Semiotic Analysis On Sophocles’ Oedipus King

The story of Oedipus King spreads to today has been given too much symbolic meanings. The image and presentation of Oedipus is full of symbolic.It flows from the Theban families’ Oedipus in the ancient greek myths,and to the famous ancient greek tragedy Oedipus King, then to the"Oedipus Complex" named by Freud and all the debates around it.From the very beginning of Oedipus story’s birth to today’s evolution, generally speaking, Oedipus evolution can be summed up as a process of symbol. This process can be divided into three stages, namely, formed at the beginning of the ancient greek myth, to the later classical literary image, and then to nowadays famous pronoun "Oedipus Complex". In a certain extent,"Oedipus complex" becomes an exclusive noun,it only stands for a crime which means "murdered oneselfs father and married oneselfs mother". In the symbolic process, the figure of Oedipus gradually become more clear and meaningful. According to the inspection of Oedipus’image flow, we can find that the image generation and meaning it covers have changed in different times.This paper is divided into five parts:the first part is a brief introduction that combing the review on research status of Oedipus, ancient greek writer Sophocles’ literary works, the research perspective and characteristic, academic value and significance. The second part is of many small Oedipus story in ancient greek myths. It focuses on what Oedipus is in folks and myths before Sophocles’ Oedipus King. The third part is mainly analyze the Sophocles’classical tragedy Oedipus King. It stressed on the characters,Oedipus’ multiple identities and fate tragedy as well as the complicated relationships. The fourth part, analyze Oedipus heat on the critical perspective. It focuses on Freud’s" Oedipus Complex" and the voices and debates on it. Through the historical Oedipus criticism we can easily have the conclusion that the text of Oedipus King is a kind of "Anti-Theory Text". The fifth part is a general and brief summary about this paper.