Lessons may be taught in many ways, they may be preached, they may be written, or they may be told in a story. In each of Sophocles’ Three Theban Plays he teaches a lesson through a story. These lessons are taught and projected to the audience through the plot, characters and theme of the play. The plays teach lessons on loyalty, keeping promises, fate, courage, prejudice, and the manners in which humans relate to each other. Each of these lessons is valuable and although these plays are approximately two thousand five hundred years old they still manage to teach lessons that apply to life in present day.

In Sophocles’ first Theban play, Oedipus the King, there are many lessons that are embodied by the characters, the plot and the theme. The most obvious lesson is that a person, despite honest and great efforts, cannot avoid his fate. Oedipus goes to great efforts to attempt to escape his terrible fate of murdering his father and marrying his own mother; howeve

In this play there is a show of loyalty in every character, whether that loyalty is to a decision or a person. Antigone is loyal to her brother Polynices and to her promise to ensure that proper burial rights be carried out for him after his death. Her sister, Ismene, refuses to assist her in this act, for it would be disloyal to Creon and to Thebes, who made a law against this act. Creon is loyal to his laws and to his decision about Antigone’s fate, despite the prophesies and the opinion of the city, he does not go back on his decision no matter how many times he is advised against it. Haemon was loyal to Antigone, whom he loved, by killing himself when his father decided on Antigone’s harsh punishment, for he felt no reason to live without her. Finally Eurydice, the wife of Creon was loyal to her son Haemon, for when Haemon spilled his own blood, she did the same, seeing no purpose in life without her beloved son. The chorus, or the people of Thebes, are somewhat loyal to Oedipus’s family, for they were very much against the punishment of Antigone, and I believe that part of their instinct to protect Antigone was the loyal promise that Creon had made to Oedipus, to protect his young girls when he was exiled and after his death, which Creon broke when punishing Antigone harshly for her deeds.

The personalities of the main characters in this play are, interestingly enough all very much the same. Almost all of the main characters are very free-willed and strong. This is one of the main reasons for all of the disagreement and tragedy in this play. Antigone’s strong and rebellious character is the first link in the terrible chain of events that follows. Creon’s strong will and belief in strict discipline against Antigone’s rebellious personality is a great clash and as a result Creon punishes Antigone ruthlessly. The result of Creon’s strict manner, however, is the cause of the death of his son and wife, both of them possessing a forceful and decisive manner.

Through out the three Theban plays of Sophocles I have discovered that a common theme among the plays is the importance of women and their role in society and an individual’s life. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus not only receives the key to his past from Jocasta, his wife and mother, but when she hangs herself, he mourns her and stabs his eyes with her broaches to show his sorrow and regret for causing her to take her life. Oedipus also begs Creon, just before he is exiled to take care of his two young girls, and tells him not have as much concern for the boys. In Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone and Ismene are told by their father that they have the right to be called men, for they are as strong as men and have endured more hardships then their own brothers. It is clear in this play that Oedipus relies very much on the girls for physical and emotional support as well as to be his eyes to the outside world. This shows that woman are strong, reliable and intelligent, f

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