1. What is the significance of Oedipus's slow coming into awareness of that identity?
2. What is the significance of the physical blindness of the prophet Tiresias? Is blindness an important and repeated symbolic motif in the plain? How can we interpret Oedipus's act of self-blinding? Is his physical blindness symbolically similar to or different from that of Tiresias?
3. What do you make of the various situations at the end of the play (the suicide of Jocasta, Oedipus's self-blinding and exile, his prediction of a miserable life for his own children)? Why are the outcomes so tragic and extreme? What is the significance of the curse/prophecy which seems to haunt the family of Oedipus?
4. Is Oedipus an innocent victim of an unjust fate or does he bear some responsibility in the outcome of his life? Is his fate the result of unavoidable necessity or does he contribute to it through his own choices? Could he have changed the fate described in the prophecies? How?
When you are considering the prompt also be considering the Fate vs. Determinism discussion you had with your classmates. Your answer to how Sophocles addresses this will help to make your essay more arguable. ALSO, What is the impact of the dramatic irony? How does the effect of the tragedy change when we know what is going to happen? How does this tie to the Archetype of the “Tragic Hero”?
-RMH
