Contrasting Oedipus and Othello: Reality and Falsity

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Hayley MacPhee                                                                   H. MacPhee  1

Professor Pal

ENG 1121

10 April 2002

Contrasting Oedipus and Othello:

Reality and Falsity

In the plays “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles and Shakespeare’s “Othello,” there are many instances where both of the protagonists are blinded and misled. Oedipus and Othello have difficulty distinguishing between reality and falsity. Othello (incidentally more stubborn than Oedipus) does not “see the light” until he has murdered, conspired the death of a friend and committed suicide. Oedipus invents his own punishment without harm to others when he realizes exactly who he is and what he has done.

Oedipus has “killed his father; sewed the womb of her who bore him” (exodus. 263). He has murdered his father, not aware that it was indeed his own father because he was adopted as an infant. When he returns to Thebes, he marries a woman “old enough to be his mother” and indeed, she is his mother. He has four children by her, two boys and two girls.

                                                                        H. MacPhee  2

Oedipus, the king of Thebes is an arrogant ruler who acts impetuously. He has saved Thebes from the curse of a sphinx by solving a riddle and when the city suffers from a rampant bout of the plague, Oedipus consults with an oracle immediately to see what can be done to help the city of Thebes. His successes and triumphs have rendered him overconfident, however, and his impulsivity and habit of acting precipitantly results in intense hardship. “Oedipus' fate is the result of his own rashness and arrogance. He is headstrong and foolish” (Crane).

         Oedipus seems somewhat oblivious to the clues that point to the fact that Iocastê is both his mother and his sister. Oedipus does not take into account the vagueness of his past and his origin. When it is mentioned that the king of Corinth adopted Oedipus and Iocastê also mentions that her son was discarded and left in the woods, Oedipus never considers the fact that he may have been the same baby that was left to die by the King (Laios) and Queen’s (Iocastê) messenger.

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At the beginning of the play, Oedipus consults with oracles in his father’s kingdom of Corinth after he learns of his adoption when a drunken courtier gives away the truth. He searches for information about his parents and is told that he will marry his mother. He ignores these facts just as he ignores blind prophet, Teiresias, who appears later in the play. This oracle reluctantly tells him that Oedipus himself has murdered his father and Oedipus is once again incredulous. The blind oracle insists that he is prophetic and clairvoyant. He says, “If later you find error in what I ...

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