Notes for Oedipus the King by Sophocles
Charters, Ann and others (Eds). (2001). Resources for Teaching: Literature and Its Writers: An
Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Bedford / St. Martin’s: Boston.
Audiences would have been familiar with the general outline of the Oedipus legend. Because of
a prophesy that their son will kill his father and marry his mother, Laius, king of Thebes, and his
wife, Jocasta, pin their newly born son’s feet together and send him to be abandoned in the
mountains. Pitying the infant, the shepherd entrusted with this task gives him to a fellow
shepherd who passes him on to Polybos, king of Corinth, and his wife, Merope. The couple,
being childless, raise Oedipus as their own. In adulthood Oedipus hears the same prophesy
given to Laius, that he will kill his father and marry his mother and, believing Polybos and
Merope to be his parents, leaves Corinth to avoid his fate. On his travels he is forced off the road
by a chariot and treated uncivilly by its occupant. In his anger he kills both servants and
passenger, who is (unbeknownst to him) his father Laius. Oedipus continues on to Thebes,
liberating it from the evil Sphinx by answering her riddle. He is rewarded with marriage to the
widowed Jocasta and becomes king. They have four children together and prosper for some
years until fortune takes a turn. Sophocles begins his play at this point in Oedipus’s life. Thebes
is suffering from a plague, and Oedipus is determined to save the city by uncovering the cause.
Sophocles opens the play with Oedipus at the height of his power. The central action is
Oedipus’s determination to save his city.
Hubris – the Greek word for the kind of pride which makes one feel superior to others.
Sophocles wishes us to consider the moral issues behind human action and to recognize powers
that operate on human affairs. On the surface Oedipus seems to be in conflict with the plague,
then Tiresias, then Creon; but the central conflict of the play is between Oedipus and the gods.
Students may find Tiresias a problematic figure, as we are shown slight motivation for what he
chooses to divulge and when (Why notdenounce Oedipus when he first came to Thebes? Why
not tell him the truth clearly now?). It may help to remember that, as a mouthpiece for the gods,
he may act as inexplicably as they. Oedipus’s rage at Tiresias is partly justified by his noble
determination to learn the truth that Tiresias, at first, refuses to tell.
One of Sophocles’ major contributions to drama was his introduction of a third actor. This
changes the whole dynamic of the play, allowing for far more dramatic interaction between the
various characters. Thus, for example, we can have the Scene 2 confrontation between Oedipus
and Creon interrupted and resolved by Jocasta, and the ironic reunion of the messenger and the
shepherd before the man they had worked to save as an infant and now provide information that
will destroy him. Oedipus can be viewed as an ideal tragedy. Indeed, of all the plays he had
seen or read, Aristotle chose Oedipus as the basis for many of his conclusions concerning the
nature of tragedy. Oedipus is neither a criminal who loses our sympathy nor a saint whose
treatment might lead us to outrage. He is a noble protagonist who encounters misfortune and
brings misfortune on others, as Aristotle suggests, not through “vice” or “depravity” but by
“error and frailty.”