Compare and contrast Oedipus Rex and Faustus as tragedies.

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Compare and contrast Oedipus Rex and Faustus as tragedies.

        The two plays Oedipus Rex and Faustus are both tragic plays.  Both of the plays end with the main character losing their life, and actually even their afterlife. But as tragedies the two plays have some similarities and some differences.  The characters themselves are different, and they both want different goals out of each their own lives.  Oedipus Rex and Faustus are two tragedies that compare and contrast in many ways.

        The two main characters of the plays Faustus and Oedipus Rex are very different from each other. Faustus, the main character in Faustus, is not trying to save any civilizations like Oedipus is. Faustus is really trying to make himself a better person by learning black magic.  He wants to learn evil to make himself more powerful as a person.  He signs his soul over to the devil in exchange for twenty-four years of service by Mephistophilis.  Greed is the main reason for the fall of Faustus.  He chose his own destiny; he knew that when he signed that contract his soul belonged to the devil.  Oedipus on the other hand, did not really have much of a choice in his fate.  He was pretty much damned from the beginning.  He was prophesized to kill his father and marry his mother, so his father and mother tried to change fate.  But as the story goes, the prophecy came true.  All Oedipus wanted to do was stop the plague from going through his city.  But it ended up that he was the cause, not the solution.  His eternity was not lived out in hell, but spent exiled from Thebes.  Oedipus did not choose his fate as Faustus did.  The characters of the two plays both suffered in the end, but one chose his and one had to live with his prophecy.

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The plots of the two plays are different from each other also.  The plot of Oedipus Rex is for Oedipus to find out why the plague has struck his town, and how to get rid of it.  But the plot ends up turning into what was prophesized to his parents a long time ago.  Oedipus ends up finding out that he has married his mother and that he has killed his father.  The whole play is a tragedy.  There is no comic relief in it, as in Faustus with his practical jokes.  In Oedipus the plot revolves around the fate ...

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