The Themes of Oedipus the King Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus the King, contains one main theme, which this essay will examine. The theme is the general doctrine or belief implicit in the drama, which the author seeks to make convincing to the reader (Abrams 170). In “Sophocles' Moral Themes,” Robert D. Murray Jr. cites a critic who is strictly a moralist in the area of ​​morality. interpretation of the Oedipus Rex theme: Let CM Bowra speak for the moralists: The central idea of ​​a Sophoclean tragedy is that through suffering, man learns to be modest before the gods. . . . When [the characters] are finally forced to see the truth, we know that the gods have prevailed and that men must accept their own insignificance. In short, for Bowra, the essence of each of Sophocles' plays is a message inviting humility and piety (45). Van Nortwick, apparently in favor of Bowra, describes Oedipus's tragic flaw as something equivalent to the lack of modesty before the gods that Bowra refers to: As ruler, he is the father of Thebes and its citizens, and like a father he will care for his "children." We already see the supreme self-confidence and ease of command in Oedipus, who can not only consider other people's children as his own, but also be the father of men older than himself. But beyond that, there is, in the tense posture of the citizens, an allusion to prostration before a divinity. We “cling to your altars,” said the priest. . . . The fact that he also exudes divine mastery in the eyes of his subjects only strengthens the heroic portrait. . . .(21-22).The "divine mastery" to which Van Nortwick refers is the same mastery that Creon in his closing lines points to as the cause of...... middle of paper......of Oedipus. Rex, edited by Michael J. O'Brien. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Jevons, Frank B. “In the Tragedy of Sophoclea, Humans Create Their Own Destiny.” » In Readings on Sophocles, edited by Don Nardo. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Murray, Robert D. Jr. “Moral Themes of Sophocles.” In Readings on Sophocles, edited by Don Nardo. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1997. “Sophocles” in Literature of the Western World, edited by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984. Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Trans. by F. Storr. no page.http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed new?tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&part=0&id=SopOediVan Nortwick, Thomas. Oedipus: the meaning of a masculine life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.