Characterization in Oedipus the KingThe dialogue, action, and motivation revolve around the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate the types of characters present in Sophocles' tragic drama Oedipus Rex, whether static or dynamic, flat or round, and whether represented by spectacle or narrative. Werner Jaeger in "The Mastery of Sophocles' Character Development" pays the playwright the highest compliment in character development: The indelible impression that Sophocles leaves on us today and his imperishable position in world literature are both due to his character design. If we ask which of the men and women of Greek tragedy have an independent imaginary life outside the very scene and plot in which they appear, we must answer: "those created by Sophocles, before all others » (36). Sophocles' main characters can surely be said to grow beyond two-dimensionality to become truly rounded physical presences. This is done primarily through presentation technique, although the choir is sometimes involved in communicating various information to the audience. At the beginning of Oedipus Rex, the reader sees a king who comes to the door full of curiosity: “Explain your mood and your intention. Is it the fear of evil that moves you or a godsend that you dream of? When the priest responded that the people were in despair because of the effects of the plague, the king shows another dimension of his character with his deep sympathy for his subjects: "You are all sick, well, me, but my pain, / No matter how great my pain. yours surpasses everything. Shortly after, a character from the second round appears on stage in the pers...... middle of paper ...... and Creon becomes one later in the tragedy. The playwright rarely uses the chorus to convey information; most of this comes from dialogue exchanges, which would be the presentation technique. WORKS CITED Abrams, MH A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. Ehrenberg, Victor. “Leaders of Sophoclea: Oedipus. » In Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Oedipus Rex, edited by Michael J. O'Brien. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Jaeger, Werner. “Sophocles’ Mastery of Character Development.” In Readings on Sophocles, edited by Don Nardo. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1997. 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=SopOedi