Oedipus Quote sentences

Prologue

1-5

1

Oedipus's self-proclamation, 'I am Oedipus', is amplified by the emphatic possessive 'myself' and the regal epithet 'fame', which together assert a monumental public identity.

2

The Priest sustains an extended maritime metaphor in which Thebes is a 'ship' that 'cannot lift her head', then collapses the conceit into the stark personification 'Thebes is dying'.

3

Characterisation and dramatic irony converge in the juxtaposition of 'my people' with 'own life', where the comparative 'far more than' ranks civic duty above self-preservation.

4

Apollo's command is carried by a rhythmic cascade of imperatives, 'drive the corruption' and 'root it out', fused with agricultural metaphor.

5

Oedipus’s vow to “bring it all to light myself” establishes the light/darkness motif, foreshadowing his eventual anagnorisis

Parados and first episode

6-11

6

The Chorus fuses metaphor and personification in the “city of death, one long cortege”, while suffering that “rises” lends imagery to an ominous upward momentum

7

Parallelism and dramatic irony structure Oedipus’s sentence “step by painful step”, its halting cadence foreshadowing the self-implicating “I curse myself as well”

8

Tiresias’s aphorism, in which the truth is “only pain to he who sees”, turn on paradox and the repetition of truth, giving the line the force of a universal maxim.

9

Hubristic characterisation is conveyed through exclamatory dismissal, as the “birds” and “gods” are reduced to “nothing” against “my own intelligence” and the boast having “stopped the sphinx”.

10

Paradoxical juxtaposition sets “precious eyes” against “blind [to] corruption”, developing the sight/blindness motif through the compression of stoichomythia

11

Antithesis and foreshadowing give structure to the prophecy of the “blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich”, and the visual imagery of “grope” complete the pattern of reversal

Second Episode

12-16

12

Creon's aphorism, 'Time alone can bring the just man to light', personifies time as an agent of revelation and extends the light motif.

13

The terse declaration 'I must rule' derives its force from the absolute modal 'must', set within the clipped exchange of stichomythia.

14

Jocasta's secular argument rests on absolute phrasing, 'nothing human' can 'penetrate the future', and generates dramatic irony against the prophecy already unfolding.

15

Broken syntax in 'upon myself', coupled with the admission 'I simply didn't know', signals the first fracture of certainty through dramatic irony.

16

The rhetorical question 'born for torment?' and the visceral vocabulary of 'abomination' mark a redefinition of identity through suffering and pollution.

second stasimon and third episode

17-20

17

The choric warning personifies pride as “gorging, crammed to bursting” and renders its collapse in the visceral metaphor “smashed down in abyss”.

18

Jocasta’s philosophical assertion that “chance rules our lives” is driven by repetition, and the imperative “live” converts the creed into an exhortation.

19

Dramatic irony, personification, and periphrasis combine in Oedipus's self-designation of “the son of chance”, the “giver of all good things”.

20

Jocasta’s tragic renaming of Oedipus as “son of chance” is heightened by the cry of grief in the tripled “ever, ever, ever”.