Annotation Log: Oedipus the King
As you read Oedipus the King, make annotations using a log on notebook paper. As you
read, mark passages that are evidence of the following themes ideas, motifs, and facts.
For each annotation, mark theme or motif, meaning, page number, and lines.
1. Characterization/Themes:
1. Oedipus has a tremendous passion for discovering the truth about himself. (theme
of self-knowledge)
2. Oedipus is very eager to please the citizens and is generally a good ruler. (theme
of leadership)
3. Oedipus demonstrates sudden, unreasonable rage and is, in this way, not a good
ruler. (theme of leadership)
4. Oedipus has great confidence in human intelligence, especially his own, and
believes that he can control his fate.(theme of human knowledge (limitation)
versus divine knowledge)
5. Creon & Tiresias act as foils to Oedipus (theme of logos/logic versus
irrationality/emotion)
6. The gods maintain supreme power over humans. (theme of fate versus free will)
2.Motifs-recurring images that highlight theme—After finding these, assign each
motif a theme. (Use the themes above as answer choices.)
1. nautical/ship imagery Theme of ________________________________
2. fire and water imagery Theme of ________________________________
3. sight/blindness imagery Theme of ________________________________
4. light/dark imagery
Theme of _______________________________
5. prophecy
Theme of ______________________________
6. fate
Theme of _____________________________
3. Irony-label as either verbal, situational, dramatic—explain irony—give page and
line#
4. Pathos (label as either pity or fear—also label each as character feelings or
audience feelings)
Annotation Log: Oedipus the King
Comment on the following Quotation:
“It is a surprising thing that the tragedy of Sophocles does not call
up indignant repudiation in his audience…For fundamentally, it is
an amoral work: it absolves men from moral responsibility,
exhibits the gods as promoters of crime and shows the impotence
of the moral struggles of men which struggle against crime. It
might easily be supposed that the material of the legend had in
view an indictment of the gods and fate; and in the hands of
Euripides, the critic and enemy of the gods, it would probably have
become such an indictment. But with the devout Sophocles, there
is no question of an application of that kind. The difficulty is
overcome by the pious sophistry that to bow to the will of the gods
is the highest morality, even when it promotes crime.”