How Can Someone Murder His Father
and Marry His Mother…
and Never Even Realize It???
The tragic story behind Oedipus the King
Once upon a time, Laius, the King of Thebes, married
Jocasta, but an oracle warned them not to have a son,
because that son was fated to kill his own father.
Laius, who wasn’t one for
superstition, ignored the warning,
and soon Jocasta had a baby boy.
When the child was born, however, Laius remembered the oracle,
and determined to get rid of his newborn son, pierced his ankles
with brooches or spikes before giving him to a herdsman to
throw him off Mount Cithaeron. The herdsman, however, couldn’t
bring himself to kill the baby, so instead he abandoned him atop
the mountain.
A shepherd found the child and brought him to Corinth, where
the king of Corinth’s wife, Periboea, after healing his ankles,
adopted him and called him Oedipus, because of his swollen feet.
I’ll Call him
“Oedipus”
which
means
“swollen
foot!”
Oedipus grew up in the court of King
Polybus, his adopted father, whom he
assumed to be his biological father.
But when others began making fun of
him for being so unlike his parents, he
began to wonder about his true
identity.
He went to the oracle to ask about his true parents. The Oracle
told him:
“Do NOT go back to your native land
because you are fated to kill your father
and marry your mother!”
This really freaked Oedipus out, so he decided never to return to
Corinth (thinking that was his native land) so that he would not
fulfill the prophesy.
A Tragic Case of Road Rage
On his departure from the Oracle, Oedipus was driving his chariot
on a narrow road.
Laius (Oedipus’s real father) was driving the other way, and the
king’s charioteer ordered Oedipus to give way.
Oedipus refused, and the charioteer killed one of his horses.
Oedipus, in a rage, killed the charioteer and also Laius.
Answer my
riddle or I’ll
eat you!!!
After Laius’ burial, Jocasta’s
brother, Creon, became the ruler of
Thebes.
During this rule, the Sphinx appeared,
destroying the Theban fields and
declaring that she would not depart
unless someone interpreted the riddle
that she proposed, and that, in the
meantime, she would eat and destroy
whoever failed to give the correct
answer.
She said, “Here’s a riddle for you…figure it out!!”
“What has one voice, is fourfooted, three-footed, and twofooted?”
A Reward for Intelligence
Many attempted to answer the Sphinx’s riddle,
because the reward for a correct answer was
great – Creon promised to whoever could solve
the riddle the kingdom of Thebes, and also his
widowed sister, Jocasta, in marriage.
Many men were eaten by
the Sphinx for giving
incorrect answers to the
riddle. However, Oedipus
solved the riddle and the
Sphinx destroyed herself,
as promised. Oedipus
became the King of Thebes,
and married Jocasta (his
biological mother).
Together they had 2
daughters, Antigone and
Ismene.
The Answer
to the
Riddle is….
A Man!!!
And now onto our
play…
Years have passed since
Oedipus killed his father and
married his mother
unknowingly, and the gods are
not happy. A plague strikes the
city, and the gods say that the
city will not be spared until the
corrupt thing is removed.
Oedipus vows to find this
corruption and once again save
Thebes, but little does he
know…the corruption is him.
I’ll drive out the
corruption once
and for all –
who is it?
DRAMATIC IRONY
• A situation in which the audience knows
something that the character or characters
do not.
EX: In a scary movie, the boogeyman is hiding in the
attic, and the audience saw him go up there, but the victim
did not.
Romeo and Juliet – The audience knows Juliet is not
really dead, but Romeo does not, so he kills himself.
Irony in Oedipus
• Greeks knew the story
• Adds a dimension to the experience.
• Oedipus is the quintessence of dramatic irony
• Look for examples of dramatic irony as we read
Oedipus the King
Themes - the fundamental and often
universal ideas explored in a literary work.
•Knowledge vs. Ignorance
•Free Will
Motifs - recurring structures, contrasts, or
literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text's major themes.
•Suicide
•Sight and Blindness
Character List
1. Oedipus – King of Thebes: protagonist and
tragic hero of this classical tragedy; ruled by fate
and conflict; impetuous and short-tempered.
 Oedipus possesses the impulse and intelligence to unravel
and solve every mystery. This trait leads him to seek truth
and change his fate, defying the gods.
2. Jocasta – Queen of Thebes; Oedipus’s birth mother
and wife
3. Creon – Minister, uncle & brother-in-law of
Oedipus
4. Tiresias – Old, blind prophet. The only man aware
of the fact that Oedipus has killed his father and
married his mother. Voice of wisdom, knowledge,
and reverence.
Aristotle’s Tragic Hero
• Comes from nobility or a high place
• Tragic Flaw--caused by a simple mistake or
a character flaw-maybe pride or hubris
• Undergoes a Reversal of Fortune (fall from
high to low)
• Recognizes his mistakes (in a catharsis or
purgation of pity and fear)
hamartia - a concept used by Aristotle to describe
tragedy; the fall of a noble man caused by some
excess or mistake in behavior, not because of a
willful violation of the gods' laws. Also Known
As: tragic flaw
Hubris - excessive pride, self-confidence,
superciliousness, or arrogance, often
resulting in fatal retribution.
In ancient Greece, hubris referred to actions which,
intentionally or not, shamed and humiliated the
victim, and frequently the perpetrator as well.
The word was also used to describe actions of those
who challenged the gods or their laws, especially
in Greek tragedy, resulting in the protagonist’s
downfall.
Catharsis – a sudden emotional climax that
evokes overwhelming feelings of great sorrow,
pity, laughter or any other extreme change in
emotion, resulting in restoration, renewal and
revitalization in members of the audience.
Ex:
Deus ex machina (god from the
machine) - the sudden appearance of an
unexpected way out of a difficult situation.
Playwrights used the divine intervention
technique of deus ex machina in their
tragedies. In Greek drama, a god would
appear on the stage from a mechane to resolve
the plot.
Machana (or Machane) – a crane used in fifth
century drama for hoisting characters in the air ,
most often to represent flight.
What’s up with the masks?
The actors in Greek dramas wore masks
because at most there were only 3 people
to play every role (excluding the chorus).
Thus, the actors wore masks to delineate
which characters were on stage.
Also, Greek theaters were so large that
someone sitting waaaayyyy up the hill
would not see the expressions onstage,
and therefore all of the costuming was
literally larger than life and exaggerated.