At what point were you most engaged as a reader?

Different
readers will find different parts of the play most engaging. When responding to this sort of
prompt as a student, one should note that there is no one "correct" answer but rather
that the question is asking for a personal reaction.

One way of answering
this is to note that the play is structured as a mystery, in whichis seeking out the causes of
the pollution affecting the city of Thebes. As he accumulates evidence, one could argue that
suspense builds and is maximized just before the pieces finally fit together and the audience
discovers that Oedipus has indeed murdered his father and married his mother.

For an ancient audience, however, this would not have been the case, as audience
members probably would have known the story before attending a performancethe subject was a
well-known legend. Thus, many people in the audience would have found different elements of the
play most engaging. Some would be most engaged by the spectacle of the choral odes with their
complex singing and dancing, while others would have been most engaged by the dialogue or the
psychological and ethical dilemmas of the .