Opedius Rex Essays - Operas, Oedipus The King, Oedipus, Jocasta

Opedius Rex level: grade 10 honors subject: English / Oedipus Rex score: A Title: The Transformation of Oedipus When Oedipus, as a young man, first learned from one of Apollo92s oracles that he was destined to murder his father and marry his mother, he fled his home in Corinth, attempting to defy the prophecy, and he wandered the roads of Greece. In hi s wanderings he happened upon another traveler who obstructed his path. Being too proud to detour from his course and let this other man through, Oedipus killed him. He went on to become king of Thebes by marrying the residing queen, Jocaste. Under Oedipus92 rule, the city saw immediate and lasting prosperity. But fifteen years down the line, a plague swept over Thebes, and the only cure for the city92 s troubles was for its former king Laius92 murderer to be brought to justice. Laius had disappeared fifteen years earlier, shortly before Oedipus arrived in Thebes and solved the riddle of the sphinx, freeing the city from its clutches. Oedipus sends for the omniscien t Tiresias, who is reluctant to reveal the implicating information to the king, but Oedipus 92 refuses to let his pride falter, so he blindly pursues the identity of the murderer, unawar e that he is on a mission of self-incrimination. Tiresias92 words lead Oedipus to learn that Laius was his both his father and the former king of Thebes, not to mention the traveler that Oedipus killed on his passage to Thebes. So he punishes himself by gouging out his eyes, in retribution for his crimes. It is often said the Oedipus was fated to doom, that he could have done nothing; to the contrary, Oedipus spent every moment of his life digging his own grave. His excessive pride and arrogance, as well as his notion that he could challenge a prophecy from the gods, were the shovel he dug with. All the important decisions he made in his lifetime, he made with this hubris. His judgements were all the foundation for his demise; he, not fate, constructed his path to doom. After the drunkard at a party in his home of Corinth blurted out 93You are not your father92s son,94 Oedipus embarked on a journey to Delphi to learn the vali dity of this statement. But he learned much more important matters upon arriving, namely the infamous prophecy that he would kill his father and couple with his mother, who, to his knowledge, were Polybus and Merope, the king and queen of Corinth. So Oedip us abandoned his life in the city of those who had raised him. This outright mocking of the gods92 prophecy was a big step in Oedipus92 downfall. He thought he could outrun the prediction, but instead, his arrogance pushed him into its grasp in Thebes, where his real parents, Laius and Jocaste, reigned. His own pride would again bring him to fulfill the destiny he dreaded so much on the way to Thebes. He would not stray slightly from his path to let Laius by, and he killed him. Oedipus had much more pride than it took to simply attempt to invalidate the prophecy by refraining from murder altogether; his arrogance led him to kill a stranger. Had he been able to swallow his conceitedness and let Laius by, Oedipus woul d not have proceeded to the midpoint of the prophecy. By killing his father, he fulfilled the first half of it. Oedipus goes on believing that his Corinthian caretakers were his biological parents up to and through the death of Polybus, who fell of natural causes. In fact, this reinforces Oedipus92 false belief that he could defy Apollo92s prophecy, furthering his pompous nature. Tiresias sees that Oedipus92 pride counters his desire for the excruciating truth, and hesitates to tell him. To Oedipus, this is a challenge of the king92s authority. He wants desperately to prove to the people of Thebes that he ha s saved them before and can do it again. Unwilling to accept defeat before the populatio n of the city, he accuses Tiresias and Creon of treason. As he pushes Tiresias for more information on Laius92 murderer, he pushes for his own defeat, visionless from his own pride. Not content with Tiresias92 riddle that reveals to the audience, who are not blind like the Thebian king, that Oedipus is the killer, Oedipus probes deeper into the mystery. He disregards the beckoning of his wife Jocaste to not look further into the puzzle and becomes a detective on the trail to expose himself. Determined not to look weak in front of Thebes, Oedipus has neglected the warnings of both a prophet and his wife . He tries looking everywhere but inside himself, where the answer is closer. He would have saved himself loads of trouble had he only taken a step back from the entire fiasco, and seen that all

Essay Topics For Grade 11

Essay Topics For Grade 11There are many essay topics for grade 11, but when writing an essay, there are very few topics that you will be able to use more than the subject of literature. The essays for grades 11 can discuss both factual and literary facts, as well as their relevance to understanding and appreciating literature. It is important that the essayists use a literary text or a work of literature in the context of the essay they are writing about. When you choose the topic of your essay, the essays for grades 11 should give an insightful account of the author's knowledge of the subjects covered in the subject matter.Literary texts are required to be selected carefully so that the essays for grades 11 can really be essay topics for grade 11. If the essay for grade 11 is going to be on a literary text, it is necessary to be able to use the literary text for research purposes and to show its relevance to the essay that you are writing. As well, the essay for grades 11 needs to b e interesting to readers who have been assigned to read the essay.In order to make an essay great essay topics for grades 11, it is necessary to show off your ability to write. In fact, writing is not merely the ability to read and understand information - it is the ability to construct coherent sentences and to organize them properly. In addition, the essay must contain numerous ideas that are related to the theme of the essay, and all this is coupled with an accurate analysis of the material. This is one of the basics of grammar - to know the basic rules of grammar and how to be precise in them.All essay topics for grades 11 can be divided into two broad categories: factual-based essays and literary essays. When you write a factual essay, you will be analyzing information in a factual way. To illustrate the data you are basing your observations and conclusions on, you must show the data clearly and precisely. If you cannot do this, you cannot write a factual essay for grade 11.A f actual essay has three basic components: the information, the information sources, and the conclusion. First, you need to gather the information, which includes sources. Second, you need to show the information clearly and precisely in the text that you are working on. Finally, you need to draw conclusions from the material so that the essay can be a real essay topic for grade 11.It is also a requirement that all essay topics for grades 11 contain at least one literary essay. A literary essay is based on the theme of the essay, either factual or literary. In addition, it should have a thesis statement, which is its central argument. The thesis statement may be made using either a literary text or a work of literature.Literature essay topics for grades 11 often deal with themes of literature, historical events, social concerns, political or economic concerns, and many other topics that have been previously studied in class. Because these topics have been studied extensively in class, they are relatively easy to study. However, the time required to read up on the topic is substantial, and this time taken from reading assignments can greatly increase the time it takes to write the essay. Therefore, it is important that the writer does not forget the literature essay.When writing an essay, there are so many topics that could be essays for grade 11, but only a few topics that are really essays for grade 11. The topics that have been selected are appropriate and unique, and their importance is clearly shown by the grade they are given. These essays are also unique in style and will give students a clear idea of what an essay is all about, and why it is important to write it.