 However, after consulting the Oracle this uncertainty disappears, strangely enough, and is replaced by a totally unjustified certainty that he is the son of Merope and Polybus.We have said that this irrational behaviour—his "hamartia", as Aristotle puts it—is due to the repression of a whole series of thoughts in his consciousness, in fact everything that referred to his earlier doubts about his parentage.The exploration of the theme of state control in "Oedipus Rex" is paralleled by the examination of the conflict between the individual and the state in "Antigone".