Oedipus Journal #2

Journal: How does the background information on Greek Theater and History inform your reading of Oedipus? Use specific examples to explore the connections between context and content.

Sophocles introduced 3 actors to Greek theater and a chorus. This knowledge helped me understand Oedipus better. There are always only 3 characters talking at a time. Whenever a fourth character ends up talking, one of the previous characters has always left. The history of the Greek theater and drama helped me understand why there are only 3 characters "on the stage" at the time.

Another interesting piece of history that connected to th eplay was the worship of the Greek gods. At the time, in reality, the people worshipped Dionysus. In the play, the characters refer to the Greek gods such as Apollo: "Zeus and Apollo know, they know, the great masters of all the dark and depth of human life." (lines 561-562). The characters always have deep reverence of the Gods and do not dare to say anything bad about them: "An oracle came to Laius one fine day (I won'tsay from Apollo himself but his underlings his priests) and it declared that doom..." (lines 784-787). Just like in reality, the people would worship Dionysus reverently, and just like in reality not say anything bad about him.