Oedipus Rex Summary5/10/2021
Oedipus, the king of Thebes, has sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the house of Apollo to ask the oracle the way to end the plague.Creon returns, bearing good news: once the killer of the previous king, Laius, is found, Thebes are going to be cured of the plague (Laius was Jocastas husband before she married Oedipus).
![]() Hearing this, Oedipus swears he will find the murderer and banish him. The Chorus (representing the people of Thebes) suggests that Oedipus consult Teiresias, the blind prophet. Oedipus threatens him with death, and eventually, Teiresias tells him that Oedipus himself is that the killer, which his marriage may be a sinful union. Oedipus takes this as an insult and jumps to the conclusion that Creon paid Teiresias to mention this stuff. Furious, Oedipus dismisses him, and Teiresias goes, repeating as he does, that Laiuss killer is true here before him a person who is his fathers killer and his mothers husband, a person who came seeing but will leave in blindness. The Chorus tries to mediate, but Oedipus appears and charges Creon with treason. Jocasta and therefore the Chorus begs Oedipus to be open-minded: Oedipus unwillingly relents and allows Creon to travel. Jocasta asks Oedipus why hes so upset and he tells her what Teiresias prophesied. Jocasta comforts him by telling him that theres no truth in oracles or prophets, and she or he has proof. Yet Laius was killed by robbers, not by his son, proof that the oracle was wrong. But something about her story troubles Oedipus; she said that Laius was killed at an area where three roads meet, and this reminds Oedipus of an event from his past when he killed a stranger at an area where three roads met. He asks her to explain Laius, and her description matches his memory. Yet Jocasta tells him that the sole eyewitness to Laiuss death, a herdsman, swore that five robbers killed him. Once when he was young, a person he met told him that he wasnt his fathers son. Still, it troubled him, and he eventually visited an oracle to work out his true lineage. The oracle then told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. This prophecy so frightened Oedipus that he left his hometown and never returned. On his journey, he encountered a haughty man at a crossroads and killed the person after suffering an insult. Oedipus is afraid that the stranger he killed may need to be been Laius. If this is often the case, Oedipus is going to be forever banished both from Thebes (the punishment he swore for the killer of Laius) and from Corinth, his hometown. If this eyewitness will swear that robbers killed Laius, then Oedipus is exonerated. He prays for the witness to deliver him from guilt and banishment.
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