Oedipus Rex

Sophocles begins Oedipus Rex with a city in crisis. Plague has struck Thebes, and its king promises to find the murderer whose unpunished crime has polluted the city. The investigation leads him through witnesses towards a truth he is determined to uncover and terrified to hear.

At a Glance

• Author: Sophocles
• Form: Athenian tragedy
• Also known as: Oedipus the King or Oedipus Tyrannus
• Setting: The royal palace at Thebes during a plague
• Central question: Who killed the former king Laius?

The Search for Laius’s Killer

Oedipus once saved Thebes by answering the Sphinx’s riddle. Now he brings the same confidence to a more dangerous puzzle. The oracle says that the city’s suffering will end when the murder of Laius is exposed. The prophet Tiresias resists naming the culprit; Jocasta tries to quiet Oedipus’s fears; a messenger and a shepherd supply the last pieces of his history. Every attempt to escape a prophecy has helped bring it about.

The audience may already know the myth: Oedipus has unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Sophocles makes the discovery, rather than the surprise alone, the force of the play. Oedipus is neither passive nor foolish. He asks the questions a responsible ruler must ask, and each answer strips away the identity on which his rule depends.

Why the Tragedy Endures

Sight and blindness run through the drama. Tiresias cannot see with his eyes, yet understands what the sighted king cannot. Oedipus sees evidence all around him but misreads his own place in it. The play joins a private family catastrophe to a public duty: the king cannot heal Thebes without judging himself.

Fate shapes the conditions of the story, but Oedipus’s persistence gives the action its moral weight. He could turn away from testimony; instead, he insists on the truth. That tension between knowledge, responsibility and loss gives the play its power on the page and on the stage.

Further Viewing

Read Further

Follow Oedipus, Jocasta and the Sphinx into their wider stories. For another Greek tragedy of inherited violence and judgment, read The Oresteia. Return to Books, Comics & Graphic Novels for the wider library.

Read the Play

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The Three Theban Plays — Robert Fagles translation (Penguin Classics) at Bookshop.org contains Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone.

Source: Read the play in translation at the Internet Classics Archive.