Anastacia Yaya Munoz & Lauren Bobeck

10-5-17
Oedipus the King is structured climactically which means that everything led up to one

point in the play that revealed something big to the characters or protagonist. This information is

organized by a character or characters trying to figure out something and they get information

revealed to them little by little until the climax, where everything changes because of the

information they were given. The example in the play is that Oedipus is trying to figure out who

killed the previous king and throughout the play he discovers that not only did he kill the king

but that the king was his father and that his wife is actually his mom. All of the information led

to the climax which was the queen hanging herself which led to Oedipus blinding himself. This

organizational structure leads to a catharsis because people let out their emotions once they find

out who Oedipus really is and what he did. His mom killing herself and him blinding himself is

an example of catharsis in this play. The lesson meant to be learned in this play is that you

cannot run away from fate because it is your fate, it is supposed to happen whether or not you

want it to. Oedipus tried to run away from it yet it just led him straight to it but he did not know

that until the end of the play. A few examples of dramatic irony is that in the play, Oedipus treats

the blind man poorly because he is blind but little does he know he will become blind by the end

of the play. Another example is that he curses himself for killing Laius but he thinks he is curing

someone else for the murder.