Oedipus the King : The Curing of Religious Hypocrisy

            Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King with the hope of portraying the presence of religious hypocrisy in his society and correcting it. He does this threw the character Oedipus, what Oedipus does to the character Creon, and threw the character Jocasta. Sophocles feels that the mortals of his day have been acting with a sense of control that is too great over the immortals. This is most likely due to two reasons; the lack of instant gratification received after invoking the immortals for a specific thing and also because no person has actually seen, heard, or touched an immortal (much less a servant of an immortal). Thus concluding that immortals actually don't exist. Putting the control of what happens in life into the hands of mortals. Sophocles sees that the religion of his day is becoming corrupt because of this control mortal's feel they have. He also sees that this as a growing problem in his society. Thus he attempts to cure it threw the creation of the characters who play with in the great story of Oedipus the King.
             The first character that Sophocles presents to accomplish his goal of curing religious hypocrisy in his society is with the character Oedipus, a very power struggling man. The first instance where we meet Oedipus and his power occurs in the beginning of the play. Oedipus is met by a priest and a group of children outside his palace. These people want to inform Oedipus of the plague that has been so terribly hurting their city. Here, the powerful Oedipus feels that because he is "in" control of the town of Thebia, that he should also be able "to" control what "happens" to the town of Thebia. Truth be told no one mortal has this control. This is Sophocles" first attempt of curing religious hypocrisy of his society threw his characters. The audience will see that Oedipus is trying to control where control isn't and will later see that because of this he falls. .
             The next character Sophocles presents is not presented for the same reason as Oedipus but rather to empathize the reason that Oedipus was presented.