Medea,1

The corus in Oedipus was a group of elders, they were wise and not socialy powerfull. They offered advice and guidence for the characters but also were used as a sort of on stage audiance. The point of this was that because they saw the play from the audiance's perspective the audiance would connect with them and relate. This way the author could use the corus' feelings and their acting to evoke certain emotions in the audiance. The finnal use for the Corus is a kind of restatement of what has happened in the play and then to provide some insightfull thoughts to the audiance about the events.

In Medea the corus is used in both similar and diffrent ways as it is in Oedipus. It is also used to review what happens throughout the play and provide insight poetically. However the corus is not a source of wisdom for the characters like in Oedipus. In Medea they are more importantlly characters which relate with the other characters. For example they are a corus of women and therefore Medea trusts them more than she trusts the men in her story. Finnaly like in Oedipus the corus is a group of characters in the play with which the audiance can relate and therfore a source of emotions and certain reactions to teh events taking place on stage.

Oedipus The King, 5

Sophicles uses the plot to evoke fear and pity in the audience. His biggest tool is the knowlege that the audiance already has about Oedipus. They know that he killed his father and married his mother but Oedipus doesn't know this.

At the begginging of the play Oedipus blames his best friend Creon for killing Lius because he thinks Creon wants his power. The audiance knows that Oedipus killed Lius and pities Oedipus for blaming his friend without the knowlege that he himself was the killer of Lius but he didn't know. Also the audiance watches as Oedipus and Jocasta slowly realize the truth about their situation and not only does this create pity but also a fear for what will happen.

Sophicles also uses forshadowing to create fear. Tiresies is blind and Sophicles forshadows Oedipus becoming blind. The audiance realizes this and becomes apprehensive and scared about Oedipus' future in the play.

However the strongest expiriance of pity the audiance has in the play is when the messanger tells the corus about how Oedipus gouged out his eyes and his wife's corpses eyes when he found her dead. The audiance sees how powerful Oedipus' emotions were for him to do this and this realization is what evokes thier pity for teh characters.

The final way the audiance expiriances these emotions is through the corus. Not only the context of what they say but also how they act the part. The members of the corus winess almost the entire play from the stage with the audiance and even though they are in the play the audiance can relate to them. The members of the corus would be a normal social status and so its natural for the audiance to relate from them. By conecting with the corus teh audiance will also pick up on what emotions the corus is portraying and how they are reacting to the plot. The only thing that is diffrent is that the corus doesn't know the end of the story but because of this teh audiance can see and expiriance the from both the knowlegable and innocent points of view at the same time.

Oedipus The King, 4

Use of sight/light:

Sophicles constantly has cahracters reffering to their sight or encorparating blindness into the plot. For example towards the begining of the story Oedipus consults a blind profit for advice who tells him, "How terrible-to see the truth when truth is only pain to him who sees" (176, 359). Terrisias cannot see but he knows the truth and knows that Oedipus wont accept the painfull truth because he can "see" it. Another example of this would be when Oedipus discovers the truth, "O god- all come true, all burst to light! O light- now let me look my last on you" (232, 1306). Oedipus can now see the truth and he is declaring that it is revealed by "the light". Finnaly when Oedipus decides to cut out his eyes he defends his decision by saying, "Nothing i could see could bring me joy" (241, 1472). Oedipus thinks that the pain will be less now that he cannot see like the profit said so he cut out his eyes. He now can see the truth because he is blind.

This use of sight creates the idea that truth only visable completely to those who do not use their eyes. This more clearly defined by analyzing Oedipus and how he was blinded by his mother's apperance and was not able to see that she was indeed his mother. If he was blind he would not have been blinded by her looks.

Oedipus The King, 3

Sophicles establishes many diffrences between men and women through the examples of Oedipus and Jocasta. First of all Jocasta is centered on the idea that fate is not alterable and a person's future is pre-determined while Oedipus believes that he has power over what goes on in his life and demonstrated this by supposedly running away from his fate.

Also Oedipus and Jocasta react diffrentely to the knowlege of Oedipus' bad deeds and his murderous past. Oedipus wishes to uncover the entire truth about his fathers death and how it happened to destroy all possible doubts while Jocasta comes to the conclusion that Oedipus is her son and her husband and "freaks out" (yes i made that a technical term).

Oedipus The King, 2

Oedipus has demonstrated qualities of both a proficient leader and a deficient leader. For example he is working to save his city state from what is believed to be the rath of the gods but the means by which he is doing this are not productive. "Must Creon, so long my friend, my most trusted friend, stalk me by stelth, and study to dispossess me of the power this city has given me," (36). Oedipus is quick to lay blame on anyone he suspects to have killed Laius even when Teiresia tells him he is wrong to do so. This behavior is not practicall and could cause a misconviction of the criminal.

He also seems to rely heavilly on teh advise of others he believes are wiser then himself. However even when he is given advise he does not take it and turns hostile, blaming the one who gave him the advise. These actions lead me to think that Oedipus is stressed about something, possibly the burden of the plague. Although he started out with good intensions, Oedipus' methods have become less-than-exemplarary.

Teiresias and Creon both seem like humble, supportive characters. Creon like Oedipus seems like he wants to help the country however Teiresias seems a little more concerned with his personal condition than Creon. Both men do want to see the country's wellfare get better.

Oedipus The King, 1

pg 159-170,

Summary of pages:

• 159: Priests have brought branches wraped in wool to Oedipus and he trys to figure out what they need from him. The ciry is supposedly in turmoil
• 160: Priest exclaims that Thebes, there home, is in trouble of destruction. Unfortuanet circumstances like sickness, death, and crop failer
• 161: The priest speaks for the country and asks for Oedipus' help in ending all the chanllenges as he had done before.
• 162: Oedipus reveals that he had sent a man, Creon, to see a profit for advise and as he says this Creon returns from the trip.
• 163: Creon declares that he has good news but insists on telling Oedipus in private
• 164: The news is that teh gods want the coruption in the city destroyed. The corruption was the source of a murder and the killers must be paid back
• 165: Creon and Oedipus discuss the murder and where to find the killers
• 166: Thiefs had killed the king and the Sphinx had kept Creon from seeking out the killers then and there
• 167: Oedipus exclaims that he will look for the killer and avenge he tells the priests to leave and the gaurds to assemble the city people, priests leave happy that Oedipus has agreed to help solve the problem.
• 168: The chorus calls on Zeus, Apollo, and Athena to help them defeat the evil in the city
• 169: The chorus describes the troubles that Thebes is expiriancing, asks the gods for help, to save them from the death and the problems.
• 170: Asks the gods for help, driving the death out of their city, asks specific gods to come and battle to save their country.

Literary Techniques and Effects:

• pg 160; "boys still too weak to fly from the nest, and the old, bowed down with the years," emphasizes that everyone has come for help.
• pg 160; "Thebes is dying," personification makes image of death and great trouble
• pg 161; "Raise up our city," save the city, describes the desperation the people have.
• pg 162; "shining like his eyes," designates him as what the people need at that moment, their hope
• pg 166; "singing riddling sphinx," gives the sphinx a mysitical persona, also glorious
• pg 168; "gold vaults of Delphini" makes them valuable
• pg 169; "sword of thought," they are defensless
• pg 170; "Drive him back-the fever, the god of death," by personifcation of death their problems suddenly become a person, something they can fight or kill

Denialism, the philosaphy that nothing is true or can exists.

Denialism is a philosaphy in which the believer claims that everything is false unless it can be proven. However it is true that many claims or facts are based on assumptions and lies and thus even if they can be proven "true" they are not because the information with which the claims are being proven cannot be proven to be true.

It is also true that anyone who is a Denialist cannot claim they are a denialist because there is no information that can be proven true with which to support whether denialism exists or does not. Therefor a true denialist must deny that denialism has any truth to it and is in fact false. This presents a probelm because the Denialist is left without any purpose or beliefs and then because they have no creed they cannot prove that they belive that something is not true. The true denialist will reach this conclusion and then deny that their sanity exists.

It is true that a person without sanity cannot be trusted to know what truth is and in this unproven truth the denialist will come to their ultimate epiphany. They will conclude that no material object can exist because the denialist can no longer trust their senses because they have no sanity. The denialist must then realize that all information entering their brain cannot be proven truthfull because the senses of an insane person cannot be proven to tell the truth. (they may be hearing something that doesn't exist like voices telling them something) This ultimatum is where the denialist would destroy himself in order to elimate the untruthfulness.

Then he would get cake..... but the cake is a lie so he would deny his accomplishment and refuse the cake.

final draft

Hey guys when you get your part finished post it in a comment on this entry.