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What moral values are emphasized in The Theban Plays Essay - 1

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What moral values are emphasized in The Theban Plays - Essay Example

despite the fact that many of the main characters feel confident in their own power; this power is based on the lack of knowledge concerning the truth. In the play, Oedipus the King, Oedipus is seen as a man who is confident in his own power since he considers himself the savior of the city of Thebes after he killed the Sphinx, which was terrorizing it. He proudly states, “You all know me, the world knows my fame/ I am Oedipus� (Oedipus the King, 8-9). While this is the case, he does not know the truth concerning his own heritage; that he is a man who is cursed because he killed his father and married his own mother. This knowledge is revealed to him by the seer Tiresias, and this revelation destroys the confidence with which Oedipus carried himself. He comes to the realization that he had committed, albeit unknowingly, some of the worst sins known to man, namely, patricide and incest.