Cause and Effect Essay Drafts

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Your Name
March 12, 2012
Ms. Carlson
English II Honors (Period 4)
Cause-and-Effect Essay
Title
                Oedipus Rex is an epic tragedy that shows the downfall of a great king.  The city of Thebes has been under a plague, and Oedipus is determined to discover the cause.  To his surprise, he is the cause of this tragedy.  This is Sophocles’s way of using irony to show it is impossible to escape your fate.
                Although thought to be merciful, the birth of Oedipus led to many mistakes.  Oedipus was given away by his mother to be killed.  His parents knew of his prophecy, and did not want to follow through.  The man he was given to would not kill him and fixed his hurt swollen legs.  He thought he was helping and being merciful towards the baby, but in reality he set way for the prophecy to be fulfilled.
                Another use of irony in this play is when Oedipus flees Corinth to escape his prophecy, which is to kill his father.  He leaves Corinth but ends up meeting his real father, Laius.  Unknowingly, he kills Laius, fulfilling his prophecy.
                The sphinx riddle was ironic because it sealed the fate on his prophecy.  It caused him to become kind.  A disease came upon the city of Thebes.  So he saved the city to cause it to become diseased.
                In conclusion, Sophocles exemplifies that you cannot escape your fate.  Once Oedipus unravels the truth, he then displays pain and sorrow at the decline of his life.  We, as a group, believe Oedipus unraveling his fate brought on careless emotions.  Avoiding his fate only brought his suffering in the end.


Your Name
March 12, 2012
Ms. Carlson
English II Standard
Cause-and-Effect Essay
Title
                As a result of Oedipus’s search for the truth, he has messed up his life.  He caused Jocasta to kill herself.  He blinded himself in both eyes.  Creon becomes kind of Thebes, and his family becomes broken.  E has not only ruined his life but yet many others.
                During the search for the truth, Oedipus has set out to find, Jocasta got very sick of it and demanded him to stop.  While Oedipus was talking to the chorus about how Jocasta’s actions of becoming suddenly emotional made them wonder what she was thinking.  When Jocasta had left and they were wondering where she went.  The second messenger had come out to tell them the breaking news.  Queen Jocasta had hung herself and misery to some.
                Oedipus’s own tragedies and conflict leads him to a life of darkness.  His thinking that his wife killed herself because of him makes him do things that lead him to pain.  Oedipus sticks needles in his eyelids until blood and tears ran down his face.  After he does this tragic thing to himself, he was saying he doesn’t deserve to see after making all the conflicts he created.
                As a result of Oedipus being banished, running away, and stabbing his eyes out, he has ruined his family.  When Jocasta killed hreself, she took away a mother from her children.  Oedipus runs away after the prophecy tells him he will kill his dad and marry his mom.  It all results of the life he had when he was a child.
                Oedipus blinds himself, Creon returns to the kingdom.  Creon becomes kind and doesn’t want to but banishes Oedipus anyway.  Because he wants to save his kingdom, he allows Oedipus wishes and promises to take care of his family.  His anger changes to pity as he sees him, he forgives him.  Creon gets the life he doesn’t want and finally becomes king.
                At the end of Oedipus’s story, his life was in a shambles.  Jocasta kills herself after she told Oedipus to stop his search for the truth.  Because she did not want to be known now that she has realized the truth.  When Oedipus finds Jocasta dead, he blinds himself, and by degree he banished himself as well.  Oedipus asks Creon to become kind of Thebes and take care of his family.


Your Name
March 12, 2012
Ms. Carlson
English II Honors (Period 2)
Cause-and-Effect Essay
                Irony is the term that is used when reality becomes the complete opposite of your expectations.  In the Greek play of Oedipus Rex, Sophocles uses irony to convey the fact that you can’t escape your fate.  Oedipus was given a prophecy that he would slay his father and lay with his mother, but all of the characters tried to prevent this.  His parents to kill him to protect themselves, he left his him to protect his father, and he married a queen to protect his mother.  Ironically, none of this could derail his father.
                Oedipus is saved by the herdsman, causing him to best set up for all the misfortune that destroyed his life.  The herdsman rescued Oedipus because he didn’t think it was necessary to kill him.  Little did he know, killing him would have been the better choice.  Oedipus staying alive kept him on the path to killing his father and marrying his mother.  Saving Oedipus kept the prophecy alive.
                In the beginning, it was prophesized that Oedipus was going to kill his father.  When Oedipus hears about this prophecy, he tries to leave his home in Corinth to escape his fate.  This is ironic because on the way out of town, the prophecy is fulfilled—Oedipus kills his father.  However, the person he killed was not someone he had ever met before.  Oedipus had been left on a hillside as a baby so never knew his biological dad.  Oedipus believed the prophecy was talking about his adoptive father.  It just so happened that Oedipus’s true father, Liaus, was one of the travelers he met on his way to Thebes and one of the people he killed that day.
                Jocasta and Oedipus married each other without realizing that they were mother and son.  Oedipus comes into town not realizing his life had begun there.  Solving the riddle of the sphinx, his life hit a turning point in the town of Thebes.  Solving this riddle gave him the spot as king.  Jacosta, his mother, was queen.  Not realizing what he was getting  himself into, he married his mother.
                Sophocles’s use of irony in the play of Oedipus Rex falls perfectly into Oedipus’s life.  The way irony is inserted in the play leads to the cause and effect in his life.  Being saved as a child by a herdsman allowed him to run away and marry his real mother, unknowingly fulfilling the prophecy.  Sophocles incorporated situational irony and dramatic irony to really set up the misfortune in Oedipus’s life.