Antigone, by Sophocles

Antigone is well known as the play that indicates that the Greeks understood the primacy of natural law over temporal laws enacted by governments.  Antigone is Oedipus’s elder daughter, who after burying her father, wishes to perform the burial rites for her brothers, both killed in the war.  The problem is that her uncle Creon has passed a law that prohibits anyone, from burying Polynices, her elder brother, seen as a traitor who made war against his own city. Antigone disobeys this law, on the grounds that the laws of the gods are more important than the laws of man, and suffers the consequences.  Like the other two plays, the narrative is simple and direct, the characters lifelike.

Oedipus at Colonus, by Sophocles

Of Sophocles’s three Theban plays, this is the one we didn’t read in high school.  It covers the end of Oedipus’s life, years after he has left Thebes, blind, and in shame because of the misfortune he brought to the city.  His two sons are at war over who will be the next king of Thebes, and his two daughters are really the only ones left he can rely on.  Having learned his lesson on how unwise it is to try to cheat fate, he is obedient to the prophecies when choosing his last resting place—at Colonus, near Athens—and resists entreaties from his two sons to settle near one of them, since there is a new prophecy that says that whomever Oedipus goes to live with will win the war.  I didn’t find this one as interesting as the other two plays in the series.

Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles

This is a re-read for me, as we read this for English class when I was in high school years ago.  Probably everyone knows the story of Oedipus and how he and everyone around him tried to cheat the prophecy of the oracle, and failed.  It packs a punch.  I don’t remember it being quite so dramatic and vivid when I read it the first time years ago.  Or maybe I just appreciate it better now since I’m reading it because I want to, not because a teacher is requiring it.