Bell Ringer
September 10
• Define the following terms from your blue literature book.
• On page 1058:
• Tragedy, motif, tragic hero, archetype, tragic flaw, catastrophe,
chorus, fate
• On pages 1064 and 1065:
• Classical drama, skene, orchestra, theatron, choragus, myths,
legends, dramatic irony, allusions
Summary of Oedipus Rex
• Oedipus’s parents abandoned him to die because a prophet
claimed that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his
mother.
• Oedipus was adopted and raised in another kingdom with no
knowledge of his actual parentage.
• One day while traveling Oedipus meets a group of people on
the road which are rude and threatening to him; he kills them.
• When Oedipus arrives in a city called Thebes, he defeats the
Sphinx, and the townspeople are so happy they ask him to be
king.
• Oedipus marries the recently widowed queen and vows to
find her husband’s murder.
Summary of Oedipus Rex
• Oedipus finds out he was adopted by his parents.
• Oedipus realizes that he has accidentally killed his father and
married his mother just as the prophecy predicted he would.
• Oedipus’s wife/mother hangs herself before anyone can stop
her.
• Oedipus gouges out his own eyes and lives the rest of his life
in exile at Colonus.
• Antigone, Oedipus’s daughter, stays with him throughout the
rest of his life.
Menoeceus
Laius -----Jocasta
Creon --- Eurydice
Oedipus
Haemon
Polyneices
Eteocles
Antigone
Ismene
Laius-----Jocasta-----Oedipus
Polyneices Antigone
Jocasta-----Oedipus
Eteocles Ismene
Polyneices
Eteocles
Antigone
Ismene