e play. However Medea as a play lacks self-conscious recognition of error by its characters. Nobody in the play dwells on their actions or the happenings around them. Like Jason, he never acknowledges his responsibility for the suffering he has created. Euripides insight that victims of an intense emotional wound not only turns against those who inflict it, but against their entire world of emotional connections, which is expressed in Medeas opening lines, May it be an enemy and not a friend she hurts! (line 95) What should be wept for bitterly. I hate you,Children of a hateful mother. I curse youAnd your father. Let the whole house crash. (lines 111-114)Aristotle and other commentators often criticized Euripides for having abandoned authentic tragedy in favor of grotesque melodrama. But tragedy is more felt than fitting inside a rule of thumb. This world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. (Horace Walpole) Because Medea lost so much, her children and husband, Medea is considered a tragedy, along with Jasons lost. And the future fate of Jason or of Medea at the end, where the chorus mentions by affirming that the gods work mysteriously and often bring event to a surprising end, gives another sense of unfinished business for one of the two if not both.The Theban Plays by Sophocles is also considered a tragedy. But more in depth the first play, Oedipus Rex, is widely known to hold the weight of the tragic story. Oedipus is the main character and is considered the protagonist.Oedipus arrives at Thebes as a stranger, and finds the town under the curse of the Sphinx, who will not free the city of a plague unless her riddle is answered. Oedipus solves the riddle and since the king, Laius has recently been murdered, becomes the king and marries the queen, Jocasta. In time, he comes to learn that he is actually a Theban, the king's son, cast out of Thebes as a baby because of a prophecy Laius had ...
