Oedipus Rex Study Guide

Study questions for each part of the play, from the prologue to the end.

By Rick Reed

ENGLISH 11AP:

Study Guide – Oedipus Rex

Prologue

1. What do the following words mean: suppliant, chaplet, lamentation, bay, defile, highwayman, and compunction?
2. How were the ancient Greek playwrights able to turn to their advantage the fact that their audiences already knew the legends on which they based most of their plays?
3. In Oedipus’ opening speech, how does he immediately establish and characterize his relationship with the people of Thebes? What is the tone of his words, “never doubt that I will help you / In every way I can”?
4. How do the people regard Oedipus? Offer specific details. How does Oedipus regard his people’s pain? Is his attitude supported by their own feelings about him? How or how not?
5. What do lines 71-80 reveal about Oedipus? How do his words exemplify dramatic irony? What other instances of such irony occur in this portion of the play?
6. What piece of misinformation do the Thebans possess regarding Laios’ murder?

Parados

1. What do the following words mean: parados, strophe, antistrophe, and choragos?
2. Identify four functions of the Chorus. What is the tone of the Chorus’s words? From stanza to stanza, to whom are their words directed? (It will help if you know whom among the twelve Olympian gods is the god of healing and who is the god of the sky.) What do the members of the Chorus pray for?
3. What function does this choral ode serve?

Scene 1

1. What do the following words mean: contagion and insolence?
2. Identify instances of dramatic irony in Scene 1.
3. Consider Oedipus’ statement about the gods in lines 267-268: “. . . no man in the world / Can make the gods do more than the gods will.” What relationship between humans and the divine does Oedipus express in these words?
4. Compare line 274 to line 67.
5. Explain the paradox voiced by Teiresias in lines 304-305. What is the prophet’s tone in lines 304-327? What is Oedipus’s tone in lines 310-333? What attitude does Teiresias charge against Oedipus in lines 325-326? Does anything in the play so far support that charge?
6. What is the tone of Oedipus’s words in lines 339-389? How do his words measure up against those in lines 213-217?
7. How does the interplay of the imagery of sight and blindness contribute to the development of theme in Teiresias’s speech in lines 394-414?

Ode 1

1. What do the following words mean: regicide and coursers?
2. What is the ancient regicide (450)? Who is the secret man (459)? What is the secret man’s fate? Who is the “old man skilled at hearing Fate” (468)? What is the tone of lines 469-484?
3. What function does this choral ode serve?

Scene 2

1. What do the following words mean: perquisite, prudent, duplicity, parry, incarnate, maunder, and rant?
2. What is Kreon’s tone in his opening speech? How does the Choragos respond? To which part of the tripartite Platonic soul does Kreon appeal? From which part of the tripartite Platonic soul does Oedipus speak?
3. Identify all instances of dramatic irony in this scene.
4. Explain Kreon’s argument against coveting the power of a king. How does Oedipus regard his people’s pain? Is his attitude supported by their own feelings about him? How or how not?
5. What role does Iokaste play in the argument between Oedipus and Kreon?

Strophe 1, Strophe 2, Antistrophe 1, Antistrophe 2

1. What is the tone of the Choragos? What action does the Choragos urge Oedipus to take?
2. Why does Oedipus agree to release Kreon? Why does Kreon say to Oedipus: “Ugly in yielding, as you were ugly in rage! / Natures like yours chiefly torment themselves”?
3. What is Iokaste’s attitude toward fortunetellers?
4. Explain the significance to the plot of lines 685-686. How do lines 700-701 represent an epiphany? Identify any lines that follow that further develop the epiphany.
5. How might Oedipus’ action after hearing the prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi be interpreted as an act against the divine?

Ode 2

1. What do the following words mean: haughty and disdain?
2. What is the tone of Strophe 1? Who are “Those generations of the realms of light”?
3. Lines 829-834 offer a definition. What term do they define? What are the details of that definition? What are the qualities of a good ruler, according to the Chorus?
4. What point does the Chorus assert in Strophe 2? Does Oedipus practice the attitude the Chorus espouses?
5. What complaint does the Chorus make in Antistrophe 2?

Scene 3

1. Why is Iokaste making the rounds of the altars of the gods? Explain how the simile in lines 876-878 applies to her motivation.
2. Identify all instances of dramatic irony in this scene.
3. How do Oedipus’ speech in lines 915-923 and Iokaste’s speech in lines 928-930 connect to the choral Ode 2?
4. Why does Iokaste speak as she does in lines 999-1001, 1003-1005, 1008, and 1012? How does Oedipus interpret Iokaste’s words and sorrow?

Ode 3

Scene 4

1. What is the tone of the Shepherd’s lines: 1067, 1069, 1077, and 1080? What about those lines creates that tone? What is the tone of line 1082? What about that line creates that tone? What is the tone of lines 1086 and 1088? What about those lines creates that tone? What is the tone of lines 1092, 1094, 1100, and 1104? What about those lines creates that tone?
2. What makes lines 1118-1123 the probable climax of the play?

Ode 4

1. What is the tone of Strophe 1? What evidence supports that tone?
2. What is the tone of Antistrophe 1? What evidence supports that tone?
3. What figure of speech is used in line 115? What is the tone of lines 1160-1162?
4. What is the main idea of Antistrophe 2?

Exodos

1. What do the following words mean: malediction, execrable, parricide, and purge?
2. What figure of speech is used in lines 1180-1182? What is its function?
3. Line 1184 might be regarded as a theme statement for this play. Do you believe it is or not?
4. Paraphrase line 1200.
5. What figure of speech dominates Oedipus’ speech in lines 1220-1225?
6. Anadiplosis is a construction in which a word that occurs at the end of one sentence or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next sentence or clause. Locate an example of anadiplosis on page 1352.
7. What type of irony is presented in Strophe 1?