Essay On Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, And Antigone Essay, Research Paper

Essay on Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, and Antigone

Harmonizing to ancient Greeks the province of human existences was ever in changeless calamity. This is due to the uninterrupted control that the Gods exerted on all human existences. The Supreme beings determined their destiny and if worlds tried to alter their fate and therefore their character they were punished. The Gods required justness and ne’er allow person travel unpunished. Sophocles wrote two dramas that described these thoughts. The characters in these dramas, Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, and Antigone were bound to the Gods, and trapped between assorted moral duties.

A inquiry that was profoundly present in Grecian scruples was that everyone needed to cognize their topographic point in the existence as a human being. Oedipus was on a continual hunt throughout King Oedipus for his individuality. The usage of prophets in the drama depict the importance of the Gods function in the Theban society. Greeks depended on them for counsel and replies to jobs.

Oedipus as the male monarch of Thebes was morally obligated to his topics to happen the slayer of Laius who is the beginning of the vile pestilence and promises that he will salvage the metropolis merely as he did when he solved the conundrum of the Sphinx. After directing Creon to the prophet at Delphi and talking to Teiresias he believes that they are both be aftering to dethrone Oedipus. In the interaction between Teiresias and Creon you can see Oedipus? tragic defect which is his pride. Oedipus twits Teiresias when he says that he is the slayer of the old male monarch. Oedipus refers to his path record and shows Teiresias if he was any good at prophesizing that he would hold solved the conundrum himself. He holds himself as this overconfident and superior being because he possesses an intelligence that surpasses everyone in Thebes. He besides accuses Creon of desiring to be king and utilizing the prophesier as his pawn. His pride besides made him kill the male monarch and all but one of his guards. This makes his pride a tragic defect because it made him salvage the metropolis, but allowed him to kill his male parent and guards with indifference. His pride led to his illustriousness and his ruin.

Oedipus besides angers the Gods. At the prophet of Apollo he wanted to happen if Polybus was truly his male parent, but alternatively gets a horrific anticipation that he will kill his male parent and get married his female parent. He tries to utilize his free will to fly Corinth and his parents, but so he makes the anticipation come true. Oedipus should hold known that by seeking to alter his destiny he irritates the Gods and is punished by happening the truth out in a barbarous manner and doing his destiny come true anyhow. He besides did non listen to Teiresias who he knows is the nearest person to Apollo. This would intend that he disregarded a message from Apollo and hence has a incredulity in Gods.

You can see that his moral quandary was a hunt of Laius? liquidator which in fact led him to happen his ain beginnings by uncovering an undeniable fact that he killed his male parent and married his female parent. No 1 could get away their destiny because it was predestined by the Gods.

Jocasta can be seen as a nonbeliever of the Gods and their prophets. The moral quandary that Jocasta faced was to forestall a prognostication from coming true and to prove Oedipus? religion. Jocasta tried to avoid the prognostication from coming true by directing her boy to be exposed on a mountain to be killed. By making this and traping her boy? s pess together she tried to get the better of the Gods which extremely angered them.

Jocasta planted uncertainties after hearing that Oedipus and Creon? s statement was due to an prophet. She says they are nonsensical because she was given a prognostication that Laius would be killed by the boy and get married his female parent. She believed that Laius was killed by robbers and that the babe died on the mountain. Since this did non come true she believed that they were wrong. Besides when the courier comes to state of Polybus? decease, Jocasta once more says that his propecy was besides a prevarication. She is connoting that since that prophets were incorrect that the Gods were besides false.

Jocasta? s penalty can be seen as a trial. Sh

vitamin E was to prove the beliefs of the kid she had sent to decease. By seting uncertainties of the Gods in Oedipus? mind the Gods can prove his religion and his power. He failed the trial and perpetuated a incredulity in the Gods. This depicts the manner the Gods had a manus in everyone? s life. By disobeying them by turning away of their traffics the penalty is to be forced to cabal against the people you love. This can be seen in the character of Jocasta in King Oedipus.

Antigone seems like a sufferer who held her holy rules higher than the province? s rules. At times she assumes to be an dying sufferer who knows the effects of her actions. In the terminal she dies because she believed what she was making was so right.

Antigone wittingly breaks an edict sent Forth by Creon. She holds that she will ne’er hold a new brother because she does non hold her parents. Her religion in household in unwavering. It did non affair to her that Polynices may hold been a treasonist to Thebes, but he was her flesh and blood. She besides was more loyal to the Gods than to Creon. Creon was merely a swayer and she believed that it was incorrect to non execute the proper burial rites. The Gods regarded that every human being deserves the right to a proper entombment. She knows that Creon is a mere person who is interrupting the Torahs of the Gods. Antigone can be seen as a holy adult female who takes the Gods? Torahs earnestly.

Antigone? s moral quandary concerned her duty to her brother and therefore the Gods for a proper entombment and to the male monarch of Thebes who was besides her uncle. She had to make up one’s mind between the effect of decease if she disobeyed Creon? s jurisprudence or to her holy responsibility to bury her brother and follow the Gods? Torahs. I believe that she did the right and brave thing.

Creon? s tragic defect is his foolish pride. He sends the edict out in the first topographic point because he did non hold the province that he ruled in head, but because of the interior retaliation against Polynices. He besides is obstinate because he is unrelenting in his obstinacy. He believes that if he is persuaded by anyone that it means he is womanish. He sticks to his guns until it is excessively late to alter anything which includes the deceases of his married woman, boy, and niece.

He is in a moral quandary because he has an duty to protect his province of Thebes which includes its democratic Torahs and its citizens. He besides is obligated to the Supreme beings who finally regulation over all existences and their Godhead Torahs. Creon fails to follow both of his duties.

Creon is shown as a ego functioning swayer who does non care about anything else except seeking retaliation. And even when it is suggested to him that he should alter his head about Antigone and his edict by Haemon and Teiresias he remains stubborn and blind to his ain actions. He adheres to the Torahs of the province instead than holding irreverence to the Torahs of the Gods. In a conversation with Teiresias he displays that he would non give even if the bird of Joves carry the organic structure to Zeus he would stay dogged in his rules. Haemon besides advises his male parent to larn from others, but Creon feels that he should govern non for others but for himself. He forgets the power of the land is to govern over people and is non to be caught in his ain vindictive power battle.

And it is because of this his obstinacy that he experiences a bend of events that show that he truly was incorrect in what he did. His ruin was caused by his unreason by withstanding the edict of the Gods that demanded a proper entombment for all. It was an misdemeanor to hold an indecorous entombment. By Creon? s edict and will to hold Polynices unburied and Antigone sentenced to decease he has shown that he surpassed the Gods. This is really bad opinion because the Supreme beings are penalizing existences and ruled overall, but Creon merely ruled his land.

Creon is finally punished for his pride and deficiency of regard for the Gods. It was after his conversation with Teiresias that he realizes he was blind to himself and that as a person he should hold ne’er defiled the Gods. But it is excessively late because the Supreme beings have cursed him by holding all his close household members kill themselves.