Compare And Contrast The Tale Of Sohrab And Oedipus

Both Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus and Abolqasem Ferdowsi’s, The Tale of Sohrab, follow the same theme, which is tragedy. Both are very similar in how they lead up to the tragic end of the protagonists in each play. We do not see the overall theme until the end of the plays but both are unquestionably the tragic ends of two great men. Oedipus Tyrannus is the tragic story of a man fated to kill his father and bed his mother (Sophocles, 2016). We see the protagonist, Oedipus, go through a great deal throughout his life to avoid his ill fate. Oedipus was able to defeat a sphynx, become a king, marry a beautiful queen, and was loved and adored by his people (Sophocles, 2016). Unbeknownst to him, all his actions trying to avoid his fate led him straight to it. His great life was a façade for his tragic end. Inevitably, he ends up realizing his fate, far after it had come to fruition. The kingdom he saved was his fathers, whom he had murdered on his way to Thebes, and the beautiful queen that he had children with was none other than his own mother …show more content…
The tale of an ill-fated man, who tries everything to avoid his fate, still ends up seeing it come to fruition. He finds out he murdered his own father, the truth about him ends up driving his mother/wife to suicide, and he gouges his own eyes out making himself blind permanently. His perfect life was just a façade for his true fate. This tragic end is similar to that of Rostam and Sohrab in The Tale of Sohrab. The story of a renowned warrior, respected and loved by all, murdered his own son, who just wanted to meet his father and give him a kingdom of his own. Rostam’s prowess in battle killed his son literally and due to King Kuvus fear of essentially there being two Rostams, refused to save him. Both stories begin with the protagonist being on top of the world and end with the protagonists living in their tragic