Epistemology and the Legend of the Sphinx in Oedipus Rex Research Paper

Epistemology and the Legend of the Sphinx in Oedipus Rex - Research Paper Example The possibility of pharmakos in Oedipus Rex is epitomized in the connection between the sphinx and Oedipus and how the sphinx monitors and uncovers information. Pharmakos is the possibility that there is a duality to things; that a thing can be both a fix and a toxin. The sphinx is utilized as a pharmakos in Oedipus Rex on the grounds that not exclusively does her physical appearance depict a duality, yet in addition her enigmas cover information in their equivocalness, yet in addition as it were, uncover truth concerning Oedipus and the Greek society. Epistemology can be characterized as the part of reasoning that takes a gander at the nature, cause, strategies, just as cutoff points of human information. It looks to address the subject of how to recognize genuine information from bogus information. One of the exceptional epistemological issues in Oedipus Rex is the vagueness introduced as far as the nature and degrees of Oedipus’ information about his actual birthplaces (Car el 103). Numerous logicians have contended that Oedipus may have been too uninformed to even think about figuring out realities about his past. In any case, toward the start of the play, his insight is all around depicted when he is the main man who can explain the puzzle of the sphinx. This uncertainty delivers the unclearness of the degree to which Oedipus can and ought to be considered answerable for his activities, which are: slaughtering his natural dad and wedding his own mom. Sophocles recounts to the tale of Oedipus in invert: he begins with the consummation and goes to clarify how it occurred. As indicated by the prophet, the plague that has come to pass for Thebes will discover no fix until the individual answerable for the homicide of King Laius is found and ousted from the city. Oedipus begins an examination to uncover the killer, however this examination rapidly transforms into an examination of Oedipus’ genuine personality. At first the epistemology lies around finding a response to the inquiry â€Å"who did it†, however this progressions course to the inquiry â€Å"who am I?† (Foster 22)The mental excursion of disclosure takes up a lot of this story. Information should end with delight and fulfillment. In any case, in this story, epistemology prompted a disclosure that was more awful than the occasions that prompted the revelation itself. The Sphinx The word sphinx comes structure the Greek action word which when deciphered methods â€Å"to squeeze† or to fix (Gosse 65). A few history specialists anyway contend that the word is a defilement of the Egyptian word â€Å"shesepankh† which means â€Å"living image† (Zivie-Coche and Lorton 9). In Greek folklore the Sphinx is spoken to as having a serpent’s tail, a lion’s hunches, a huge bird’s wings and a woman’s bosom and face. This malicious animal is regularly portrayed as being barbarous and deceptive. She is the evil presence o f misfortune and demolition and slaughters and batters the individuals who neglect to accurately answer her conundrum. As per legends, the sphinx was the gatekeeper of the doors into the City of Thebes. To be permitted passage, one needed to effectively answer her puzzle. The question is â€Å"which animal has four legs toward the beginning of the day, two at late morning and three at night, and the more legs it has, the more vulnerable it is? It is said that no man had ever had the option to offer a right response to the conundrum (10). Oedipus was the one in particular who furnished the right response which was ‘man’. After Oedipus offered the right response, the sphinx is said to have been angered and she slaughtered herself. The first reason for the sphinx