Antigone ****
Oedipus ****
Elektra ***
Intro and Explanatory notes *****

Wa een banger

The play is great of course, and very fun to teach. Creon is such a bastard and the teenagers love that his teenage son is the only sane character. What I really want to recommend is this version, put out by Cambridge. The translation is excellent and uses modern language well, and the notes on the side do an excellent job of putting all the references the Greeks would have taken for granted in cultural context. Totally changes the way you understand the play.

n  Antigone: 5 starsn
What I love about the character of Antigone, is that she is willing to do anything if she believes that, this is the right thing to do. She doesn’t care about higher power such as the law (Creon) and she refuses to submit to it, therefore she is punished for it.

I wish someone would write a retelling of this myth because she is an interesting character. She has such a deep sense of filial piety for her brother, that she is willing to disobey the law and die so that he could be buried and not wander eternally without finding his way to the underworld.

n  Oedipus the King: 5 starsn
Oedipus the King or no matter how hard you try to escape your fate, what is meant to be, will eventually happen. It’s pretty clear if you read any myth that no one can escape their fates, whether it’s Oedipus, Iocasta, or Laius, they all try their luck but end up meeting it anyway.

n  Electra: 3 starsn
It’s definitely my least favourite among the three plays. I found the character of Electra a little similar to Antigone, since they are both looking for justice regarding a member of their family.

The play was a very interesting story. I found it interesting because of the murder mystery aspect.

I read Oedipus Rex in high school, but had never read Antigone or Electra. Many common themes between the three which makes more sense of references to Greek tragedies. Bloody stuff and whatever you do beware oracles!

A stunning mesh of power and tragedy.

This collection holds 3 morally hard-hitting plays, each demonstrating a glimpse into classical antiquity and ancient societal dynamics.

Oedipus presented a poignant story of emotional revenge and realisation, while Electra explored grief and simultaneous gain- however, Antigone was my favourite of the set.

A tale of feminine power, societal oppression and familial love. The story of Antigone is a classic tragedy, arrogance with devastating consequence.

“Was I to stand before the god’s tribunal for disobeying them , because I feared a man?”

The play Oedipus the King, by Sophocles is one of the great classics of ancient Greece, written in 430 B.C. Written to be a tragedy, the fictional play takes the reader on a dramatic journey filled with several different themes and hidden messages set in the ancient Greek city of Thebes. The play starts out with a cry to the king, Oedipus, that gods have implemented upon the city a curse of fertility. The curse causes all crops and livestock to die and removes the ability to give birth from human mothers. The curse has been implemented for the murder of the former king of themes, Laius.
At first, Oedipus is disgruntled upon hearing the news, however, he then puts on an act of sorrow and compassion for the citizens, and pledges that he will be able to stop the curse because of how great he was. This is just one of the moments where the theme of hubris, having too much pride, comes up in the story. The theme also comes up when Oedipus accuses his fellow member of the triumvirate, Creon, the killer of Laius.
The theme of having too much hubris also ties into the theme of blindness. Throughout the story, Oedipus visits the oracle at Delphi, Teiresias, to find insight on the murder of Laius. Oedipus seeks Teiresias’ insight because he has been the ability to see into the past and future, but not the present, as he is blind. The information that Oedipus receives from Teiresias does not please him, as Teiresias accused Oedipus of being the killer. Oedipus, blinded by his hubris, does not believe him and believes Creon bribed Teiresias. That is how the theme of hubris and blindness connect to one another.
There is also an additional main theme in the play, the theme of fate. While Oedipus was at a wedding in Corinth, another ancient Greek city, a drunk man claimed he was destined to follow a certain, tragic path in life. Startled by his proclamation, he runs away from the city and ends up in the Thebes, living peacefully married to Jocasta, the former husband of Laius. Eventually, Oedipus is consumed by his fate and that is how he meets his downfall.
The writing style of Sophocles made the play very exciting to read. Sophocles had many different hidden messages that were intertwined with each other, and discovering them and piecing them together was added a new aspect to the story. The three themes were all hidden messages, as Sophocles never directly stated them or their impact on the story. He also never stated their connection to one another. Another thing that Sophocles did was state throughout the play some of the themes but did not go into full depth about them and their true meaning. He did this with the theme of blindness, as he told the reader that Teiresias was blind, but did not tell the reader about how Oedipus was blinded by his own hubris, and let the reader make that connection on their own. Furthermore, another overarching theme I noticed was the theme of a triumvirate. Sophocles mentioned the triumvirate of Oedipus, Jocasta, and Creon, but he did not mention the triumvirate of the three themes. The reason I believe these three themes make up a triumvirate is because they are all equally important in influencing the outcome of the story, just like a triumvirate of rulers. Overall, Oedipus the King was a wonderful and exciting play to read, analyze, and reflect upon.

Antigone: 4
Oedipus the king: reread, 4
Electra: 3.5

I need more greek tragedies in my home library!

All three plays were so good, the dialogues, the language?!!! What would have been even better? Well more of Iokaste tbh.

And I don‘t know how, but Sophocles made me sympathize both with Clytemnestra as well as Electra.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a tragedy story, it was very "juicy" with the beginning and mid plot and ending with a plot twist. Oedipus, portrayed as the intelligent savior, saved the people from the Sphinx and was revered as a hero suddenly undergoes a series of unfortunately events that ruined him. The fact that he ended up marrying his own mother and gave birth to children from the very womb that gave birth to himself was twisted, but really captured the moment with an intense climax in the plot. In regards to prophecies, I always believed they came with uncertainty and doubt. Do you really believe in prophets? Or would you be foolish to disregard it? Oedipus the King did an excellent job at illustrating the doubt against the initial words of Teiresias, but slowly revealed that it was foolish to at least give the prophecy some sort of benefit of the doubt. Oedipus did not believe Teiresias when he told him he had anger problems. Yet those very anger problems led him to kill his father, Laius, and the other crew members because of an altercation that skyrocketed out of control. That very anger also led him to disregard Teiresias prophecy warning. And that very anger may have led him to blind himself by stabbing his own eyes. On another note, I was unclear whether Jocasta was aware that she was involved with her own son from the beginning? When the servant started to reveal to Oedipus information that he might have been the son Jocasta once casted out to die, she tried to stop the servant from saying more. So I am not sure if Jocasta knew all along, but regardless it made the story even more interesting.

All in all, this was a great read and I would definitely recommend it to others. (308 words)

There were many different themes, lessons, and motifs in this story. One motif that recurred throughout the play was blindness and sight, that was a very important motif because in the play many different people were blind and could not see, but on the other hand some people were blind and could see. Tiresias was a fortune teller so he could see the future and the past but he could not see the present, so he had people guide him places. Some people were figuratively blind because they could not see what was right in front of them, and some people made themselves blind by their actions of anger and rage. A very big theme in this play is questioning information before you believe everything you hear. At many instances in this play characters did not question information and they paid the price because they believed them, but had no proof. Another important theme in this play was do not run away from your problems. In this play many characters were running away from their problems, and most of the problems were based on prophecies. Oedipus, Lauis and Jocasta all did certain actions to make sure their prophecy would not come true, but by making those decisions their prophecies did come true. The messenger also ran away from his problems when he found out that Oedipus was king and he ran to hide because of what he saw. When Oedipus became king he had lots of hubris because he was king and he solved the riddle of the sphinx and he never thought that he could be the killer of Laius because he said that he would punish himself if he was the killer.
tSophocles wrote this play in 430 BC, so it was a very different writing style than what we are used to today. I like his writing style because in this play we find out about events that have gone over 10 or more years, but the play is based on one day from morning to night. I also like how it was mostly based in one spot throughout the day, in front of the palace. The townspeople were listening to everything everyone had to say so they got all the information, and in the morning they asked for the curse to be lifted and that night the curse was lifted. I liked how Sophocles made Tiresias the fortune teller for Oedipus and Lauis and Jocasta and how they got the same prophecy and they both ran away from it because they didn’t want it to come true.