***Literary Terms (Make sure you have all the
following literary terms in your Literary Terms section
of your notebook.)
1. Tragedy: A play in which a main character
suffers a downfall as a result of outside
forces or flaw.
2. Tragic flaw: personality trait that leads to
the downfall of the hero
3. en media res: (Latin for “in the middle of
things”) when the story starts in the middle
of events, flashes back, then picks back up in
real time
4. Hamartia: A flaw within the protagonist or
mistake.
5. Hubris: excessive pride
6. Pathos: the events in a literary work which
evoke feelings of sympathy and pity in a
reader
7. Chorus: a performer or group of performers
whose function is to comment on the action
that has just occurred in a drama.
8. Foreshadowing: clues that hint to what will
happen in a work of literature
9. Dramatic irony: the reader or audience knows
something that a character does not know.
10. Dramatic Irony:
11. Verbal Irony:
12. Situational Irony:
10. Indirect characterization: the writer reveals
information about a character and his personality
through that character's thoughts, words, and
actions
1. Direct characterization: the writer makes direct
statements about a character's personality
Review
1. Summarize how Oedipus came to
the city of Thebes as an adult.
2. How are the people of Thebes
suffering? Why?
3. According to the oracle, how can
the curse be uplifted?
Today’s Guiding Question…
•Is Oedipus cursed
because of fate or
because of flaws?
Instructions
• A sheet of notebook paper, create a chart with
four columns.
• Use the following headings:
• 1st – Tiresias’ accusations
• 2nd – Tiresias’ foreshadowing
• 3rd – Murderer of Lauis
• 4th – Evidence
• You will need multiple rows so draw those as
you go along.
You will have 10 minutes to complete each one!
Find a partner to complete all 4 investigations!
Tiresias’
accusations
Tiresias’
prophecies
Murderer of
King Lauis
Evidence
1. A person with info –
• Exiled but unharmed
• 2. A person who
withholds info-
• Banishment
• 3. Murderer -
• Curse of a painful life
• 1. “You (Oedipus) are the curse, the
corruption of the land! (line 401).
• 2. “I say you are the murderer you
hunt.” (line 347).
• 3.“…you and your loved ones live
together in infamy…” (line 365).
Teiresias’ Prophecies:
1. “I pity you, flinging at me the very insults/each
man here will fling at you soon” (lines 423-24).
(You will be talked about).
2. “…the lash of your mother and father’s curse
will whip your from this land one day...” (lines
476-77). (Exiled)
3. “No man will ever/be rooted from the earth as
brutally as you” (Line 488-89). (
4. “This day will bring your birth and your
/destruction” (lines 498-99).
(Knowledge of parents will destroy
him).
Investigation 3
Teiresias’ Clues Regarding the Murderer
of Laius
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The murderer is in Thebes now.
He is not foreign born but is a native of Thebes.
“A blind man who has his eyes now . . .” (will be
blinded)
“ . . .a beggar, who is rich now . . “ (will lose his
fortune)
He is brother and father to his own children
(guilty of incest)
“…sowed the loins/his father sowed . . . (slept
with his own mother)
“ . . .he spilled his father’s blood. . .” (murdered
his own father)
Is Teiresias
telling the
truth?
• (Give evidence
of whether of
not he is a
credible seer?)
• The Chorus compares
him with the god
Apollo (god of
prophecy).
• Creon recommends
him
• Known all over
Thebes that he has
given correct
prophecies for years.
•
(What
character traits
challenge
Teiresias’
claims?)
• He once saved the
city from a terrible
monster, the Sphinx.
He cares deeply
about his people’s
suffering and pain.