In the play Oedipus Rex, Sophocles writes about the sin of hubris; the deadly
mixture of rage and pride that, unfortunately, Oedipus Rex has. The Greeks believed that
this sin was the most grievous because these people thought that they were above the gods.
Oedipus is guilty of this sin. Being a proud man, Oedipus does not listen to anything and
that pride will eventually lead Oedipus to his downfall.
Throughout the whole play, Oedipus displays the deadly sin of hubris. When
talking to Tiresias, the soothsayer, Oedipus loses his cool. Getting angry at Tiresias for not
coming out with the truth, Oedipus says, "Thou hast not spoken so loyally, nor friendly
toward the State that bred thee, cheating her of this response." Here, the raging Oedipus
implies that Tiresias is a phony. Again and again, Tiresias does not want to say what he
knows because he knows that the truth will ruin Oedipus. Again, Oedipus loses his cool
and says, " Worst of traitors! For you would rouse a very stone to wrath- will you not
speak out ever, but stand thus relentless and persistent?" Oedipus is obviously angry and
after accusing Tiresias of planning to kill Laius, Tiresias finally tells Oedipus what he
knows. Tiresias tells Oedipus that the murderer of Laius is Oedipus. Once more, Oedipus
goes into a rage and claims that Tiresias is a phony and that his own brother-in-law, Creon,
has something to do with Laius' murder. Oedipus does not know when to stay quiet. The
senator mention Oedipus' words. He says, "His words appear( and Oedipus, your own,) to
have been said in anger." Here, the senator tried to excuse Oedipus' anger, but it is too late.
Oedipus committed to the sin of hubris. And once more, does Oedipus offends Tiresias
and tells the phony to go home. Obviously, Oedipus lets his pride get in the way
Also, with his brother-in-law, Creon, does Oedipus commits the sin of hubris. He
suggests that Creon schemed with Tiresias. Creon tries to defend himself by Oedipus does
not give him a chance. Oedipus says, "You are quick to talk, but I am slow to learn of you;
for I have found you contrary and dangerous to me." Here, Oedipus outright says that he
does not want to listen to Creon. Again, Oedipus' pride gets in the way of his common
sense. Later on in the story, Creon also mentions Oedipus' rage. He says, "Tempers such as
yours most grievous are to their own selves to bear, not without justice." Here, Creon is
warning Oedipus about his temper, but it will prove too late for Oedipus.
A last example of Oedipus and the sin of hubris is when Oedipus talks to the old man.
Another man knows something that will bring Oedipus down, and for this reason this man
does not want to say anything. However, Oedipus' anger comes out he actually threatens to
hurt the old man. He says, "Quick, some one, twist his hands behind him!" Obviously,
Oedipus is angered and his words just come flying out. How Oedipus wishes that he did
not speak!
Once the old man speaks, Oedipus finds out the horrible truth that he killed his father
and married his own mother. In the final scenes, Oedipus comes to realization. He actually
takes the blame himself. Also, Oedipus becomes more humble and accepts his fate.
Throughout this whole story, Oedipus is a proud and arrogant man. Anything that
anybody says angers Oedipus. In the end, those people are speaking the truth and after all
this mess, Oedipus accepts his fate.
Fourth Scene (1215 - 1310)
Aristotle believed Oedipus Rex to be the finest of all tragedies because the protagonist's recognition of
the truth coincides with the reversal of his fortunes. Where exactly does this occur?
Consider that many of the events in the traditional story of Oedipus (killing his father, solving the riddle of
the Sphinx, marrying his mother, etc.) have already occurred when the play opens. Why? Why does
Sophocles concentrate on the life of Oedipus after his becoming king of Thebes?
How would you describe the character of Oedipus? What sort of a person is he? Consider how Oedipus
sees himself (as seen for example in the play's opening speech and his later dialogues with Creon and
Tiresias). What character traits and dispositions are dominant in his personality?
What is the effect of Oedipus's insistence and promises regarding the hunting down and punishing of the
murderer of Laius? What does this suggest concerning his character as well as the meaning of
Sophocles's play?
What may be the purpose and significance of the interactions between Oedipus and characters like
Tiresias and Creon?
Why does Tiresias hesitate to tell Oedipus the truth of his identity?
What is the significance of Oedipus's slow coming into awareness of that identity?
What is the significance of the physical blindness of the prophet Tiresias? Is blindness an important and
repeated symbolic motif in the plain? How can we interpret Oedipus's act of self-blinding? Is his physical
blindness symbolically similar to or different from that of Tiresias?
What do you make of the various situations at the end of the play (the suicide of Jocasta, Oedipus's selfblinding and exile, his prediction of a miserable life for his own children)? Why are the outcomes so tragic
and extreme? What is the significance of the curse/prophecy which seems to haunt the family of
Oedipus?
Is Oedipus an innocent victim of an unjust fate or does he bear some responsibility in the outcome of his
life? Is his fate the result of unavoidable necessity or does he contribute to it through his own choices?
Could he have changed the fate described in the prophecies? How?
The ``fatal flaw'' reading is still compelling. How much did Oedipus contribute to his own downfall? To some extent he is his
own worst enemy and, paradoxically, his best qualities are closely related to his faults.
Oedipus is perceived as a man who values knowledge but it is all about mastery, and he is relentless in the pursuit that
brings about his self-destruction. He acts impulsively and pushes unwisely, is high-handed and arrogant. He is not
consistently clear-sighted - for example, he does not take on board the implications of the rumour of his illegitimacy, and
after visiting the oracle flees before finding out the key fact of whether Polybus and Merope are his real parents. He displays
paranoia and accuses Creon of ambition and sedition. He is highly disrespectful to the revered Teiresias and provokes the
truth out of him. Finally he is extravagant in all he does; even his final scenes are grandiose.
Other key questions abound. What is the relationship between innocence and ignorance? Jocasta and Oedipus are both
victims of circumstance, but Oedipus participates in his own tragedy differently, more actively and with more complexity.
Jocasta struggles then tragically submits to defeat by the truth, compared with Oedipus's solution of self-punishment, sightin-blindness and redemption through suffering.
Characteristics of Sophoclean Tragedy: (1) It is based on events that already took place and with
which the audience is familiar. (2) The protagonist is a person of noble stature. (3) The protagonist has a
weakness and, because of it, becomes isolated and suffers a downfall. (4) Because the protagonist's fall
is not entirely his or her own fault, the audience may end up pitying him or her. (5) The fallen protagonist
gains self-knowledge. He has a deeper insight into himself and understands his weakness. (6) The
audience undergoes catharsis, a purging of emotions, after experiencing pity, fear, shock and other
strong feelings. The people go away feeling better. (7) The drama usually unfolds in one place in a short
period of time, usually about a day.
LBST 301 - F9201
John Black
Lecture #2 - Oedipus the King
A.
Background: Play written between 441-427 B.C.; Greek
theatre as an outgrowth of religious celebrations; competition; sets of
four plays performed together, a trilogy of tragedies followed by a
comedy (usually); (distinction between tragedy and comedy
(Aristophanes)); Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; many others lost;
only partial records of these three.
B.
thought
rhythm,
poetics
Much of what we know about how the Greeks themselves
of tragedy derived from Aristotle. Speech in verse (metre,
music); scenery; masks; spectacle. Read definition from
(1).
C.
Catharsis (pity and fear) - "expurgation" vs. "establishment of
equilibrium."
D.
Achievement of catharsis through plot, not through effects or
characters. Tragedy is about the fortune or misfortune which
human beings achieve or suffer (through action or happening at
least). Reversals and recognitions (surprising, unpredictable events)
key in producing pity and fear. Yet the plot must be complex yet
tight, the events, including the reversals, a necessary result of other
events - not just arbitrary buffeting at the hands of fortune. Oedipus
the King is Aristotle's paradigm of a tragedy which works this way.
E.
Examples from the text:
1) Oedipus brought to Thebes (and to kill his father, marry his
mother) by his attempt to avoid these eventualities.
2) Jocasta's attempt to put his mind at rest about killing his
father - "don't believe seers, e.g. they were wrong about Laius being
killed by his son" - the very thing that starts Oedipus on the
suspicion that he is guilty.
3) Messenger's attempt to calm him re marrying mother - "not
real parents" -catapults him closer to the realisation.
Notion of irony - verbal ("I know the name, I never met the
man") and actional (above). Many of the audience would have
known the story all along. (But not all - see Aristotle.)
F.
The type of person involved, however, is not irrelevant; has to
be a basically good person. No pity or fear raised by seeing bad
things happen to a bad person, nor good to good, nor good to
bad. Read from Poetics (2).
G.
The tragic hero and the tragic flaw (hamartia) - often a form of
pride (hubris). What makes him/her great also brings him/her down.
Characteristics of the hero, as compared with Biblical heroes - the
special birth, e.g..
H.
Oedipus as a super-person; a good ruler (why people turn to
him in time of plague (Theme: Living); his special ability is his
ability to solve riddles, his detective ability, one might say, or
his intellect. Yet this is a form of hubris -the belief that one can
understand, read (Joseph), predict, control the future etc. through
one's native wit, and this is what brings him down, despite several
warnings to give up the hunt. Cf. the seers' and oracles' ability to
predict as mouthpieces of the gods. Reason = Apollo. Oedipus
appeals to Apollo as the god of reason, but no sense of divine
inspiration; yet Apollo is the god of the oracle at Delphi, and Apollo's
logic is the logic of events, not of words. The perfect inexorability of
the plot.
I.
Logos = reason = word; sense that dealing with words is
superficial, does not reach to the heart of things; words cannot
control reality, though Oedipus may think they can.
J.
Where did Oedipus go wrong? Leaving Corinth? Killing
Laius? Marrying Jocasta? Pursuing his identity-search in the play?
Certainly the latter, but this not the first, or major mistake. His
irascibility, jumping to conclusions as distinctive of Emotion =
Dionysus. Oedipus has characteristics both Apollonian and
Dionysian.
K.
What put him into the position he holds at the beginning of
the play? Answering the riddle of the Sphinx. Read Hughes (4).
The mistake was to think that a verbal answer was sufficient in fact he was going to have to live out the answer to the riddle. The
question is "What are human beings?" - the answer is a life, not a
definition.
L.
Hence the universal relevance of the play - a play about the
human condition, about what it means to be a human being (Theme:
Self). We are all fated to live out the answer to the riddle. This has
a sort of Freudian interpretation, but I don't mean that. We are
puppets in the hand of blind fate; our most cherished actions, freely
chosen or not (paradox), are the playing out of fate; our end is as
determined as our beginning; the intellect which we prize as our real
self merely serves only to delude us about the real nature of our
condition, to trick us into thinking we are in control (Theme:
Certainty). Any appearances to the contrary are only temporary - in
the fullness of time this will become clear.
Upon hearing the Delphic prophecy of patricide and incest, the well-intentioned Oedipus took
radical steps to thwart fate—fleeing his parents and his home in Corinth. He did well on his own
in the world. Strong and cunning, he proved himself many times, most of all when he solved the
riddle of the Sphinx and saved Thebes. After Oedipus became King of Thebes, Delphi spoke
again, suggesting that the only way to end a severe blight plaguing Thebes was to avenge the
murder of the former king, Laius. With god-like certainty Oedipus set out to find the murderer
and mete out justice.
The question of who murdered Laius fades to insignificance as Oedipus’s search for truth
unearths a history he never suspected, and would never want to know. The audience and all the
other characters in the play, even the blind Teiresias, see the appalling truth long before the
proud and cunning Oedipus. Creon exclaims, "I can see you are blind to truth." His mother-wife
Jocasta cries, "My poor child! Those are the only words I shall ever have for you." No one has
mastered dramatic irony better than Sophocles.
Two frightened servants at last yield the pieces of the puzzle to Oedipus. The former Theban
king, Laius, and his queen, Jocasta, also hoping to avoid the Delphic prophecy, had abandoned
their infant to die. A shepherd had rescued the child and sent him to Corinth. Oedipus killed a
stranger on the highway; most likely, this was Laius. Unaware of his kinship, Oedipus claimed
the widowed queen, Jocasta, as his wife. Oedipus the King believed that he could simply
discover who killed Laius and mete out appropriate justice. Hubris blinds him. When at last he
sees the truth, he wishes only to be blind again.
What is Sophocles up to here? An astute and early critic provides clues. According to Aristotle,
tragedy requires, among other things, a character whom we admire greatly, but who possesses a
flaw—hamartia, or some error in judgment. He falls from happiness into misery as the play
progresses through what is sometimes translated as "serious action," action which is complete,
noble, and poetical. The total effect invokes dismay and horror. In the end comes the anagnorisis:
the recognition or uncovering of the error. In the naive form, a hero or heroine recognizes a
person or thing previously mistaken in identity, through some scar or mark or other sign.
Iphegenia, for example, recognizes her brother as she is about to sacrifice him to the gods.
In the more profound form of tragedy, the hero recognizes the flaw in himself and faces it.
Oedipus Rex inspired Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and exemplifies it perfectly. On seeing the
truth, Oedipus gouges out his eyes. The audience participates in the catharsis that follows. The
human spirit prevails over the horror, accepts the truth and clings to a more humble bargain with
fate. Oedipus gives up his determination to set the world straight and accepts fate, retaining his
noble qualities despite the blows of bad fortune. The final irony may be the triumph of Oedipus
over fate itself, although not in a way he ever imagined. We see him again, through Sophocles’s
eyes, in Oedipus at Colonus where he lives his last years in the company of a loving daughter
and dies a good death.
The Tragic Hero and the Tragic Flaw (hamartia) - Building the
Case for a Flawed Oedipus
What makes him great also brings him down
Find ample evidence from the play that supports the interpretation that Oedipus is indeed
“flawed”, and that these very flaws result in his downfall.
Pay particular attention to:
 displays self-confidence and arrogance, self-centeredness (“it’s all about me!”),
determination and anger – might these be the markers of hubris?
 attempts to avoid the fate foretold by the oracle – does Oedipus think he can control his own
destiny? Is this hubris?
If Oedipus’ downfall is indeed brought about by his own hubris (attempting to avoid the fate
meted out by the gods, believing he can control destiny through the power of his intellect) what
is Sophocles’ point? What makes Oedipus a tragic hero if he is doomed to fall from the start?
Recognition and acceptance of error and fate! Knowledge of the truth is obviously a hugely
important aspect of the play. On seeing the truth, Oedipus gouges out his eyes. Oedipus gives up
his determination to set the world straight and accepts fate, retaining his noble qualities despite
the blows of bad fortune. His reaction to the truth – his willingness to suffer despite the fact that
it’s not all his fault - makes him heroic (compare to Iocaste).
Note: Oedipus, means "swollen foot" in Greek. Sophocles also puns on the Greek form of
Oedipus' name, Oidipous. The verb oida means "I know" or "I see," while dipous means "twofooted." Note how the themes of knowledge and feet are brought together in the very letters of
Oedipus' name. Oedipus' name, Oidipous, is a clear reference to the theme of knowledge /
ignorance.
One can argue that the play is about the human condition, and that the sphinx’s riddle that
Oedipus solves operates on a deeper level. We are all fated to live out the riddle; whether our
actions are chosen or not, we must live out our fate with no control over the final outcome. In
addition, the possibility of mastery of knowledge/understanding is called into question (Oedipus
solves the riddle, but doesn’t really understand that it applies to him?). The intellect only deludes
us into thinking we are in control. Recognition and acceptance of man’s powerlessness and
ignorance is key to this interpretation.
Oedipus brought to Thebes (and to kill his father, marry his
mother) by his attempt to avoid these eventualities.
2) Jocasta's attempt to put his mind at rest about killing his
father - "don't believe seers, e.g. they were wrong about Laius being
killed by his son" - the very thing that starts Oedipus on the
suspicion that he is guilty.
3) Messenger's attempt to calm him re marrying mother - "not
real parents" -catapults him closer to the realisation.