Literature Humanities 07-08

Rethinking Oedipus's Fall

I was thinking over the play’s events and I could not help but wonder if Oedipus’s desire to know about his birth and whether or not he killed Laius a manifestation of his preordained destiny. Oedipus had the opportunity to leave the murder unsolved because no one is suspicious of his involvement in the crime besides Teiresias. He could have undermined Teiresias’ comments and followed Jocastas’ advice (lines 160-170) by not further pursuing a truth that would render him guilty of murder and incest with his own mother. However, his curiosity forces him to want more knowledge and by doing so he makes his horrible fate public. A rational Oedipus would have considered that none of his pending problems were a result of his actions but ordained by “some malignant God” (528-529). When he learned of the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother he left

Corinth

in order to avoid falling victim to the prophecy. Oedipus should have guarded this former attitude towards adverse oracles and assumed that he had killed Laius and slept with his mother when he was presented with such strong evidence (1058-1059). However, Oedipus was too irrational and religious to accept his fate and not let it destroy his entire life. There is the issue of the plague being a result of the murder of Laius but either way Oedipus had options and he did not consider them. 

 

Is Oedipus’s insistent curiosity for self-knowledge a manifestation of his free will or the conclusion of his divine fate to fail? 

 

Does the idea of Hubris play into the intensity of Oedipus’ curiosity and eventually his downfall?

 

What do we think of Jocasta when she beckons Oedipus to stop further investigation into the matter of his crimes?

-Eric Z.

 

Last Lines of Oedipus the King

The last lines of the play seem to mean something significant to the text. Oedipus asks Creon not to take away his children, and Creon tells Oedipus in lines 1523-24, "Do not seek to be master in everything, for the things you mastered did not follow you throughout your life." One main moral that Sophocles may be telling the audience here is to release control. Throughout the text, Oedipus tries to control his fate by escaping suffering. He runs away from Corinth to avoid killing his father and marrying his mother, and by running he fulfills his fate. Oedipus tries to maintain control as well by stopping at nothing to find Laius' killer, even with warnings from Jocasta, Tiresias, and others to stop searching for answers, and the truth destroys him.

Regarding this passage,

1) Could Oedipus have avoided his fate had he tried not to control what happened to him? How much control should he have had over his fate? And is this the way to live life?

After these lines, and after Creon and Oedipus leave, the chorus tells the audience, "see [Oedipus] now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him! Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain" (1528-30). Oedipus may have found glory in the beginning of the play by solving the Sphinx's riddle, but he could not keep this happy life forever. Oedipus didn't seem to realize that suffering is essential to the human experience, and cannot be avoided.

These last lines are the last things the audience hears, so

2) Did Oedipus suffer because he was trying to avoid just that, suffering?

3) Can one be happy in life before death? Was Oedipus ever happy throughout the play?

Lastly,

4) Are these the main morals of the play that Sophocles advertises? (eg. Relinquishing control and letting life run its course) Are there other morals in the play that you think are more important to the play than these?

-Annie