Oedipus the King Character Map
Jesus Gonzalez
Who wrote it and how can we understand it?
The play that Sophocles wrote is merely the very end of a long story, and some plot background must be provided to make the story understandable for audiences.
Thebes
This was the place that was dominated by Sphinx. Years later, plague hits the city and kills crops and babies.
Corinth
This place was the kingdom of King Polybus and Queen Merope.
Oracle of Apollo
This place gave a prediction to Laius that his own son would kill him.
Laius
He is the great grandson of Cadmus. He is Jocasta's husband. He received a prediction that him own son would assassinate him. Along with his wife decided to give the baby to a servant to kill him. He was killed years later at a crossroads outside Thebes.
Jocasta
She is Laius' wife. She is the one that gave her son to a servant. Much later in the story, she married his son Oedipus.
King Polybus and Queen Merope
This couple are king and queen of Corinth. They were the adoptive parents of the baby left behind by Laius and Jocasta. They named the child Oedipus.
Sphinx
A winged monster with the head of a woman and the body of a lion who kills all who fail to answer her riddle, what goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening? She kills herself after hearing the right answer to the riddle.
Oedipus
He is the son of Laius and Jocasta. He was adopted by King Polybus and Queen Merope after left behind by his real parents. He had traveled to Thebes in an attempt to escape from killing his "father" Polybus, instead he kills his real father but he didn't know the truth. He was able to solve Sphinx's riddle by answering, "It's a man, who crawls when he is a baby, walks when he is young man and and limps with a can when he is old." He was rewarded by marring Jocasta.
Creon
He is Oedipus' brother-in-law, brother of Jocasta; he was send by him to the Oracle of Apollo to ask how to lift this blight the answer was to find the Lauis' murderer.
Antiogone and Ismene
They were the two daughters of the happy marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta
Eteocles and Polynices
They were the two sons of the happy marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta.