is seeking himself. All
the people Oedipus seeks information from only have information about him. The stories he
insists on hearing fromand the shepherd hinge on him and only him.
This is
theof Oedipus being a "stranger to the story". He does not know the story, but it is
his own story.
As he seeks the source of the plague on Thebes, he seeks
himself. As he attempts to discover the murderer of the former king of Thebes, Laius, he
discovers that he murdered the man, his father, on the road to Thebes.
...by demanding that others tell him all they know he is forced to
confront the hideous facts of his patricide and incest.
He insists on his own innocence and good intentions, yet he can only be said to have
good intentions, not innocence. When the truth of his own story comes home to Oedipus, he is
overwhelmed. In the end he is no longer a stranger to his story, but he becomes a stranger to
his family, blinding himself and leaving home to become a wanderer, punishing himself by binding
himself to his story and severing himself from all else.
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