Oedipus Journal 5

Sophocles, throughout his play of "Oedipus the King", is able to arouse pity and fear in his audience through the structure of his plot. One way Sophocles is able to do this is by the path his story follows. When Oedipus consults the oracle at Delphi, it tells him that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. He attempts at escaping this fate of his by traveling away from who he thought was his father and goes to Thebes, where he defeats the Sphinx and becomes king. On his way though, he runs into King Laius and kills him, who, unbenounced to him, is his true father. This makes the crowd pity him and fear the situation. They pity him because Oedipus' hard decision to get away from Polybus and Corinth and travel to an alien land only ends in him killing his true father. This also evokes fear, because it shows how things may not always be the way they truly seem in life. When it was later revealed that Polybus was not his true father, he begins to worry, and the audience pities him for his misfortune and his emotional struggles. When the prophecy is finally brought to light by both Jocasta and Oedipus, the audience experiences fear because they realize that fate has had the final say in the character's lives and there was nothing that could be done to escape it. Also, later in the play, when Oedipus gouges his eyes out with a needle and Jocasta commits suicide, the series of events evokes pity in the audience, for they are able to see the emotional struggles and pains Oedipus now is going through after everything in his life has turned out so terrible.