Oedipus

Oedipus is a true tragedy. Being the "celebrity" that he was, Oedipus' downfall was all the more tragic. In my opinion, Oedipus isn't really a bad guys. Sure, he may have a big head and is rude sometimes, but for the most part he isn't a bad person, just unfortunate. When he originally heard about the prophecy that he would kill his father and wed his mother, he immediately left whom he thought were his real parents just to avoid fufilling this prophecy. This in itself is tragic, since he left the life and family that he loved to avoid a prophecy that came true anyway, plus he left his family, which were not his biological parents, so he wasn't destined to kill/wed them in the first place. When Oedipus unintentionally murders his father, Laius, Thebes falls into chaos and requires a new leader with a powerful hand. This is where Oedipus comes in, he proceeds to the throne and weds the now widowed queen, who happens to be his mother. Oedipus ends up having four kids with his mom/wife (gross, right?), so now the children he has had are also his siblings. Oedipus is just a mess, and he doesn't even know it yet.

The entire royal kingdom ends up being completely focused on discovering who murdered Laius. Oedipus would do anything to figure out who killed the king. Eventually Oedipus gets closer and closer to the truth, and keeps pressing the matter even though he is warned not to. It is even more suspicious when his "father" ends up dying a normal death. Oedipus remembers that one time a very long time ago someone had told him that he was essentially adopted, his "parents" immediately denied this, but it always remained in the back of Oedipus' mind. Everything begins to click when it is pointed out that the King and Queen had a child, and tried to kill it, but the child lived and was given to a family to be raised. That child was Oedipus. Jocasta then explains how Laius was supposed to have died, and Oedipus realzies that he DID kill a man under those same circumstanses. Rather than leaving the matter at that when it appeared to be turning sour, or making the issue private, Oedipus keeps pressing Creon and others to discover the truth in public. When everyone finally understood what had happened, Jocasta immediately runs and kills herself while Oedipus is busy feeling sorry for himself in front of everyone. When Oedipus sees his dead wife/mom, he proceeds to blind himself using pins from her dress. Oedipus makes this long speech and begs to be exiled from Thebes. Creon takes pity on him and follows through his wishes, but does help him along the way, also taking Oedipus' children as his own to raise.

One of the big things about the plot that bothered me was how long it took for Oedipus to realize what had happened. Now, if I was him, and I knew that there was some prophecy that said I was going to kill my father, and a person had already mentioned that my "parents" weren't actually my parents, I would not have gone around killing people. The king had many guards and a carriage, and Oedipus thought nothing of it? Even if he had no idea it was his father, it never even crossed his mind that it could be someone important? Plus, when they all started to search for the murderer, he never considered that it just might have been that guy in the carriage with a bunch of guards? It just seems a little odd to me. Also, I think Oedipus enjoyed the drama that his situation caused. He appears to be a bit of a drama queen. Most people in this situation wouldn't want the whole town to know what had happened, and then publicly blind himself. Oedipus and Jocasta should never have been so hard on themselves, it is not if any of it was intentional. They still could have had their family and their life, but instead decided to ruin everything that they possibly could have. Now the four children are essentially orphans and even as Oedipus himself said, no one will want to marry them because of their heritage. This whole story could have ended completely differently if they had handled the situation differently. However, the way that they handled it was what truly made it a trragedy.