1. The British writer Matthew Arnold said that Sophocles, the author of Oedipus the King, "saw life steadily and saw it whole." But in this play is Sophocles facing the facts of life, or, on the contrary, is he avoiding life as it usually is and presenting a series of unnatural and outrageous coincidences? Remember to support your response with directly quoted evidence.

2. Can you describe your emotions at the end of the play? Do they include pity for Oedipus? Pity for all human beings, including yourself? Fear that you might be punished for some unintended transgression? Awe, engendered by a perception of the interrelatedness of life's events? Relief that the story is only a story? Exhilaration? Again, support your response with directly quoted evidence.