All 21 Uses of

Oedipus

in

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Sophocles' plays of Oedipus and his doomed clan show up over and over again in all sorts of variations.
Chpt 9 *

Oedipus = mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

When Sophocles is a very old man, he finally writes the middle third of his Theban trilogy of plays, Oedipus at Colonus (406 B.C.), in which the old and frail Oedipus arrives at Colonus and receives the protection of the Athenian king, Theseus.
Chpt 13

When Sophocles is a very old man, he finally writes the middle third of his Theban trilogy of plays, Oedipus at Colonus (406 B.C.), in which the old and frail Oedipus arrives at Colonus and receives the protection of the Athenian king, Theseus.
Chpt 13

Theseus protects Oedipus from potential harm and guides him to the sacred spot where the old man is fated to die.
Chpt 13

At the end of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, the king blinds himself, which is very definitely a kind of marking—of atonement, guilt, and contrition—and one that he will wear throughout the subsequent play, Oedipus at Colonus.
Chpt 21

Oedipus = drama about a mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

At the end of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, the king blinds himself, which is very definitely a kind of marking—of atonement, guilt, and contrition—and one that he will wear throughout the subsequent play, Oedipus at Colonus.
Chpt 21

Oedipus = mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

In fact, being good Greeks, we knew this before we arrived at the theater, just from the meaning of the name, Oedipus—"Wounded Foot."
Chpt 21

Indeed, Oedipus's feet are damaged from the thong that was put through his Achilles tendons when, as an infant, he was sent away to die in the wilderness.
Chpt 21

Moreover, they address the personality of his parents, especially Jocasta, who tried to elude the curse, and of Oedipus himself, who seems never to have inquired as to how he came to have these scars.
Chpt 21

Two and a half millennia ago Sophocles wrote a little play called Oedipus Rex.
Chpt 22

Oedipus = drama about a mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

Tiresias, the blind seer, does indeed know the whole truth about King Oedipus, sees everything, although that knowledge is so painful that he tries to hold it back, and when he does blurt it out, it is in a moment of such anger that no one believes him.
Chpt 22

Oedipus = mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

Oedipus, meanwhile, who until the very end remains in the dark, makes constant reference to sight.
Chpt 22

For example, first-time readers or viewers will observe that Tiresias is blind but sees the real story, and Oedipus is blind to the truth and eventually blinds himself.
Chpt 22

More than any other work, Oedipus Rex taught me how to read literary blindness, taught me that as soon as we notice blindness and sight as thematic components of a work, more and more related images and phrases emerge in the text.
Chpt 22

Oedipus = drama about a mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

A truly great story or play, as "Araby" and Oedipus Rex are, makes demands on us as readers; in a sense it teaches us how to read it.
Chpt 22

Back to Oedipus.
Chpt 22

Oedipus = mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

When we meet him again, in Oedipus at Colonus, it's many years later, and of course he's suffered greatly, but that suffering has redeemed him in the eyes of the gods, and rather than being a blight on the human landscape, he becomes a favorite of the gods, who welcome him into the next world with a miraculous death.
Chpt 22

In Oedipus Rex Sophocles has Thebes hit by various plagues—withered crops, stillborn children, the works—but here as in general use, plague carries with it the implication of bubonic.
Chpt 24

Oedipus = drama about a mythological king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother

Definitions:

(1) (Oedipus)
Greek mythology: a tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother; the subject of the drama Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
Less commonly, Oedipus is seen in the phrase Oedipus complex coined by Sigmund Freud to describe what he saw as a desire by some children at ages 3 to 5 to want to sexually possess the parent of their opposite gender, and exclude the parent who shares their gender.