... is made more powerful through the use of them. Firstly, the story is one that introduces the main character, Oedipus, very positively. As soon as the play opens, he is thought of one who is very compassionate, a good leader and is very concerned about the well being of his people. This is ... because it is due to this reason that when Oedipus kills himself towards the end of the play, the sympathy that is felt by the readers is drastic. The use of Sophocles' language in this translated version of his play has a very distinct writing style and a powerful tone. Firstly, the tone is tragic...

• Word Count: 511
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a high official who chooses three contestants to participate in the Dionysiac Festival. Sophocles must present Antigone as part of a group of three tragedies and one satyr play, and if deemed acceptable by the Archon, the Archon in turn will provide him with a chorus of fifteen men, a lead actor, and a Choregus. ... citizen randomly chosen by the Archon to be the financial backer who undertakes the expense of providing Sophocles with the necessary materials to produce his play. If the Choregus refuses to perform his duties, another person will be chosen by the Archon, and this person will...

• Word Count: 1410
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... debate, the voice of fear and confusion during Oedipus' downfall, which seems to mirror the audience's reaction and emotion in many situations throughout the play. The Chorus are also used as a sort of receptive audience for passages of description over what has gone on behind closed doors (e.g. after ... unpitied infants lie and wives and mothers, grey with hoary age by every alter mourn.") Finally, the Chorus is used to keep the continuity during the play. In modern theatre, the plays are normally split up into scenes and acts. However, the Greek kept the continuity between these natur...

• Word Count: 1160
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... they abandoned Philocetetes on the island, before cutting his speech short with the comment, "only because I was ordered to11": he is skilfully rationalising his guilt. As the play progresses, there is corruption and failure of language because Odysseus argues it is prudent, even virtuous to lie; word and reality become disjoined; language undergoes a slippage. In the temptation ... him back the bow, giving up everything, is the complete truth. This act of kindness and truthfulness finally heals division between words and when the language of savagery throughout the play is restored to ...

• Word Count: 2877
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... 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 ... 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 m...

• Word Count: 2002
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousingpity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a cartharsis of these emotions. " ( The Huamanities Handbook -page 27) Aristotle is saying that a tragedy is a play made up of great importance, which it will stick to, which is implied by the phrase "Complete in itself". Aristotle is also saying that the language of a tragedy should be ... the believable, understandable and complicated characters, the dramatic form, pleasurable language, importance of the plot and the accomplishment of catharsis are all present and correct within Oedipus T...

• Word Count: 1959
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... to Freud, the Oedipus Complex is the desire of a boy to possess his mother and supplant his father. This complex is roundly exhibited in the play 'Oedipus Rex', where Oedipus does end up murdering his birth father and marrying his birth mother, Jocasta. This unconscious desires Freud posits emanates from ... three roads from Corinth to Thebes meet and Oedipus unknowingly kills the stranger who is his father. Oedipus displays feelings of anger all through the play and portrays it when he falsely accuses Teresias the all-seeing sear and Creon the brother of his birth mother Jocasta ...

• Word Count: 1933
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... which represents man's struggle between free will and fate. In an attempt to use the audience's knowledge to his advantage, Sophocles opens the play seventeen years after Oedipus murders his father, Laius and marries his mother, Jocasta. The sequence in which the story unravels reveals the strong psychological ... may wear the brand of shame for their shameful act, unfriended, to their life's end" (32). Although the outcome of the play is already known beforehand, Oedipus' determination towards solving the mystery of Laius' murder causes one to question how much Oedipus truly knew about ...

• Word Count: 631
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... is serious , complete, and of a certain magnitude in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action , not of narrative: through pity and fear effecting proper purgation of these emotions. " (Aristotle Chap.VI) Aristotle goes on ... of the audience. (Albert Henrich) We know that in Oedipus the King the chorus plays a significant role and in the bloodiest moment in the play, it is not the violent act that we see but the description of it is given by the reliable chorus. Because the chorus is relia...

• Word Count: 1654
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... on Oedipus which leads to serious characteristic flaws including hubris, and the tragedy ends with a nemesis worse than death. The tragic nature of the play and the themes are conveyed not only through these features, but also through the role of the chorus and dramatic techniques including irony. Oedipus is ... seen as a tragic hero in the play, a principal character, in a position of social importance being the King of Thebes. His downfall is the result of incidents beyond his control, and ... , but more the role played by fate and destiny. His characteristic flaws of pride and arrogan...

• Word Count: 1270
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... to think of revengeful acts, and revenge is the element that leads her to carry them out to the fullest. Revenge, by the middle of the play, becomes a dominant theme for Medea; she is at the point where love drives her to anger, and anger drives her to revenge. After Medea ... also the lives of those around her. Unlike Medea, Jason, her children, Nurse, King Creon, and the messenger are flat, non-dimensional characters in the play whom have "little or no life of their own" (Corrigan 553). Medea's forceful persona consumes these flat characters. What evolves is Medea being left in ... lov...

• Word Count: 835
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... for effective leadership is highlighted again in Knights (424BC) and Wasps (422BC), both produced in the years following the death of Pericles, arguably the greatest of the Athenian leaders. The play is successful because it "amuses" the audience through the ridicule of public figures, while advising them upon the serious matter of leadership and rule. However, Frogs was still a comedy ... with aim of entertaining the spectators, an idea best shown through the mockery of Dionysus who was usually seen as virile and fearless. In the play, though, he enters wearing a "lion-skin over a yello...

• Word Count: 912
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... leader who formulates a rational basis for his laws and punishments, and has a generally positive reputation among the people of Thebes. By the end of the play Creon's excessive pride, known as hubris, begins to control his actions, which leads to an eventual reversal in fortune. Until Tiresias's prophecy is relayed to him ... them realize their hamartia and see their place in the universe. It is this manner that Creon can be seen as the tragic character in the play Antigone. Creon's stubbornness prevents him from being influenced by any other character. He refuses all advice that is in ...

• Word Count: 951
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Aristotle's interpretation of tragedy, one may conclude that the theme of tragic heroism is a recurring and essential theme in the development not only of Oedipus's character but also of the play for it is an element that makes the work of literature a tragedy. Set in the city of Thebes, Oedipus Rex begins with the cries and pains of citizens victimized by ... it his main priority to prevent the curse from happening. He goes through a series of unfortunate events that ultimately prove that he is, in fact, the tragic hero in the play. Oedipus was determined to find out what happened to L...

• Word Count: 1098
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... differing states. II MEDEA One of the main themes in Euripides" Medea is the gender and cultural divide that is established between Medea and Jason. From the beginning of the play it is established that Medea, an exile, is the barbaric and emotive character, her coming to Corinth "mad with love for Jason" showing actions that would have been considered in ... Athenians of the day it was perceived as the champion way of Greek life, and life in general. III THE CYCLOPS Unlike Medea, The Cyclops is not a tragedy but a satyr play, a sort of burlesque, humorous treatment of a mythical theme....

• Word Count: 768
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... this control mortal's feel they have. He also sees that this as a growing problem in his society. Thus he attempts to cure it threw the creation of the characters who play with in the great story of Oedipus the King. The first character that Sophocles presents to accomplish his goal of curing religious hypocrisy in his society is with the character ... Oedipus, a very power struggling man. The first instance where we meet Oedipus and his power occurs in the beginning of the play. Oedipus is met by a priest and a group of children outside his palace. These people want to inform Oedipus o...

• Word Count: 1069
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... its doomed heroine as its title, it is the character of Creon who provides the reader with a cathartic release through the development of his humanity throughout the course of the play. He is the figure most akin to the classical Aristotelian definition of the traditional tragic hero. In Aristotle's book, Poetics, the philosopher defines a tragic hero as someone of high status ... emotionally developed, and the breadth of his humanity is greatly accessible as he is flawed and as such, true to life. The complexities that transcend the main conflict within the play are numerous and striki...

• Word Count: 1647
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... nevertheless, did not necessarily mean a tragedy. Had everyone remained ignorant regarding the matter they could have lived happily ever after or at least until DNA was discovered. However, the entire play actually concentrates on Oedipus discovering what actually happened. It is beyond any doubt that both Othello and Oedipus were men of honour and that they would both uphold justice and ... main characters to clarify their issues leads to tragedy. Furthermore in Othello there is another very important factor, Iago. Namely, Iago gets the idea at the very beginning of the play as Rodrigo...

• Word Count: 1353
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... [him] avenge [his] father's death " (Aeschylus 22) and to watch over him as he performs such acts, because he knows it's not right to kill his own mother. Throughout this play it is evident that revenge and vengeance rule in Orestes' and his sister Electra's hearts. Electra feels that "[she and Orestes] are beggars now, as if [their] mother traded [them ... seems to want to see her mother get what she deserves for abandoning her children and killing their father. Electra and Orestes are heavily influenced by the chorus in this play because "[t]he chorus invokes the law " blood for blood...

• Word Count: 742
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

All heroes reach their fate not through weakness, but through strength. Is this true of Oedipus? In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the main character Oedipus is seen to follow his prophesized fate, which ends in his downfall. Strangely, it cannot however be said that the course of ... good or bad, from those around him as he is so assured HE is the one who is always right that he has enormous difficulty in accepting otherwise. Throughout the play he is referred to as "the first of men" and is praised by his people as the man who can bring them forth out of the plague that has befallen .....

• Word Count: 859
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... radical, polar opposite of the stereotypical tender, loving, and fragile woman. Sophocles' counterexample against the conventional biases of women being tender and loving is the main character Antigone in his play, Antigone. When it comes to giving her brother Polynices a proper burial, Antigone will stop at nothing. "I will bury him myself. And even if I die in the act, that death ... ...

• Word Count: 1748
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... to fit with Medea. Medea never changes for the better nor is she ever punished by anyone such as the gods or Furies for her acts. The end of the play further displaces itself from Aristotle's prototype when the Chorus implies divine intervention of the gods and when Medea's grandfather supplies her with a means of escape. Euripedes obviously took a liberal approach ... ...

• Word Count: 534
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... to plot, and not to mere spectacle (Aristotle 26). He believes that the story should be constructed so that the events are so terrifying that one needs not see the play to feel the anguish of the events (Aristotle 27). Aristotle also discusses another major feature of a good tragedy: the tragic hero. He implies that when creating a tragic hero, he or ... ...

• Word Count: 1068
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... only to be told that Jocasta has hanged herself. As described, the recognition is Oedipus" discovery of his identity, which brings upon the guilt he had been avoiding throughout the play. One can see that the recognition plays a significant role for it allows Oedipus to acknowledge his error and accept his fate through the suffering. Aristotle describes the scene of suffering ... ...

• Word Count: 696
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... for Greek tragedians and no one depicted it more poignantly than Sophocles during the fifth century B.C. The popular Greek dramatist could have also been a successful family psychologist as this insightful play Oedipus the King reveals. Sophocles brings an added dimension to the ancient tragedy by introducing the element of family dysfunction into the dramatic mix. While Oedipus did not realize he ... ...

• Word Count: 1058
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate