1. After much prompting, Tiresias tells Oedipus that Oedipus is the man at the center of the plague from which Thebes is suffering; the man who married his mother and whose hands are covered in his father's blood. I don't think it's a sign of stupidity for Oedipus to take so long to acknowledge his guilt. If anything, he denied it. The play depicts him as an intelligent man who was able to solve the riddles of the Sphinx, so he may have realized his guilt: the story that Jocasta told him was terribly similar to the prophecy that Tiresias had revealed to him. Oedipus rallying the men of Corinth was a desperate attempt to "say it ain't so!" in the hope that the prophecy was wrong and did not apply to him. He also added that Jocasta is not a flat character. He displays strong emotions and cares deeply for Oedipus, insisting that he reject the prophecy as false and save himself the headache. Likewise, he also trusts his brother, begging Oedipus to spare Creon "for his sake and for the sake of those who stand here" (line 714). He commits suicide after it is confirmed that the prophecy has come true and that his marital bed has been defiled; a flat character would have put her head in her hands and screamed, but Jocasta took fate into her own hands for a change, considering that the fate of her first husband and son had already been predetermined.6. Dramatic irony is when the audience recognizes the meaning of a situation and predicts its outcome, but the characters in the story or play do not. Instances of dramatic irony in this play are shown whenever Oedipus discovers more about his past and his adoptive parents. In the following example, the audience knows that Oedipus killed his father, although he doesn't know this until the messenger provides him with some knowledge: Messenger: Do you know that all your fears are real? Freud's explanation does not explain my feelings towards the work. First, I have a hard time supporting your theory that Oedipus and Electra complexes affect every single person during their childhood. Where does this leave those of us who are daughters of single mothers or sons of single fathers? Secondly, Oedipus was sent away as soon as he was born, as soon as he was born. I'm sure Freud would argue that Oedipus still had a deeply subconscious memory of his birth mother and sexually desired her ever since into adulthood, but I really think this is attainable. Oedipus' fate was to kill his father and sleep with his mother, something I don't think is the unconscious desire of any of us and why people like to see and read this