Oedipus

• "Huddling at my altar, praying before me."

  • Oedipus
  • hubris, to assume the role of the gods
• "The world knows my fame, I am Oedipus."

  • Oedipus
  • hubris
• "I would be blind to misery."

  • Oedipus
  • dramatic irony
• "My children, I pity you."

  • Oedipus
  • benevolent leader at beginning
• "I acted at once, I sent Creon."

  • oedipus
• "I'll bring it all to light myself."

  • Oedipus
  • search for the truth, irony
• "We will see our triumph - or our fall."

  • Oedipus
  • city's triumph, Oedipus' fall.
• "You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers."

  • Oedipus
  • hubris
• "Let that man drag out his life in agony"

  • Oedipus
  • irony
  • about himself
• "To force the gods to act against their will - no man has that power."

  • Oedipus
  • tries to circumvent prophecy
• "How terrible - to see the truth when the truth is only pain to he who sees!"

  • tiresias
• "You know and you won't tell? You're bent on destroying us? Destroying Thebes?"

  • Oedipus at Tiresias
  • paranoia
• "You'd enrage a heart of stone!"

  • Oedipus at Tiresias
• "What will come will come, even if I shroud it all in silence."

  • Tiresias
• "Stone-blind, stone-deaf - senses, eyes as blind as stone!"

  • Oedipus
• "Creon! Is this his conspiracy or yours?"

  • oedipus
  • growing paranoia
• "Eyes peeled for his own profit"

  • oedipus about tiresias
• "Oedipus the ignorant."

  • Oedipus
• "Who are your parents? Do you know?"

  • tiresias
  • plot/focus shift
• "No man will ever be rooted from this earth as brutally as you."

  • Tiriesias
• "Your great fortune, true, it was your ruin."

  • Tiresias
  • reference to Oedipus' fatal flaw - hubris
• "Never will I convict my king, never in my heart."

  • chorus
  • city's loyalty to Oedipus
• "I see it all - the marauding thief himself, scheming to steal my crown and power!"

  • Oedipus
  • ironic as he is blinded by his paranoia
• "I move quickly too."

  • Oedipus
  • quick to act, quick to anger
• "You want me banished?" - Creon

  "No, I want you dead." - Oedipus

  • tyrannical traits - aggression
• "You - my mortal enemy?"

  • Oedipus at Creon
  • paranoia - they were kinsmen a few pages prior
• "Your words move me."

  • Oedipus
  • benevolent king, listens to his people
• "A prophet? Well then, free yourself of every charge!"

  • Jocasta
  • Dismissal of prophecy
  • Sophistry
• "I have a terrible fear the blind seer can see."

  • Oedipus
• "What man alive more miserable than I? More hated by the gods?"

  • Oedipus
• "So much for prophecy...from this day I wouldn't look right or left."

  • Jocasta
  • dismissal of prophecy
• "Pride breeds the tyrant."

  • chorus
• "Why scan the birds that scream above our heads?"

  • Jocasta
  • dismissal of prophecy and omens
• "Fail to solve the mystery of my birth? Not for all the world!"

  • Oedipus
  • Curiosity
• "Listen to me, I beg you, don't do this." - Jocasta

  "Listen to you? No more. I must know the truth, see it all at last." - Oedipus

  • Oedipus ignores every warning given to him
• "So you won't talk willingly - then you'll talk with pain."

  • Oedipus
  • excessive violence - tyranny
• "O Oedipus, name for the ages."

  • chorus
  • mocking, now knowing the truth
• "Circling, like a maddened beast, stalking"

  • Messenger about Oedipus
  • animalistic/monstrous
• "What superhuman power drove you on?" - Chorus

  "I did it all myself!" - Oedipus

  • about gouging his eyes out
  • also about quest for the truth - the journey that lead to his downfall
• "It's mine alone, my destiny - I am Oedipus!"

  • Oedipus
  • contrasts the claim in the prologue