Oedipus Study Questions With 100% Correct Answers 2024/2025
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Oedipus Rex
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Oedipus Rex
Oedipus Study Questions With 100% Correct Answers 2024/2025
What is significant about the fact that the first line of the play is a question?
Sets a tone that the play is of questions and answers.
How does Oedipus choose the spokesman of the group of supplicants?
Chooses the closest one.
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Oedipus Study Questions With 100% Correct
Answers 2024/2025
What is significant about the fact that the first line of the play is a question?
Sets a tone that the play is of questions and answers.
How does Oedipus choose the spokesman of the group of supplicants?
Chooses the closest one.
What is your first impression of Oedipus?
He seems to be a very proud and arrogant king.
What problem is afflicting the city of Thebes?
Thebes is unable to produce any crops, causing a famine. A plague.
What is the house of Cadmus?
The city of Thebes.
How does the priest say the supplicants view Oedipus? How does this begin to establish Oedipus as an
Aristotlelian tragic hero?
They view Oedipus as a main force of men, making him a tragic hero due to events happening later in
the plot.
What exposition does the priest provide in this scene?
The Priest reminds the audience that Oedipus is the hero who solved the riddle of the sphinx(the "fell
songstress") and freed the city of Thebes from its bondage.
Why do the supplicants believe that Oedipus will be able to find a solution to the famine?
He had no human help when he had solved the Riddle of the Sphinx
.Why does Oedipus claim he suffers even more than the supplicants?
Oedipus claims that each supplicant suffers only for himself individually while he, Oedipus,suffers for
the individual subject, his subjects generally, and for himself.
What impression do we get from Oedipus based on his language?
He seems to be a good king, but seems incredibly proud and arrogant.
What action has Oedipus taken to find an answer to the city's problem?
Sent Creon to the Oracle of Delphi.
What is Oedipus and Creon's relationship?
Brother in Law
What is foreshadowed by Oedipus' promise to the priest?
He said that he will do whatever the oracle demands.
,Why does the Priest suspect Creon brings good news?
He sees that Creon is wearing a crown made from a laurel, the tree of Apollo, and believes he
would not do so if he had brought bad news.
When Creon arrives from Delphi, what does Oedipus insist that he do? What does this insist about his
character?
Creon decides to talk about the Oracle in private. Oedipus wants to talk about the issue in public. It
illustrates the extent to which he loves his subjects.
Why do you suppose Creon wants to talk to Oedipus in private first?
He wants to protect the privacy of his family.
What does Creon report from the Oracle?
The killer of Laius has to be exiled or killed to end the plague.
What is Oedipus' reaction to Creon's information?
He immediately asks questions about the circumstances of Laius' murder, presumably in order to help
find the murderers and purge the city.
Explain the dramatic irony in Oedipus' interrogation of Creon.
The audience knows Oedipus killed Laius.
What is ironic about the one survivors testimony?
He lied.
What theory does Oedipus immediately develop about Laius' death?
He suspects that the killer is among them.
Why did the citizens of Thebes not investigate Laius' murder at the time it occurred?
They were preoccupied with the Sphinx
.What does Oedipus promise to do? Why, according to Oedipus, must his resolution be strong?
Oedipus promises to avenge the murder of Laius. He feels it is his duty as king to save his people and
also believes that the person who killed Laius may do the same to him: "[W]hoever killed King Laios
might--who knows?-/Lay violent hand even on me.." (141-142; 1222)
.Why does the Chorus appear at this point in the play?
The conflict has been introduced and the plot is in motion.
Whose voices does the Chorus represent?
Theban commoners
Give details of how the Chorus describes the city to the gods.
,The Chorus tells the gods that their crops are not growing, their children are stillborn, and many
people are dying. The dead are lying on the ground, and there are few others left to mourn them.
What does Ares represent to the Chorus? What various things do they wish for him?
Ares represents the Plague, they ask Zeus to strike him with lightning bolts.
.What is ironic about the curse Oedipus places on the murderer of Laius?
He is placing the curse upon himself
What is Oedipus' tone in the long speech beginning?
Confidence, he feels very confident to rid the land of the plague.
Why does Oedipus insist that he will seek out and avenge Laius' murderer?
As Laius and Jocasta had no children, Oedipus will take on the cause of revenge "as if" Laius were his
own father.
In this speech, Oedipus refers to Laius' descendants as "ill-fated," but to his own good fortune in
obtaining Laius' throne as driven by "chance." Explain the difference between these two concepts,
and why Oedipus might choose to characterize these events in different ways.
In contrast to the term chance, he thinks that his life is governed by chance.
Structurally, why is it appropriate for the Chorus to appear now?
The Chorus first appeared at the introduction of the conflict. Now the action has begun rising toward
the climax: Oedipus has ordered the culprit to come forward, and he has cursed the murderer. To
mark the beginning of the rising action and to build suspense, Sophocles again has the Chorus
interject.
Once again, in whose voice does the Chorus speak?
The commoners
Why is it significant that it was Creon whom Oedipus sent to the Oracle and now it is Creon whom
Oedipus has sent to get Tiresias?
Oedipus is just using Creon as a tool.
Explain what Tiresias means by his first statement to Oedipus.
This knowledge will hurt Oedipus.
Why does Tiresias at first seem to refuse to help Oedipus?
He knows that Oedipus is the culprit
What terrible thing does Oedipus accuse Tiresias of doing?
A plot to murder the king.
Goaded into anger by Oedipus, what does Tiresias finally tell him?
The truth.
, The truth revealed to Oedipus, what does Tiresias predict for him?
Oedipus accuses Tiresias of being blind
What is Oedipus' reaction to Tiresias' revelations? Of what does he accuse Tiresias?
He is enraged. He accuses Tiresias of envy and trying to take the throne.
How does Oedipus try to discredit Tiresias?
Oedipus asks why, if Tiresias is such a gifted seer, was he unable to solve the riddle of the Sphinx.
How does the Chorus serve as the "conscience" of the play?
Reminds him that this is no time to argue but to consult with Tiresias in order to fulfill the Oracle.
In what ways is Oedipus blind according to Tiresias?
Although he can physically see, he is blind to the situation.
What prophecy for Oedipus does he reiterate?
Tiresias predicts that Oedipus will be physically blind as well, referring to how he will gouge his eyes
out before he is exiled from Thebes.
How is Tiresias' response to being ordered to leave comic and ironic? What traits of Oedipus' does
this emphasize?
Oedipus tells him to leave and never come back. Stubborness, lack of thought.
.What does Tiresias mean when he predicts, "This very day will sire you and destroy you?"
Oedipus is going to learn who his father is.
Why does Tiresias say that Oedipus, of all people, should understand his riddles?
Oedipus is known as a great riddle solver because he figured out the riddle of the Sphinx.
.Whom does the Chorus believe, Oedipus or Tiresias? Why?
Oedipus, because he saved them from the Riddle of the Sphinx and they are not sure if they can trust
prophecies.
What arguments does Creon use to defend himself?
He would not gain anything from plotting against Oedipus
Explain the irony of Oedipus calling himself wise.
Oedipus knows the least about the situation of everyone, including the audience.
Why would the Chorus assert that no one is better able to end the feud between Oedipus and Creon
than Jocasta?
Jokaste is both Creon's sister and Oedipus' husband.
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