Oedipus Background info

Most of the action of the Oedipus play takes place before the play begins. This information though is very important if you are to fully understand the happenings of the play. Without knowledge of the background, Sophocles message would be completely missed.

Background information:

• Jocasta and Laius were the King and Queen or Thebes.
• Jocasta and Laius were told by Tiresias, the blind prophet, that they would have a son that would murder his father, Laius.
• Jocasta and Laius ordered their son to be left on the hillside outside the city to die in order to prevent the prophecy from happening.
• Laius left Thebes and was never seen again, believed to have been murdered by robbers. 
• A shepherd from Corinth was given a baby that he brought to the King and Queen of Corinth who raised the child as their own. They named him Oedipus.
• When Oedipus was a young man he was told by a prophet that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Frightened by this, he leaves Corinth to spare his family and to avoid this horrible fate.
• On the road between Thebes and Corinth, Oedipus meets a group of traveling men that he fights and kills.
• Creon, Laius' brother announced that anyone who could solve the Sphinx's riddle would be crowned King of Thebes.
• Oedipus was the only man who could solve the riddle and was thus named King and married Jocasta.
• Oedipus was regarded as Thebes' savior and was a truly honored King and had four children with Jocasta. Two boys and two girls, one of which was Antigone.
• After some years as ruler of Thebes, the country began to go down hill. Plague was taking over Thebes and no crops were growing. The people of Thebes look to Oedipus to be their savor once again at the beginning of the play.

Burgess, Anthony. Sophocles, Oedipus The King. London: Oxford UP, 1972. Print.