Oedipus and Othello

Oedipus and Othello

Introduction

Oedipus the King and Othello the Moor When you read the works of different authors you always seem to notice different similarities between them. Among those authors are Shakespeare and Sophocles who show many different similarities between their works. We will now use one of Shakespeare's and Sophocles plays, Othello and Oedipus the King, and discuss the similarities or/and differences they have between them. We will also compare, focus, discuss and explain the tragic endings, mood, plot, the concept of fate and destiny, and the qualities of the main characters, Othello and Oedipus and also the irony, and the themes in each play.

Analysis

The plays of Oedipus the King and Othello both compare when it comes to their tragic endings. They both are seen as “tragedies” because of their tragic events and endings. In Oedipus the King, there are many events that happen during the play that are tragedies. Such events like the first event, happens in the beginning of the play. That event is the plague that has struck the city of Thebes. “Our city reeks with the smoke of burning incense, rings with cries for the healer and wailing for the dead.” (25,4-5). Oedipus is describing what the play has done to his city and its people. Even before this tragedy there was a previous one that had occurred before but was ignored and that was the murder of King Laius.

This tragedy is very important and essential to this play because if it never happened the story would have been very different today. If Creon never returned with the oracle's answer about the murder of Laius, he would have never tried to find out the truth about his past and connect this tragedy to the tragedy that he went through when he was young. The worst tragedy occurred at the end of the play when Oedipus is left with no wife, no sight and facing the fact that he are never going to see his children and Thebes ever again. This is a tragedy because there is death, sorrow and pain all throughout the play. From the beginning to the end we can see the signs that this play was going to be a tragedy. Oedipus himself was a tragedy. Othello is also a tragedy, but did not have many tragic events as there been in Oedipus the King. One tragic event ...