FREE ESSAY ON OEDIPUS THE KING

OEDIPUS THE KING

Oedipus the King
Why Didn't His Foster Parents Tell Him The Truth?
Oedipus the King is the story of a man who was betrayed. Betrayed by the very people who
gave him life and the very people who raised him.
Oedipus was born to Laius and Jocasta the king and queen of Thebes. When Oedipus was
born, they consulted an oracle that told them that he would grow up to kill his father
and marry his mother. Fearing for their safety and the safety of their kingdom they had a
servant take the infant to the mountains and leave him on the mountain to die. The
servant felt sorry for the infant and gave him to a shepherd who in turn gave him to
Polybus and Merope the king and queen of Corinth, who raised him as their own. When
Oedipus was older, some men at a banquet who were drunk told him that I am not my
fathers' son. (860) Oedipus confronted Polybus and Merope and they were enraged by these
accusations. They convinced Oedipus that the accusations weren't true, so as for my
parents I was satisfied (865). However, something was still gnawing at him. He consulted
an oracle for himself and the oracle told Oedipus what the oracle told Laius and Jocasta.
After he heard that prediction, he left Corinth never to return.
If Polybus and Merope had told him the truth when Oedipus came to them he wouldn't have
left Corinth and have set into motion this tragic chain of events. What were Polybus and
Merope afraid of? Where they afraid of how Oedipus would have reacted if he knew that
they weren't his birth parents, did they think that he wouldn't have understood and
wouldn't have appreciated what they did for him. I think that Polybus and Merope have to
share some of the blame for this mess, because they were not truthful.
Oedipus thought he had avoided the curse by going the Thebes. By defeating the sphinx, he
was the hero of the town. He was doing a noble thing by wanting to help his country by
trying to find out who or what was causing this plague. When Oedipus finds out the truth
he resists it, but he was relentless in his pursuit of it, He wanted to discover the
truth in order to help his people but he refuses to believe that he's the cause of it,
What are you saying - Polybus was not my father? Then why did he call me son? You were a
gift years ago - know for a fact he took you from my hands (1114). Oedipus tried to avoid
the prophecy he heard, and it ended up costing him almost everything O god - all come
true, all burst to light! O light - now let me look my last on you! I stand revealed at
last - cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down I with
these hands (1307). He should have just stayed in Corinth and made a life for himself
rather than try to get away from those silly predictions, his life may have been a
completely different story. As he destroyed the sphinx by answering its riddle, he
destroyed himself by answering the riddle of his own birth. We are all born into a world
we did not choose or create, stumbling blindly toward self-awareness and often knowingly
deny who we are for shame or sake of others.
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