Oedipus the King was a really interesting play. It left me with a lot of questions. How could a mother want her own baby killed just because of a prophecy? Why are these people so open to these prophecies? Why do they believe so easily? What is wrong with the gods, are they just mean?
It amazes me how Oedipus’s life could possibly suck so much. His entire life was an awful tragedy. He was supposed to be murdered at an extremely young age, but instead he was given to a family that wasn’t even his. This family lied to his face and refused to tell him that they were not his true parents. He heard a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To prevent this, he moved away from the people he thought were his parents. In his travels, he ended up killing his real father, the King of Thebes. When he arrived in Thebes, he became a hero and then became the King himself. He then married his real mother and fathering her children, all the while having no idea of what he was actually doing.
This play is full of ironic twists. The reader is given insight and clues as to what has really happened in Oedipus’s life, but Oedipus is clueless until the whole story is laid out before his eyes. It is very ironic that the Queen believed that her son was dead and that the prophecy could never come true, but she had no clue that he was actually alive and that the prophecy was being played out.
I didn’t really see any big differences between the text and the movie. The plot was the same, and the characters matched up for the most part. The only real difference I saw was the language. The movie incorporated a more modern language version of the text, making the entire thing easier to understand.
Oedipus the King was OK. The plot was pretty interesting, especially around the end. The way in which it is played out though, was pretty boring. I think that the major theme of this play is that you can not conquer fate itself.
Morgan's Literature Blog 