Oedipus, Fate, and
Tragedy
The Fates
The Fates have the subtle but awesome power of
deciding a man's destiny. They assign a man to
good or evil. Their most obvious choice is
choosing how long a man lives. There are three
Fates: Clotho, the spinner, who spins the thread
of life; Lachesis, the measurer, who chooses the
lot in life one will have and measures off how
long it is to be; Atropos, she who cannot be
turned, who at death with her shears cuts the
thread of life.
Fatalism
• fa·tal·ism (f t l- z m)
• n.
• 1. The doctrine that all events are
predetermined by fate and are therefore
unalterable.
• 2. Acceptance of the belief that all events are
predetermined and inevitable.
• fa tal·ist n.
• fa tal·is tic adj.
• fa tal·is ti·cal·ly adv.
Fate, Fatalism, and Being Fatalistic
“But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that
case, what we call ‘tomorrow’ is visible to Him in just the
same way as what we call today." All the days are ‘Now’ for
Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday, He
simply sees you doing them: because, though you have lost
yesterday, He has not. He does not ‘foresee’ you doing things
tomorrow, He simply sees you doing them: because, though
tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never
supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free
because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your
tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is
already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He
does not know your action till you have done it: but then the
moment at which you have done it is already ‘Now’ for Him.”
- C. S. Lewis from Mere Christianity
The Concept of Fate
To invoke the concept of fate or have a fatalistic
vision of experience is to claim that the most
important forces that create, shape, guide,
reward, and afflict human life are out of human
control.
The terms fate and fatalistic assert that someone
or something is in control, and hence the
universe does not operate by chance.
Modern Attitude to Fate
We have been trying to take control of the game of
life, to reshape it to our own purposes, and to deny the
existence of some greater powers over which we have no
control.
We have done this by launching a massive project to
assault as much of nature as we can, so as to bring it
under human control, so that we are no longer victims of
casual changes in climate, bacterial infections, harvest
failures, natural disasters.
And we have been, in many quarters, so
spectacularly successful that we are encouraged to think
that we have only a short route to go before we become,
as the saying has it, masters of our own fate.
Are We Masters of Our Own Fate?
Severe natural disasters or new outbreaks of massive lethal
epidemics and similar occurrences are often unpleasant
reminders that, even if we don't like to think about fate, we
may not have put our fates as much under our control as we
might wish. Oedipus the King, some have argued, is making
precisely that point
“On Misunderstanding of
Oedipus Rex” E.R. Dodds
First Group:
The play justifies the
gods by showing or
proving that we get
what we deserve.
Second Group:
The play proves that
man has no free will
but is a puppet in the
hands of the gods
who pull the strings
that make him dance.
Third Group:
Sophocles is a pure
artist and was
therefore not
interested in
justifying the gods.
The story of Oedipus
is simply used to
make an exciting play.
*Read Dodd’s “On Misunderstanding of Oedipus Rex”
Response to First Group
• Can we find moral fault in Oedipus?
• He IS proud and overconfident. Is that enough to
constitute the hamartia of Oedipus?
• Did Sophocles intend us to think Oedipus a good
man? YES
• His hamartia exists in his parricide and incest,
not with losing his temper with Tiresias
• Could Oedipus have avoided his fate? NO! The
oracle unconditionally says you WILL kill your
father and sleep with your mother.
Response to Second Group
• We cannot view the play from one of the two
clear-cut views – either we believe in free will or
else we are determinists
• Certainly Oedipus’ past actions were fate-bound;
but everything else that he does ON THE STAGE
from the first to the last he does as a free agent
• What causes his ruin is his own strength and
courage, his loyalty to Thebes, and his loyalty to
the truth. In all this we are to see him as a free
agent.
Response to Third Group
• A healthy reaction against the old moralizing school of
critics
BUT
• Sophocles did not believe that the gods are, in any
human sense, just
• He did not always believe that the gods exist and that
men should revere them
• It is looking through our Christian spectacles that we
demand God to be just. The older world saw no such
necessity
• There is an objective world order which man must
respect, but which he cannot fully hope to understand
Dodds’ Conclusion
Certainly the Oedipus Rex is a play about the blindness of man
and the desperate insecurity of the human condition: in a
sense every man must grope in the dark as Oedipus gropes,
not knowing who he is or what he has to suffer; we all live in a
world of appearance which hides us from who-knows-what
dreadful reality. But surely the Oedipus Rex is about human
greatness.
*Read Dodd’s “On Misunderstanding of Oedipus Rex” (outline
on my website as a ppt.
Contd.
Oedipus IS great, not in virtue of a great worldly
position – for his worldly position is an illusion
which will vanish like a dream – but in virtue of
his inner strength: strength to pursue the truth
at whatever personal cost and strength to accept
and endure it when found.
Oedipus is a kind of symbol of the human
intelligence that cannot rest until it has solved all
the riddles – even the last riddle, to which the
answer is that human happiness is built on an
illusion.
Medea
What is the metanarrative surrounding Medea?
TED talk by : Jackson Katz “Violence Against Women: it’s a
men’s issue”
The strong female character
•
•
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Medea: Medea
The Lion in the Winter: Eleanor of Aquitaine
Macbeth: Lady Macbeth
Doll House: Nora Helmer and Hedda Gabler
Medea
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
Conflicts in Play
• Husband
• Man
• Citizen
• Wife
• Woman
• Foreigner
Vocabulary
• Machiavel: marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith
• Xenophobe: one unduly fearful of what is foreign
and especially of people of foreign origin
• Misogynist: a hatred of women
• Pragmatist: a practical approach to problems and
affairs
• Regicide: the crime of killing a king or queen
• Infanticide: the act of killing a baby
• Patricide: the act of murdering your own father
• Fratricide: the crime of murdering your own brother
or sister
The Paradox of Revenge
Revenge
• Revenge is both poetic justice and bloody justice
• The revenge figure is a sign of the movement towards the
destruction of chaos and a sign of chaos itself
Alive
Death Wish
Alive
Unforgiven
Dead
A Man on Fire
Alive
The Brave One
Dead
Death Sentence
Dead
Law Abiding Citizen
http://www.lawabidingcitizenfilm.com/
Alive
Revenge
is feelings disguised as duty
• The revenge figure moves outside the society’s code of behavior
• What the revenger wants is itself a paradox: natural justice, a code
of feeling aligned with a code of civilization
• The revenger’s refusal or inability to go to the law puts him outside
the social bonds that prompt his desire for revenge
• He is a sign of chaos and a movement toward the destruction of
chaos
• This is typically why the revenge figure must die
• The restoration of order requires the extinction of anti-social
elements
Beware of Binary Opposites
• Greek
• Reason
• Rational
• New Yorkers
• Barbarian
• Passion
• Superstitious
• Southerners
Medea Group Study
• Work together to complete the
Medea close reading. (30
minutes)
Study Guide
Medea
• Compare Jason to other heroes you have studied. Does he seem heroic? What is virtuous or
sleazy about him? What specifically has he done wrong? What motivates Jason?
• This is still one of the most controversial plays ever written, with its evocations of women’s rights
and Medea’s choice of infanticide. Consider carefully what you think of its awesome heroine. Pay
close attention to how and when she makes the decision to kill her children.
• Does Medea remind you of other women in myth? The audience would expect her to be a witch;
does Euripides fulfill those expectations, or does he present a less than demonic woman?
• Euripides, as Sophocles once said, drew men as they are, not as they ought to be. Do you agree?
In what ways are his characters, plots, and actions more realistic?
• Medea’s great speech is stunningly modern in its account of the injustices done to women in
patriarchal societies. Medea may seem at times a frightening character, but compare her real
ethical concerns with the rather shallow and scheming plans of Creon and Jason. Do you see any
significance in the namelessness of her rival?
• Consider the curious scene with Aegeus. Who is he and what is he doing there? What does the
curious oracle given to him mean?
• At the end of the play, where is Medea? What impact does her position have?