Oedipus
the King starts off with Oedipus portraying his leadership
qualities of caring for his people and his willingness to do anything for them.
“I am ready to help, I’ll do anything. I would be blind to misery not to pity
my people kneeling at my feet” (13-15). Oedipus wants to be known as a
kind-hearted and sympathetic man to further gain the support of his people. He
wants the fame and the love, “the whole world knows my fame” (8).
When
Creon comes back with the oracle that says the plague will only end if the
killer of Laius is killed, Oedipus right away states, “I never saw the man
myself” (121). That line contains dramatic irony. The audience should know that
Oedipus himself was the one that killed Laius to grab power. Obviously if he
murdered Laius, he has seen him in person before. Every word spoken by Oedipus
at that moment was filled with irony. Pretending to be innocent, Oedipus makes
threats to the killer of Laius which is extremely ironic because he essentially
is making a threat to himself and he fakes being angry to make it seem like he
is caring for his people. “Whoever killed the king may decide to kill me too,
with the same violent hand—by avenging Laius I defend myself” (158-160).
This
moment of irony affects the whole plot of the story by showing the
characteristic of Oedipus being dishonest and sneaky, plus he has the citizens’
full trust. If there is a corrupt leader, such as Oedipus, the story plot will
most likely have to do with a tragedy and will all come down moments before or
after the truth is revealed about them. The characters will be impacted by this
irony too. One can compare Oedipus to Iago. In both cases, their friends and
people believed that they were great, honest, and trustworthy. The characters
will be affected by trusting Oedipus too much.
It seems as if Oedipus possesses manipulative qualities. In the begin, he appears to be a meek man who is willing to protect Thebes. Later, we witness that he, in fact, may just be trying to gain control over Thebes. If true, this type of action describes a power-hungry, deceiving man who will do anything to bring glory to his name.
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ReplyDeleteThe cartoons and pictures you connected this blog post to are great. It is interesting that you pointed out the guilt of Oedipus. This was something that I honestly did not catch from the first read. Oedipus's guilt is sure to lead to many conflicts within this story.
ReplyDeleteI mean I'm sure if I would've read more than the first few pages I would've know Oedipus killed Laius, but I didn't, so that sucks. But I suppose that would mean the entire play is full of not only Irony, but makes the situation a paradox. Basically making his mission to kill himself to bring glory to himself. And here I thought he was an upstanding guy. I suppose it's only right for Greek tragedies to betray me
ReplyDeleteThis is most likely the first of many ironies to appear in the play, and this one especially models the sort of character that Oedipus is going to be throughout the play.
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