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Truth is “the reality of the matter, as distinguished from what people wish so, believe to be son, or assert to be so” (Ruggiero, 2009). Truth is a fact. It does not change, only our knowledge change. Forming thoughts based on…
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When his sons were grown, a plague was sent upon Thebes. “No one suffered more than Oedipus.” (Hamilton 271) His fatherly concern for his people drove him to consult the oracle of Delphi. To end the plague, Oedipus was determined to find the murderer of King Laius. When Teiresias told Oedipus that Oedipus himself was the killer, Oedipus banished Teiresias for he thought this was impossible. Jocasta’s reaction caused Oedipus some doubt and the news that he wasn’t the son of Polybus shocked him. His desperation for the truth pushed him onward. He was in agony when he understood the truth and chose to blind himself in shame. He had the…
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Since he blinds himself after he learns the truth, he transitions to becoming physically blind but spiritually aware. Earlier in the novel, he has tunnel vision for he must know the truth to maintain his leadership and feed his hubris for being the great king that solves the city’s problems. He refers to himself as, “I, Oedipus, who bear the famous name” (4), and refers to his subjects as “my children” (9). Oedipus elevates himself to a god-like standing, as even a priest comes to seek help from. The dynamics in this situation reveal that he places himself above everyone, which ultimately leads to his downfall. However, Oedipus is elevated in a more transcendental way at the end of the novel as he takes in genuine concern for his children and Thebes as opposed to the self-absorbed Oedipus seen throughout the course of the novel. No longer is the focus on his power and whether he is the plague of Thebes or not, but he takes action for his people. He exiles himself by saying, “Let me purge my father’s Thebes of the pollution” (77), marking his heroism and maintaining his promise that he would rid Thebes of plague at any cost. He shows concern for his family by saying, “Take care of [my daughter], Creon; do this for me” (77). By pleading for pity upon his children and ensuring that they’re protected after he leaves, he shows a gain in empathy and consciousness uncharacteristic of him in earlier scenes. His transition from self-inflation to self-actualization shows the meditation that is achieved through blindness. Oedipus Rex leaves off with the note “let none presume on his good fortune until he find life, at his death, a memory without pain” (81). This final quote suggests good fortune cannot be determined until one can reflect on life without regrets or pain. Although Oedipus faces decline in…
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In Oedipus Rex a man blindly searches for the truth not knowing that it will be the cause of his own despicable fate. He finds out the to end the plague he has to find the former king's killer. He fights with Tiresias,the seer and says Creon is plotting against him. He fights with Jocasta about the past and current “coincidences”. They both realize the truth and Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs his eyes out. Creon becomes king and agrees to take care of Oedipus’s daughters, Oedipus is banished. Throughout the whole play Oedipus struggles with seeing and realizing the truth.…
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If he just left it alone and kept going on with his life, the truth would not have come out into the light. He had to go through this whole painful process to actually see the truth. He needed evidence and the stories of the events to relate everything. Living a life in of ignorance was way simpler and less dramatic. When he “Oedipus tries to know himself, equate himself (what he knows himself to be) with himself (what he essentially is), but the final result is merely the revelation that there is something basically wrong with the equation” (Versenyi 26).…
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Oedipus Rex displays an error in judgement by escaping the Corinth prophecy, believing that Teiresias is lying about the prophecy, and also believing that Creon is only there to doom him. By escaping the Corinth prophecy Oedipus still kills his father, Polybus, by being alive. The Prophecy was true. That’s why Oedipus was sent away at only two days old to be left alone on top of a mountain so he could die and Polybus remain king. Teirsias comes to Oedipus and tries to explain that the prophecy is still true and tries to get it out of him, that he is his father’s murderer. Oedipus states “Old man, I did not wish to kill my father” kind of realizng…
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Oedipus blinds himself in shame, accepting full responsibility for poising the city and willingly takes the punishment of exile. In the end, Oedipus’ arrogance led to his downfall. He lost his wife, his eyesight and his kingship. He uncovered the riddles of his life and found out that he was the boy who was the subject of the prophecy. His intelligence, egotism and arrogance led to this finding which caused him losing all that he had. The resolution of his life puts Oedipus above any other tragic hero. He unravels his life in a way that pushes the limits of agony a human can take and there he finds incomparable greatness of…
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According to Adade-Yeboah, Ahenkora, and Amankwah (2012), “Tragedy is of action and not character as Aristotle puts it” (p. 10). Therefore, Oedipus’ tragedy deals with his ignorance and not his character. Oedipus is ignorant in the fact that he does not realize he is committing patricide or incest (Adade-Yeboah et al., 2012, p. 11). Oedipus grows up knowing two opposite people that he thought were his parents, which leads to him killing his biological father and marrying his biological mother. Oedipus then goes on to search for his biological father’s killer and soon realizes that it was he himself who committed the atrocious acts toward his family. He came to this realization after it was revealed to him by an oracle. Originally, Oedipus believes that the man he originally kills is only just a shepherd, when in return it is his biological father. According to Greenburg (2012), “Oedipus has been told, and has come to believe, that at the end of his life and in death he will have the power to protect the city that has taken him and buried him” (p. 52). Oedipus maintains the belief that things will always be the way he knew them to be and he would be in charge of the city he knew and loved. He maintains this belief until an oracle reveals his misfortune. At first, Oedipus and his wife (biological mother) refuse to believe that what they were told is true. According to…
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Truth is not intended to bring contentment but make people face the realities of their lives which can be unsettling for some. In Oedipus the King,by Sophocles this is demonstrated. Oedipus is given away as a child because his parents were told that he inevitably would kill his father and marry his mother. This same prophecy follows Oedipus as he grows and leads him to run away from the kingdom that raised him. On his road away, he ends up killing a group of men which leads him to another kingdom. There he marries the dead king's wife, little does Oedipus realize he had killed his father and married his mother. Sophocles uses the blindness motif in this play, in order to explain how the truth can be too much for people to bear…
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Originally, this is introduced in the conversation with Tiresias where Oedipus, having no idea that he is the center of all this disarray, believes that he is just a king that simply wants to avenge the previous king. Tiresias begins by refusing to “reveal my dreadful secrets, or rather, yours” (21) and goes on to the point of depleting the patience of Oedipus. This leads to Oedipus beginning to suspect whether or not his life was a complete lie. In the beginning, Oedipus claims that he is the one who can see while all others are blind. However, after one defining moment, it dawns on Oedipus that he himself was blind the entire time and that he is not who he thinks he is. Wanting to free himself from this blindness, Oedipus searches only to find the horrifying truth - the prophecy already occurred. In shock, Oedipus reveals to all that he was “born in shame, married in shame, and an unnatural murderer.” (89). Realizing that everything actually revolved around him, he exiles himself in “honor” of the curse he put up on the murderer saying to Creon to “take me away from here at once” (107). If Oedipus was not genuine, then he could have easily disregarded the curse he put up and continued to rule as king. Instead, Oedipus lives up to his code and accepts his…
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In Oedipus the King Oedipus was a very strong willed confident man. He was a great leader, though at times he showed hubristic characteristics. He like to brag that “[everyone] knows [him], the world knows [his] fame,” (Oedipus the King. 7) and that he was the greatest person. He also thought the he was the most powerful man. These hubristic characteristics are what arguably led to his downfall. This was Oedipus’s tragic flaw. He was not humble by any means in this first book, but in the second book that all changed. After Oedipus could see the truth, and realized that his prophecy of killing his father and having children with his mother came true, he blinded himself. He wanted to escape what he could see (metaphorically) so he blinded himself (physically). In Oedipus and Colonus, Oedipus was old, weak, and weary. He was humble and pitied himself. He had to rely on his daughter, Anitgone, to guide him and care for him wherever he went after his exile. He has faith in the gods and realized that they are always watching you and know if your faith has faltered. In the first book he thought that he could prove the oracle wrong and show that the gods were not always right, but in trying to outrun his prophecy he caused it to happen. He changed drastically mentally and physically because of this. He lost all of his pride and was only full of pity. Also, he gouged his eyes out to try to escape seeing the truth.…
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f.iv. By looking at the criminal justice system we are able to see that truth is not the primary goal, instead it is to establish and determine what is just, thus upholding justice. This is possible to happen without the need for truth-seeking.…
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too much and at the same time too little of his true lot in life. Knowledge was…
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According to merriam-webster.com truth is defined as, “The property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality”. This seems simple enough, but merriam-webster also gives a different definition, “a true or accepted statement or idea.” Truth is thought of something as unchanging or “set in stone”, but what do they mean when they say “accepted statement or idea”? This gives the idea that truth is pliable, not just based on facts but also on opinions, does this make truth irrelevant? As everyone know truth cannot be based on a personal opinion, but it takes an opinion to accept something. The question of truth has been a philosophical question for ages. The world is full of changes, it really is run by things changing, all advances and discoveries are found because something has changed. A good example of a truth changing is the past theory about the world being flat. For thousands of years is was held that the globe was flat this was an irrefutable truth. But as technology and science began to change this was proven otherwise, all it took was a Aristotle to propose one simple theory to debunk one of the highest held truths. This calls into the question of truth all together, because who is to say there won’t be another debunking of this sorts. How can truth exist if has been proven over and over again to be false. This makes Merriam-Webster’s second definition more accurate, truth is almost something based on culture and society. It is something that must be accepted, or popular opinion. It is impossible to contain all the arguments about truth in this essay, but this definition is most suitable to the current day and age. With a world that is never really sure about the truth or refuses to accept it, the definition of truth must adapt so it won’t become totally…
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When Oedipus calls on Teiresias to reveal the identity of King Laios' killer, Teiresias reveals the murderer is Oedipus and Oedipus himself reacts in anger, rage, and denial. The chorus as well as Oedipus himself refuses to believe this, understandably. Instead of assessing the situation with level-headedness and a clear mind open to all possibilities, his anger blinds him as to what truly could have happened and, in his rage, he accuses both Creon and Teiresias of plotting against him.Oedipus was blinded from the start, ignorant to his true origins, thus, causing him to trigger the unavoidable chain of events that would lead to the fulfillment of the prophecy. He could not have made a conscious, well-informed decision on how to avoid the prophecy because he lacked the insight to do so. However, even if he had known beforehand, fate itself is unavoidable, rendering insight useless. The irony here lies within the themes of sight and blindness when applied to Teiresias in comparison to Oedipus. Oedipus, with both his eyes, as well as his knowledge and comprehensive skills, could not see the true nature of his actions in killing the…
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