Oedipus

It was interesting to see how Oedipus unfolds as a play and when I first saw and thought about it I did not consider it a mystery but when I tried to support my belief that it was not I discovered that I was wrong. Oedipus is a mystery. Oedipus contains a murder, that of the King. While the watcher already has knowledge of the ending of the story when the play begins the characters within the story do not. Oedipus during the play is trying to discover who murdered the King. He questions the one man that was at the scene of the crime only to discover that he himself is the one that killed the King.

Another part of the mystery is Oedipus trying to discover how his oracle could come true. This may not seem to be very mysterious, just a side note about religion and the importance of the gods, but all during the play Oedipus is trying to discover the truth of the oracle. He is trying to discover if this oracle about his is true or false and if it is true how will it come to pass? Oedipus’s play is a whodoneit in the case of the murdered king and a howdoneit in the case of the coming to pass of the oracle. As there are two mysteries going on at the same and because they are so interconnected the play is at times confusing because the audience knows the truth the whole time and it is frustrating to see how he goes about to discover this same truth. The mystery seems to really only be discovered by Oedipus and is something that only he can interpret and fit together and in the end it is he that must put everything together and is the amateur detective.