Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

It shouldn’t surprise us that actions are a big part of learning who’s who and what they’re about in a play—it is a play, after all. So audiences have to see what the characters do to learn about them. And this play has all kinds: there’s Antigone, who sacrifices her own well-being to help her father, in contrast with Creon, who kidnaps his nieces to try to get his way. It's one big, crazy, and divinely cursed family, and their actions reflect just that.

Clothing

Oedipus is wearing rags, and this lets us know that there’s been a huge change in his position since Oedipus the King. He used to be a king, obvi, but now he’s a poor, ragged exile. It’s so bad it makes his son, Polyneices, cry:

I have found him here

In a strange land, with you two, having been cast out,

With such clothing. (1256-58)

From riches to rags, in this case. The clothes do make the man, and these clothes tell a sad story.

Family Life

Oedipus draws a thick line in the sand between his daughters and his sons. His daughters behave as family should, taking care of their father in his misfortune at the cost of their own happiness. His sons, on the other side, drive him out of town and fight over the throne he has left unoccupied. Oedipus’ kids represent two extremes of attitudes toward family, loyalty versus selfishness.