The Power of Truth (Analyzed throught Oedipus Rex)

As described by Aristotle, it is essential that a genuine and effective tragedy tells the story of a person of noble stature falling from his or her greatness, resulting in an increasing of awareness or some gain of self-knowledge. Sophocles, a master playwright of his time, supremely accomplished this task with his play Oedipus Rex. Oedipus Rex can be described as an unsurpassed masterpiece of success gone to ruin; a profound statement of the human condition, and of the ultimate sacrifice for self-knowledge.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of success gone to ruin is Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. It’s the tale of the rise and fall of the noble Oedipus, the baby who was prophesized to kill his father and beget children to his mother. The play starts with Oedipus as the King of Thebes, and his Queen being Jocasta. He does not know that the man he had killed years before was actually the former King of Thebes and his father, Laius. He also is blind to the fact that his wife, Jocasta, is also his mother. The people of Thebes see Oedipus as God-like because he saved them from the Sphinx and has promised to rid the plague that is killing people in Thebes. After he is accused by Teiresias of being the killer of Laius and the cause

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The fact that Oedipus was unable to avoid his fate is a profound statement of the human condition. He said, “I pray that that man’s life be consumed in evil and wretchedness. Most would choose to try to uncover that truth. Despite all his efforts, he can not change his fate, but only choose the route to get to it. From the moment Oedipus learns his terrible fate, he runs off in an attempt to shield himself and his loved ones from the damage that he is predicted to do. After discovering more and more about the truth of his childhood, Oedipus gets more suspicious than ever, and calls in a shepherd and a messenger to find the real truth. This play is the greatest tale of fall from success to ruin ever because as Oedipus is at the highest point of his life, ruler of

Thebes and husband of the lovely Jocasta, it is all destroyed and he becomes nothing but a poor, depressed, blind wanderer.

Every person at some point in their life is faced with a situation in which the truth has been concealed from them. of the plague in Thebes, Oedipus blames him and his brother-in-law / uncle Kreon of conspiring to overthrow Oedipus and take the crown.

Along with being an unsurpassed masterpiece of success gone to ruin, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is a profound statement of the human condition. Despite what the truth may mean for Oedipus, he is determined with all of his power and might to discover it. Therefore, when he exiles himself from Thebes, he shows his true character in following through with his earlier orders, and proves that the human condition of that time is no less moral or demeaning than at any other time in history. She had hung herself because she could not bear to live with this new discovery.

Approximate Word count = 925
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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