Sophocles was born around 496 BC; so the fact that we are even still talking about him now, in 2016, is nothing short of a miracle.

However, Sophocles’ genius is more evident in his play, Oedious Rex (also known as Oedipus the King), and the fact that it continues to be one of the most influential, most widely performed and widely studied piece of drama in the world. It is astounding to think of great works of literature, like Sophocles’ play, living through the ages as mankind shifted and changed. Oedipus Rex came before Shakespeare, survived the fall of the Roman empire, moved through the Medieval era, through Industrialization and the World Wars and into the modern age, where it is more prominent than ever. Such is the power of great literature. Aristotle was convinced that the play was the ideal Greek tragedy and even people not directly associated with literature and the arts, such as Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst, who used the play as inspiration for developing his theory of the “Oedipal Complex”, are aware of the merits of the play.
What makes Oedipus Rex so great? Well one reason might the plot, as presented through the writing of the play, which offers an almost perfect mix of suspense, drama, a hint at the supernatural, and a host of unique, well-developed characters. The play starts with Oedipus, having correctly answered the sphinx’s riddle, as the king of Thebes, worrying about a great plague that has come upon the city. After consulting an oracle, Oedipus sets out to find and punish the murderer of the previous king of Thebes in the hopes that the plague will be lifted once he is able to fulfil his task. Alongside this thread of the story lies another, with a different oracle and a different message. When Oedipus was a baby, an oracle foretold that he would sleep with his mother and kill with his father. In an effort to escape such a fate, Oedipus fled from his home and eventually made his way to Thebes. The way in which Sophocles develops the plot, and keeps the audience enraptured, all the way to the shocking and tragic conclusion is enough to understand why the play is so well-liked. The characters, from the guilt-ridden Queen Jocasta, to the smart-talking blind seer named Tiresias, and Oedipus himself, are all excellently crafted pieces of Sophocles’ magnum opus, each character managing to be fascinating on their own, even as they work together purposefully to move the plot along.
Oedipus is sometimes recognized as the archetypal tragic hero – a hero with noble and morally correct inclinations who ultimately fails because, as a human being, he is still flawed and makes mistakes. Oedipus then falls into the category of tragic heroes, and may be the forerunner of the category, which includes characters like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Sirius Black from the Harry Potter series and several characters (Stannis Baratheon, Robb Stark, etc.) from Game of Thrones and the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The ability of Sophocles to create a man who can be representative of all other men (and women), while imparting what it means to be human by making Oedipus commit so many errors, is the one thing that brings readers and members of the audience closer to the protagonist, reminding us that, like Oedipus, we are all flawed and capable of making great mistakes.