Comparing Oedipus Rex and King Lear Essay -- comparison compare contra

Comparing Oedipus Rex and King Lear Oedipus Rex and King Lear are, as their titles announce, both about kings. These two plays are similar in makeup and in the questions they pose to the interview. The kings in each play both origin from the pinnacle of power to become the most loathed of all classes in parliamentary procedure Oedipus discovers that he is a murderer and committer of incest, and Lear becomes a mad beggar. Misjudgments occur in both plays, and the same questions about the gods, fate, and free will are posed. In spite of these similarities, however, the final effects of these two plays differ greatly. For me, as I read Oedipus Rex again this fall, I experienced a sensation nigh of agony. Because I had already known the myth as well as read the play, I was in the Greeks position of foreknowledge. This caused me to feel acutely the mockery of Oedipus confident declarations that the murderer of Laius should be driven from every house, / Being, as he is, corruption itself to us, and again on the next page, As for the criminal, I beg to God- Whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number- I pray that that mans life be consumed in evil and wretchedness. And as for me, this curse applies no little If it should turn out that the culprit is my guest here, Sharing my hearth. (13-14) Oedipus has short no idea that the murderer he is denouncing so vehemently is, in fact, himself. The fact that the reader knows that, and he does non, becomes increasintly painful, especially in the line where Oedipus says, And as for me, this curse applies no slight.... Oedipus means only that he will not protect the guilty, even under the constraints of hospitality he has absolutely no ... ...n has already occurred, is concentrated fully on them. King Lear comes to a more more acceptable resolution. At the end of Oedipus Rex, I felt goose egg but relief that the worst was finally over. King Lear also make me sigh heavily with relief, but it was m ore cathartic than the other. There is less agony in the experience of the play, and the ending is more resolved. While Sophocles leaves the audience with a burden of unresolved issues, Shakespeare, though not resolving them, makes them less cumbersome. In this way, King Lear, though no less a disaster than Oedipus Rex, seems less ponderous and sad. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. Russell Fraser. impudently revised ed. New York Penguin Group, 1998. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. The Oedipus Cycle. New York Harcourt Brace and Company, 1939.