Oedipus The King Analysis

Any great story has its critics ready to critique every great detail of a story. Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is no exemption. Oedipus the King was written around 430 B.C. so this play has had plenty of time to be critiqued. Not only has this Greek tragedy been around for so long, but it is considered a masterpiece; it only makes sense for something very famous to be criticized even more. Oedipus the King follows the story of a man named Oedipus who tries to escape fate. Before the play is even started, the readers are given background information about Oedipus. When Oedipus was a baby his parents abandoned him. His parents, Laius and Jocasta, ordered a servant to leave him on a mountain to die. The servant, taking pity on Oedipus, gave Oedipus …show more content…
I strongly agree with this critique and find it to be very true in the case of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King. To begin, this play demonstrates the role of gods in a person's life very well. In Oedipus the King, the citizens of Thebes (and Corinth) heavily worship the Greek gods (Apollo, Zeus, Dionysus, Hermes, etc). The citizens in this Greek tragedy rely on the gods for practically everything. At the beginning of the play three Greek gods/goddesses alone are mentioned. At the beginning, citizens are burning wool before temples of Athena to help try and rid the plague. There are two ways gods are incorporated in this. This first is obvious (the temples of Athena), the citizens are burning here because Athena is known for being the protector of Greek cities. The second way is through the burning of wool; burning of wool was used for offerings to Apollo, the god of healing and prophecies. Throughout the play, there are several more mentions of Apollo, dealing particularly with his prophecy of Oedipus. The