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Oedipus Rex - Online Term Papers

Oedipus Rex

, by Sophocles, (as translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald), is replete with dramatic devices - one of which is known as Sophoclean Irony. Sophoclean Irony can be divided into two terms: unconscious and conscious irony. Unconscious irony occurs when a character speaks what he believes is the truth, but the audience (fore-armed with knowledge of the truth) knows that it is not. Conscious irony is evident when a character knows the truth but is reluctant to reveal it: thus, he speaks cryptic lines deliberately intended to be ironic. Both types of irony will be examined in this paper and passages from the text will be cited in support of this thesis.
At the moment of his birth, ...

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Corinth to take back to the childless King and Queen to raise as their own son. For the next twenty years, Laios and Locaste rule in Thebes believing their son to be dead. Unfortunately, Hera sends a drought associated with a sphinx to bedevil Thebes. A desperate Laios travels back to the Delphic Oracle for a reading.
Meanwhile, back in Corinth, Oedipus grows to manhood believing Polybos and Merope (the King and Queen of Corinth) are his real parents. Soon, he too learns of his horrible fate and seeking to avoid it, he flees hi supposed homeland. As fate would have it, along the road, Oedipus meets Laios and kills him in a fit of rage. Thus, he has unwittingly fulfilled the first half of the prophecy. Traveling on to Thebes, Oedipus saves the city from the drought by solving the riddle of the sphinx. Declared the new King, he marries the widowed Queen (Locaste) - his mother. Thus, he has unknowingly fulfilled the second half of the prophecy. For the next two decades, Oedipus ...

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 6/20/2006 04:34:50 PM
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1111
Pages: 5

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