How does the play Oedipus the King provide a catharsis? Sophocles's Oedipus Rex

With catharsis as a term used by Aristotle
to describe emotional release of the feelings of pity and fear experienced by the audience at the
end of a successful tragedy, the readers/audience experience this catharsis at the point in which
Oedipus realizes his role in the plight of the people of Thebes. At the time of his realization,
Oedipus feels great remorse and shame for what he has done: "When all my sight was horror
everywhere."

It is at this same time that the readers/audience
experience their feelings of sympathy and pity. The shepherd, for instance reminisces when he
carried the baby Oedipus and a man took the boy to his country only to save him for such a
wretched fate, "No man living is more wretched than Oedipus!" (4.1117) he exclaims. And, Oedipus
himself says,

O Light,
may I look on you for the last time!

I,
Oedipus,

Oedipus, danmed in his birth, in his marriage
damned,

Damned in the blood he shed with his own hand!
(4.1120)

It is at this point as the
second messenger utters the profoundly true words, "The greatest griefs are those we cause
ourselves" (Exodus,1184), that the readers/audience feels sympathy for Oedipus the King, and
fears what he may do. Then, after learning of his having blinded himself because he has been
"blind to those for whom [he] was searching," the readers/audience experience pity for the once
great man.