Oedipus the King

Roles

• Oedipus - Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50), Male

About this piece

Oedipus confesses to Jocasta that he is afraid he might have killed the king

Summary

In the background story of Oedipus the King, King Laius, Oedipus' father, learns from an oracle that he will die by the hand of his son. As a consequence, Laius orders his wife Jocasta to kill their infant son. A servant saves the baby and abandons him in the fields where he is found by shepherds who later bring him to Corinth where he is adopted by King Polybus and raised as his own child. One day Oedipus learns from an oracle that he will be responsible for his father's death and that he will marry his own mother. Thinking that his father is King Polybus, he leaves Corinth and heads towards Thebes, the city where he was actually born. By chance he meets his real father and in a quarrel, he kills him. Later he also solves the riddle of the Sphinx, liberating the city of Thebes of her curse. As a reward he becomes king and is offered the hand of Jocasta, his real mother. The prophecy has been fulfilled. The play starts with a plague, sent by Apollo, hitting the city of Thebes. An oracle says that the plague has been sent by the gods because the murderer of the city's previous king, Laius, has never been caught. Oedipus doesn't know the person that he killed was Laius and therefore he is the cause of the plague. Oedipus asks a blind prophet, Tiresias, to help him find the murderer. Tiresias knows the truth but refuses to speak, angering Oedipus. He then reluctantly tells him that he is the murderer but Oedipus does not believe him. Jocasta, to appease Oedipus, tells him not to believe in prophets and tells him about the oracle they received years before and never came true and Laius was killed by bandits at a crossroad. Oedipus, however, begins suspecting that he might be the murderer after all. He is worried and when Jocasta asks him to tell her what is worrying him, Oedipus tells her his entire story and how he thinks the prophecy might have come true.

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