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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper discusses the issues of guilt and innocence with regard to the character of Oedipus in Sophocles' tragedy. Bibliography lists 1 source.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVOTGilt.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
extremely theatrical, very dramatic and yet retain a power to touch us deeply as Sophocles explores the working of fate and the mystery of what it means to be human.
This paper discusses the way in which guilt and innocence figure into the story of Oedipus. Discussion The bare bones of this story have been told so often they have
become both the name of a psychological complex and something of a joke: Oedipus is the man who kills his father and marries his mother. We might consider for a
moment the fact that, if he hadnt been driven to find out what happened to Laius, the former king (his father), he might have led a happy life and enjoyed
his reign as King of Thebes, with Jocasta as his queen. However, it would have been a life founded on a lie; so perhaps the proper question` for this discussion
is whether its better to live such a life, or to face the truth no matter how harsh. No blame can attach to Oedipus, either for his fathers death
or his marriage to his mother; he was abandoned as an infant and had no way of knowing who they were. He is, in that sense, an innocent. In fact,
he was the victim of an unspeakable crime: it was prophesied that Laius would die by his sons hand, and so when Oedipus was born, Laius "pierced his ankles /
and by the hands of others cast him forth / upon a pathless hillside" (Sophocles 50). A shepherd found the baby, and took him with him to Corinth, where he
was raised by Polybus the King and believed himself to be that kings son. Now, Thebes suffers under a plague, and the god Apollo demands that the murderer of Laius
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