Sophocles' Oedipus the King: Of Road Rage, Cougar Moms, and That Whole Freudian Thing
Written: Oct 26 '09
Product Rating:
Pros: let's see, this drama contains murder, check mystery, check incest...ewww
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: This 2,400 year-old play is one of the best plays ever written. If you somehow missed reading it in school, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy today.
Pantagruel's Full Review: Sophocles - Oedipus the King
The Greek playwright Sophocles’ masterpiece, Oedipus the King, which debuted around 430 B.C., is arguably one of the greatest plays ever written. Though the action in Oedipus the King (sometimes titled Oedipus Rex) is confined to a single day, the story encompasses many years as the drama unfolds. It is a very fine mystery--Who killed King Laius of Thebes? Who are Oedipus’ real parents?—that thrusts its title character into a Twilight Zone-like plot.
To many modern readers, the name of Oedipus is intertwined with the psychological complex Sigmund Freud coined of a man’s wish to kill his father and marry his mother. But to think of the play purely in these terms does not do justice to Sophocles. Where Freud’s interest was in the dream-wish fulfillment aspect of Oedipus’ story, Sophocles’ play is concerned with the notion of fate and destiny. Oedipus does not intentionally commit these actions, and nowhere in the play is it suggested that it was his wish to do so. Instead, it seems to be his fate.
An oracle predicted that the baby Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Despite the precautions that his parents undertook (binding their infant baby and leaving him for dead), and even Oedipus himself after he learned of the oracle as an adult, the prophesy came true. Does this mean that our lives are pre-determined? If so, what does that say about the choices we make in life?
As the play opens, Oedipus, king of Thebes for the past twenty some years, learns that his predecessor, Laius, was the victim of an unsolved murder. The god Apollo has now extracted a punishment on Thebes in the form of a plague that is killing its citizens. The high priest of Apollo informs Oedipus that the plague will be lifted once the murderer has been identified. Thus begins Oedipus’ search for the killer and along the way he will uncover a horrific secret about his own identity.
There are many scenes throughout the play that are rich with irony, including some that contain double meanings regarding the interpretation of oracles, and others that present mistaken identities. For example, when Oedipus pronounces judgment on Laius’ killers, he unwittingly entraps himself, then goes on to say that he thinks of Laius as a father he never knew. The Greek audience, who was well-versed with the story of Oedipus, could not fail to catch the paradox. I don’t know if it was customary for the audience to sit in silence during a play, but I could imagine them groaning aloud at some of Oedipus’ statements.
Jocasta, Laius’ widow whom Oedipus married, belittles the prophetic oracles because she never assumed her son would live and grow up to kill his father, believing her son to have died as an infant. Oedipus dismisses the oracle he learned because the man he thinks is his father, King Polybus of Corinth, in whose house Oedipus grew up, died of natural causes. In both cases, judgment was made before all of the facts were in, with cataclysmic results.
Oedipus acts rashly in the first part of the play. This behaviour lends credibility to his actions earlier in life, when he killed Laius in one of the first accounts of road rage ever recorded. His proud nature is also evident when he reminds his citizens that he solved the riddle of the Sphinx years ago, thus saving the city from certain doom. However, his rashness gets the better of him during his interrogation of Tiresias. Instead of listening to what the blind prophet has to say, that Oedipus was responsible for Laius' death, Oedipus dismisses Tiresias' words and warning as outright lies. This sets up a famous passage where Tiresias says, “You mock my blindness, do you? But I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind” thus foreshadowing what will happen to Oedipus when the truth of his parentage is made known to him.
Oedipus also becomes suspicious of his brother-in-law and co-ruler, Creon. It is worth examining to see what role, if any, Creon might have played in Oedipus’ downfall. Early in the play, Creon performs two independent actions that set the other events in motion. He brought news from the Delphic Oracle as to how to rid the city of its plague (this after Oedipus, in an aside, wonders why Creon is so long in returning with an answer), and he suggests Oedipus ask Tiresias about Laius’ killers. Could the whole story be one long fabrication in order to give Creon the throne? As Jocasta’s brother, Creon was privy to her family history. And the speech he gives in the middle of the play where he says he is content to co-rule anonymously sounds contrived when we see how brusquely and effectively he takes control at the end of the play. Whatever the case, Creon gains ultimate power of Thebes and his ruthless side is on display in Sophocles' two other plays that complete the Oedipus cycle, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone.
Once his anger subsides and he begins to question and learn the facts behind the case, Oedipus’ fall comes fast and furious. Like a runaway vehicle racing downhill, he discovers that not only did he kill Laius, but he killed his father Laius and married his mother, Jocasta. Those characters in the play who know bits and pieces of the puzzle, like Tiresias, Jocasta, and the Shepherd who saved him from death as an infant, figure it out first. They try to prevent him from pressing the matter further and it is to Oedipus’ credit that he wishes to uncover the truth, no matter how personally unpleasant. Nonetheless, when the truth at last reaches Oedipus, he stays consistent with his rash character by committing violence upon himself.
The play concludes with the Chorus reminding the audience not to call a person happy until after that person’s death. The Greeks appear to have taken this phrase seriously and applied it in their art. Though the saying is commonly attributed to Aristotle in reference to King Priam of Troy, this remark can be applied to other tragic Greek characters from The Iliad like Agamemnon.
In comparing Sophocles to Aeschylus as a way of charting the progression of Greek drama, it is noteworthy to point out that the characters in Sophocles’ plays generally have longer speeches. Also, the motive and plot is not as linear as they are in Aeschylus’ plays. The Chorus remains the moral compass of society, but here they seem as much in the dark as the lead character and thus offer little insight or foreshadowing of Oedipus’ ultimate fate.
Since it was first performed in Athens in the 420s BC, Oedipus the King has been widely regarded as Sophocles greatest tragedy and one of the foundati...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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