Essay on the Three Character Traits of Courage, Love, and Hate Exhibited by Oedipus

Question: Discuss how the three character traits of Courage, Love, and Hate are exhibited by Oedipus at pivotal points in the play.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Courage

Oedipus has a unique leadership action of being bold and quick in making decisions in the desire to solve mysteries. However, such decisions are not wise. We can view this in his effort to find the real killer of Laius. He accuses Tiresias and Creon falsely of treachery. He also forces the hesitant shepherd to narrate his story that later dawn on him to be the real murderer. The mission and vision of Oedipus to avoiding evil and doing well then collapses.

The act of courage is seen when Oedipus rushes into the palace only to find that the queen has killed herself. Distress and fury overwhelm him, and he takes a pin from his gown and takes his eyesight blinding himself so that he can look no more upon the misery he has brought. The act of plucking out one`s own eyes takes courage. He had learned that he was the killer of his father and could not bear to look upon himself as a murderer. Now blind and in disgrace, he accepts the responsibility of what will befall him. Oedipus pleads Creon to take away his life, but as the play winds up, he quietly gives in to Creon's leadership and humbly waits the oracle that will decide whether he will be thrown out of Thebes forever or be allowed to stay.

Love

As the play opens, a plague is threatening to destroy the city of Thebes. The citizens are begging their king, Oedipus, to help stop the destruction. Oedipus displays a genuine, deeply concerned attitude. He convenes openly with his subjects and swears to kill the person who has caused the plague. Oedipus minds for his new kingdom and its inhabitants. His act of responsibility leads him to later learn of the foresight that he is to grow up, murder his father, and marry his mother. Oedipus departs his home and family to avert the prophecy from manifesting itself if this was to be true. However, he does not know that he is adopted. He is sad to the fact of parting from his homeland, but he does so to guard his parents. He demonstrates his love and unselfishness by leaving, however, these only twists events to what he was escaping. The love for his family also continues to manifest in the play where Oedipus asks Creon to chase him away from Thebes and care for his daughters, Antigone and Ismene while he is away, but Creone, later on, holds her daughter`s captives.

Hate

Oedipus was hostile to Laius. Their rivalry could be caused by their love for Chrysippus or Laius character-structure: his unconsidered, injudicious violence and overbearingness, and for the propensity for same sexual gender rape. Laius is presented as an evil man wedged in the toils of fate. We can say that this hatred has manifested itself to fulfill the prophecy on Pelops` curse that Laius will be killed by his son who will then marry his mother.

Lastly, Oedipus had a personal dislike for the action he had done. After the murder of his father and now marrying his mother Jocasta, they had committed incest by their innocence of knowledge. The anger and hatred for his action made Oedipus regret, and he wished that he had died in the mountains. The turn of events leads to him getting blind and death of the queen because of shame.

Work Cited

Puchner, Martin, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Wiebke Denecke, Barbara Fuchs, Caroline Levine, Pericles Lewis, and Emily Wilson. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014. Print.