Oedipus The King Research Paper

In Sophocles's play Oedipus Rex, the new king of Thebes, Oedipus, is unable to keep his position as king due to his central problem: he does not know himself. Oedipus’ failure to know neither his birth parents nor his past leads to his inevitable downfall. King Oedipus does not know who his real birth parents are. As a child, his parents left him to die on a hill in order to prevent a prophecy they were told. Before he could die, he was picked up by a shepherd and given to another couple in Corinth to be raised. Oedipus spends the majority of his adult life trying to avoid the prophecy given to him by Apollo; it states that Oedipus is “the man who should marry his own mother, [and] shed his father’s blood with his own hands” (52). However, …show more content…
Oedipus is told by multiple sources that he is the reason for King Laïos’ death, yet he still is not convinced. Only after Iocasta, the two messengers, and the chorus all have realized that it is indeed Oedipus who is responsible for the death of King Laios and that his wife is also his mother, does Oedipus finally realize too. After this realization he exclaims, “Ah God! It was true! All the prophecies! O Light, may I look on you for the last time! I, Oedipus, Oedipus damned in his birth, in his marriage damned, Damned in the blood he shed with his own hand!” (64). This discovery leads Oedipus to go temporarily insane. In his brief insanity he blinds himself, then decides to exile himself from Thebes. Iocasta, who realizes she is married to her son before Oedipus does, goes into the palace where she then commits suicide. If Oedipus had not been the only person unable to see that he in fact is responsible for the death of King Laïos, his real father and that he is married to his mother, he could have more effectively prevented his self-harm, his exile from Thebes, and Iocasta’s suicide. By preventing those, Oedipus would have a much higher possibility of keeping his position as king of