Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

Major Oppositions in Oedipus the King
Mark Morales
Amphibology, the ambiguity of speech, plays a significant role in shaping the
plot and tragic message of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. Through the skillful
use of language, Sophocles presents a series of positive and negative oppositions
that accurately represent the play’s tragic figure, Oedipus. As the plot
progresses, the oppositions collapse, and Oedipus discovers that he possesses
both the positive and negative extremes of each character trait. By establishing a
series of oppositions and collapsing them in the protagonist, Sophocles offers a
tragic model of man that reflects the duality of humanity.
In the opening scenes of the play, Sophocles constructs a set of oppositions
that define Oedipus as a character. Sophocles characterizes Oedipus as both the
savior and destroyer of Thebes. Oedipus rescues the people of Thebes from the
deadly song of the Sphinx, and the priest says to him, “Your country calls you
savior now for your zeal, your action years ago” (Oed. 59-60). However, Oedipus
is also the destroyer of the city; his patricide and incest corrupt the land and
bring about the devastating plague. Oedipus plays the role of both the detective
who promises to track down the killer of Laius and the criminal responsible for
the murder. Oedipus seeks to follow the “trail of the ancient guilt” by searching
for clues and cross-examining witnesses, yet he himself is the criminal that he
hunts (Oed. 124).
Sophocles also characterizes Oedipus as the curser, the cursed, and the
curse itself. Oedipus places a curse on the murderer of Laius to carry out his life
in agony, but since he murdered Laius, Oedipus is also the cursed. His horrible
crimes of murder and incest represent the curse itself; as Tiresias says, “You are
the curse, the corruption of the land” (Oed. 401). Sophocles establishes another
opposition between the one and the many. When a rumor circulates that a band
of thieves, rather than a single person, killed Laius, Oedipus defends himself by
stating, “One can’t equal many” (Oed. 934). The opposition also reflects the
riddle Oedipus solves to free Thebes. Oedipus is only one character, yet he
represents the three stages of life described in the riddle. Oedipus is the baby
abandoned on Mt. Cithaeron, the young man who solves the riddle and marries
Jocasta, and by the end of the play, the old blind man who must walk with a
stick tapping before him.
The most prominent opposition that repeatedly surfaces throughout the
play is the contrast between blindness and sight. Sophocles emphasizes both
physical eyesight and the ability to see the truth. In the beginning of the play he
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