The Sophocles Trilogies Oedipus the King Oedipus at Colonus Antigone

1. Oedipus Rex The Sophocles Trilogies Oedipus the King Oedipus at Colonus Antigone

2. Oedipus the King • Plague set in Thebes • Oracle says Thebes must find the murderer of Laius • Teiresais accuses Oedipus • Oedipus and Creon quarrel • Jocasta tells the story of Lauis’s murder; the mention of 3 roads makes Oedipus suspicious; they send for the herdsman • Polybus is not the real father of Oedipus

3. Oedipus the King • Polybus is not the real father of Oedipus • The herdsman and messenger tell their stories • Jocasta hangs herself • Oedipus blinds himself • Oedipus suffers in front of his daughters and Creon • Oedipus requests exile

4. Oedipus at Colonus • Oedipus (now blind and poor) leaves Thebes and wanders for many years. • He is guided on his journey by his daughter Antigone. • They finally end up in Colonus, Athens.

5. Oedipus at Colonus • Oedipus’s two sons Eteocles and Polyneices agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years. • Once Eteocles’s (the younger son) year was over, he refused to give up the throne to his older brother Polyneices. • Eteocles exiled Polyneices from Thebes.

6. Oedipus at Colonus • Polyneices fled to Argos where he raised an army and the returned to Thebes to battle his brother. • Oedipus’s youngest daughter, Ismene, joins Antigone and Oedipus in Colonus. and tells her father that her brothers Eteocles and Polyneices are fighting over who will be king in Thebes.

7. Oedipus at Colonus • Ismene also reveals that an orcale predicts that each son will soon seek Oedipus’s support to win the battle for the throne. • Oedipus is mad and refuses to help either son.

8. Oedipus at Colonus • Oedipus asks the King of Athens to protect him and his daughters. • Creon, Jocasta’s brother, finds Oedipus in Colonus and kidnaps his daughters to force Oedipus to return to Thebes so that the younger son Eteocles can win the battle and become king.

9. Oedipus at Colonus • The King of Athens comes to Oedipus’s rescue by retrieving the two girls and sending Creon back to Thebes empty handed. • The oldest son Polyneices comes to seek Oedipus’s support, but Oedipus becomes angry and refuses.

10. Oedipus at Colonus • Oedipus condemns both of his sons to death because they are so selfish. • After praising the people of Athens for being so kind to him, Oedipus is summoned by thunder in the sky that it is his time to die.

11. Oedipus at Colonus • Accompanied by the King of Athens and his children, Oedipus walks off towards death but first declares that Athens will forever be protected by the gods as long as the king does not reveal the location of his grave to anyone.

12. Oedipus at Colonus • Oedipus dies. • Antigone and Ismene return to Thebes hoping to prevent the deaths of their two brothers that Oedipus has predicted.

13. Oedipus at Colonus • Eteocles and Polyneices kill each other in war for the throne. • Creon, Jocasta’s brother, becomes King. • Creon gives Eteocles a hero’s burial.

14. Oedipus at Colonus • Creon considers Polyneices a traitor, so he decreed that his body be left unburied to rot in the sun. • To the Greeks, this is a terrible punishment. Their holiest laws demanded that certain burial rites be performed, or else the soul of the dead person would be condemned to eternal unrest.

15. Oedipus at Colonus • Antigone wholeheartedly disagrees with Creon’s decision. • This is the basis of Creon’s conflict with the strong-willed Antigone. • Antigone believes that God’s laws must be obeyed, whatever the consequences.