Peripeteia's Poem 'Oedipus Rex'

A Different Strategy
When there is no concept of hell, or any other horrifying threat, how is one supposed to keep robbers and murderers off the street? When one thinks about it, the truth is that many of us refrain from immoral activities not just because of the burden of wrongdoing that one will inevitably find, but also because in many religions, people are naturally petrified of going to hell or some other type of afterlife where they will be tortured for their sins on Earth. And even those who are doubtful do not want to risk this future, so they tend to behave themselves. According to Greek mythology, one went to the underworld with no relationship to how they lived their life on Earth, so instead of Hell, Greeks created tragedies of different heroes. By using different aspects of peripeteia in the poem, Oedipus Rex, Greeks were able to keep others in line. …show more content…
He has power of a large kingdom and this is one of the things that bring about his own downfall. Only Teiresias, the blind clairvoyant, who was gifted in his third sight, had complete knowledge of the truth and it was clear that he had no desire to share it. Oedipus had to send for Teiresias three times before he came, even though Oedipus himself was the king. He was able to extract the information out of him, which eventually led to his realization that he was the actual murderer of his father. On the other hand, Creon made it well defined that did not want the throne and eventually he, at this point, looked as if he had a better fate than Oedipus. The difference of fortunes between the two encouraged Greeks not to jump to take power and to refrain from becoming too aggressive in their power hunger, which in turn gave Greece more of a peaceful