More Questions on the Prologue to OEDIPUS REX

More Questions on the Prologue/Parodos

1. Why is Oedipus thought to be a “tyrannos”?
2. How can we say that Oedipus is described as a pilot whose duty it is to guide his ship through treacherous waters?
3. Consider the effect of contrast between the house of Cadmus, emptied, and the house of Hades, filled?
4. How do Oedipus’s subjects view him? Explain the irony that Oedipus came to Thebes as the city’s savior with the gods’ assistance?
5. When Sophocles wrote this play, Athens was reeling from recent war and a severe plague which killed many people and undermined faith in the law and religious customs. What do you think that the biggest fear of most play-goers was? ( as well as the citizens of Thebes in the play?)
6. How does Oedipus’s claim to be even more affected by the sickness than his subjects mean something different to us who know he’s polluted and is the cause of the plague?
7. Oedipus projects himself as a sort of hunter or tracker, hunting down his prey. Explain how he is also the hunter whose arrow will hit the true mark but miss the target he thinks he sees.
8. If only one man killed Liaus, why does the slave who came home say that the king’s party was surrounded by robbers rather than a single man was involved?
9. As the Chorus reminds the gods that they have helped Thebes before, of what are we reminded?
10. Why does the Chorus focus on children and women of childbearing age as victims of the plague?