VCCS Litonline Introduction to Literature English 112 (English Composition II)

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Oedipus the Wreck

Objective for this Page: To summarize exodus and kommos.

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Summary of Oedipus the King

Exodos: An eyewitness tells about Jocasta's suicide and Oedipus' blinding himself in humiliation and grief. (Lines 1351-1432)

Oedipus ran into the palace calling for a sword to kill Jocasta. Sword in hand, he bashed in the door to their bedroom. Jocasta had already hung herself. Undone, Oedipus ripped down the noose, set Jocasta down, and snatched the large, ornamental pins that held her clothes together. With these long pins he gouged out his eyes so that he could no longer see the abomination his life had become. As he repeatedly stabbed his eyes, the blood leapt from his face like black hail.

Kommos: Oedipus, led onstage, seeks exile. (Lines 1432-1682 The End)

The memory of evil leapt into his head along with each stroke of the pins, Oedipus tells the townspeople. What use is sight if he can see only horrible disgrace? Oedipus curses the man who saved him on Cithaeron and wishes he himself had died there as a baby.

If he had killed himself, Oedipus explains to the choragos, he would see his parents in Hades (the Greek shadow-world afterlife, neither heaven or hell, just existence with memory of this life). He doesn't want to see his children, either, products of incest.

Creon allows Oedipus to say goodbye to his children before he is exiled, walking with the aid of a stick, himself acting out the riddle of the sphinx.

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