Oedipus the King Test – Remediation

Complete exactly 10 points worth of the following questions. Answer on notebook paper, and be sure to make it clear what you are answering by numbering accordingly AND indicating in your response what the information provides (complete sentences or lead-ins) AND label each with the point value. For your own benefit, it is best to choose questions that correspond to items missed on the original test.

  1. (1 point) What is Oedipus’s specific curse on the murderer?
  2. (4 points) In Oedipus’s appeals to Tiresias:
  3. Oedipus says, “We are in your hands. For a man to help others / with all his gifts and native strength: / that is the noblest work.” How might this appeal to Tiresias’s sense of benevolence?
  4. Oedipus: “Strange response—unlawful, / unfriendly too to the state that bred and raised you…” How might this appeal to Tiresias’s patriotism?
  5. Oedipus: “For the love of god, don’t turn away, / not if you know something.” How might this appeal to Tiresias’s religious devotion?
  6. (1 point) Oedipus’s reaction to Tiresias’s unwillingness to speak and his claim that Oedipus is “the murderer [he] hunt[s]” is disrespectful and prideful. If he had treated another man that way, it may not have been an act of hubris. Why is it when directed toward Tiresias?
  7. (2 points) Define the term “motive” when applied to a character’s actions? (Look this up in the dictionary, if need be!)
  8. (4 points) What information does each of the following characters provide to Oedipus that leads to his implication as Laius’s murder?
  9. Tiresias
  10. Jocasta
  11. Messenger from Corinth
  12. Shepherd
  13. (2 points) At the beginning of the play, Tiresias is physically blind but metaphorically can see in that he knows the truth. At the end of the play, Oedipus is also blind but sees clearly the truth. List 2 reasons that this is ironic.
  14. (3 points) What three elements must exist in the plot for it to be considered complex by Aristotle’s standards? Define each of the three.
  15. (3 points) Justice can be defined as any of the following:
  16. The administering of deserved punishment or reward
  17. The administration of what is just by law
  18. Fairness; equity

Explain how Oedipus’s outcome (wife/mother dead, blinded, banished) matches one or more of these definitions, or why it doesn’t.

  1. (3 points) If the anagnorisis includes the tragic hero’s recognition not only of knowledge that he or she lacked but also that he or she is at least partially responsible for his or her own catastrophe, how does this add to the tragic effect? (Think of the emotions that are brought out through tragedy.)
  2. (4 points) Write a two-sentence summary of chapter 22 of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor.