
Ode II
Chorus
Chorus goes over what’s happened, explaining it for the audience. Basically, at the end, they say if we
continue along this path, the gods will destroy us. Summary of the scene before put into more colorful,
poetic terms.
***
Scene III
Messenger, Oedipus, Jocasta, Choragos
Messenger arrives to tell O that Polybos is dead. O is sad and happy that his father is dead because he
believes that now the prophecy won’t come true (kills father; marries mother). O learns that he was
adopted by Polybos. Jocasta realizes that O is the child that she gave to the shepherd to take to the
mountains so that he wouldn’t murder her husband and marry her. Choragos is there to witness the
exchange. Jocasta left after she realized O is her son.
J doesn’t want to talk about it.
Ode III
Chorus
Chorus wonders how O came to be on the mountain and who his parents are.
***
Scene IV
Oedipus, Choragos, Messenger, Shepherd
Shepherd arrives. O pressures him into telling him about the baby, so O then learns that the shepherd
got the baby from J. He realizes that the baby was him and who his parents really are and that the
prophet at Delphi was right.
Ode IV
Chorus
Chorus sings of O’s fall from being high and mighty to lowest of low. They sing a bit about not knowing
what will happen in your life.
Exodus
Second Messenger, Choragos, Oedipus, Creon
Messenger 2 comes to tell O that J has hanged herself, and then O uses her brooches to stab her eyes
out. Then O and C enter. O asks C to exile him, but first he asks to say goodbye to daughters. After that,
he tells C to take care of them, but sons are old enough to take care of themselves, so he doesn’t have
to worry about them. O leaves to wander the wilderness.
Choragos turns to audience and sums up the message of the story.