Oedipus the King – The CharacterizationSophocles' tragic drama, Oedipus the King, presents the reader with a full range of characters: static and dynamic, flat and round; they are represented mainly through presentation technique. Thomas Van Nortwick in Oedipus: The Meaning of a Manly Life describes Oedipus as he is seen at the beginning of the drama, as the father of his Theban citizens: In his opening words to the pathetic crowd of supplicants, Oedipus invokes images intended to reassure. As a ruler, he is the father of Thebes and its citizens, and like a father, he will care for his "children." We already see 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 (21-22). As the protagonist, Oedipus is at the center of the story. The dialogue, action, and motivation revolve around the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). Werner Jaeger, in "Sophocles' Mastery of Character Development," pays the playwright Sophocles 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. -drawing. 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 mainly through the projection technique, although the chorus...... middle of paper ......publishers, 1999.Benardete, Seth. “Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles. » In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. 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=SopOediVan Nortwick, Thomas. Oedipus: the meaning of a masculine life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.