Comparing
King Oedipus, by Sophocles
with
Desire
Under The Elms, by Eugene O'Neil
The plays King
Oedipus by Sophocles and Desire Under The Elms by Eugene O'Neil are
both tragedies. In these plays the main
characters in each have their dreams crushed.
When the two plays are compared you find they are very similar with some
major differences.
In King
Oedipus, Oedipus unknowingly kills his father, and marries his mother. Because of this Oedipus, the King, lost his
kingdom and was sent into exile. Eben
Cabot, the main character in Desire Under The Elms, unknowingly
talks his father's wife, with whom he was having an affair, into killing their
child. This leads Eben to lose any
chance he had of gaining ownership of his family's farm. It also led to his and Abbie Putnam's
arrest. Abbie Putnam was Eben's father's
wife and the woman Eben loved Their
arrest caused their permanent separation.
Both of these
plays are tragedies and when comparing the two of them you find many
similarities. You also find, however,
many things different in the two plays
The similarities in the plays include, one losing his kingdom and the
other losing his farm; one being exiled and one being jailed, which would be a
more modern version of exile, and unknowingly killing his father and the other
unknowingly causing the death of his son.
The differences in the plays would include that Eben knowingly had an
affair with his father's wife and Oedipus unknowingly married his mother.
The major
difference I believe is that where Oedipus seemed to be just a poor victim of
fate who was trying to do right things, Eben appeared to be more in control of
his own fate and just with a few bad decisions, made at emotional times, he
lost everything he was trying to gain for himself.
Comments
Post a Comment