Introductory English concepts and practice

Oedipus is at once a King of courage and judicial propriety, and also one in whom there is a tendency toward pride. Underlying it all, however, lays a great and secret blemish that awaits his discovery. It is through this secret mark - a birthmark of sorts - that fate, or the fates will eventually lead him to his downfall. It will be his character traits of courage, honesty and integrity, however, in combination with an ego and pride that are more closely related hubris that will actually bring about his inevitable acts of self-destruction via free will. In many ways, Oedipus was created as a perfect specimen through whom Sophocles could effectively deliver one of the most dramatic of ancient Greek tragedies.

With generous measures of irony Sophocles provides tantalizing situations intended to hold the attention of the audience that knows the secret blemish of Oedipus long before he does. Each of his actions establishes his character more clearly. Having been told as a young man by the Oracle at Delphi that he was destined to murder his father and marry his own mother, Oedipus, horrified by such a prophecy, fled the town of his parents. In doing this, he presumed that he would thus circumvent the prophecy. Setting off own chosen path, he kills an older man who would not step aside for him on the highway. He then outwits a bothersome Sphinx with his cleverness, which further amplifies his opinion of himself. "And yet the riddle was not to be solved by guess-work but required the prophet's art (407-08)." Both of those actions bring him to Thebes where the Queen had recently been widowed. Hailed now as a champion because he'd freed the people of the Sphinx, Oedipus is made King. He marries the widowed Queen.

While he outwitted the Sphinx, however, he did not outwit the Oracle of Delphi, nor did he circumvent the fate awaiting him. When he killed the old man, he set the work of the fates into motion. No one realized that the Queen was a widow because it was her husband, Laius, whom Oedipus killed on the highway, and no one realized that in doing this and then marrying the widowed Queen, he had fulfilled the prophecy and married his own mother. With the plague-stricken town of Thebes looking to Oedipus for a determination of how to appease the gods, it is discovered that the plague is upon them because the murderer of the old King, Laius, is living in the slain King's very kingdom. The gods will be appeased when the murderer is brought to justice and banished from the kingdom - or possibly worse. "Blood for blood," Creon tells Oedipus, "the city frets with someone's blood (107-08)." Oedipus, with blind justice and righteous indignation, sets out to determine who, precisely, is responsible for the murder of the old King, and therefore responsible for the plague. With his hubris surfacing, he declares his allegiance to the slain king without realizing the irony of his words. "Such ties swear me to his side as if he were my father. I shall not rest until I've tracked the hand that slew [him] . . . (223-24)." It is Tiresias, the old blind prophet who will tell Oedipus for whom he must now hunt, "I say, the murderer of the man whose murder you pursue is you (373-74)."

Oedipus, enraged now, calls the blind prophet a creature born of darkness and tells him that nothing born of darkness can harm the likes of Oedipus, a "man who lives in the light (365-388)." Tiresias answers that Oedipus, in his rage, is mocking him because he has been blind from birth, but, Tiresias says, "I say you see and still are blind - appallingly . . . (427-28)." As the rage builds, Oedipus never realizes that he is repeating the same transgression that he and his true parents attempted in the past: He is again ignoring prophecy and assuming that he, as a mortal, can circumvent what is seen with eyes that see more than a mortal's eyes see, and that if he is clever enough, then he can simply dismiss the messages from gods by dismissing their poor messenger. While the ominous implications of this are clearly known to the audience, Oedipus continues his vitriolic tirade, and the blind Tiresias turns to utter yet another prophecy: the murderer is standing in their midst, and when Oedipus finally sees this, it will be Oedipus who will become a blind beggar (466-472). The Chorus is alarmed at the disrespect, and at the rage of Oedipus that is so blinding that he cannot see what everyone else is seeing - that the sure-footed Fates are about to track him down (483-490). As irony moves through scene again and again, it becomes apparent that Oedipus must now hunt down none other than himself. Still not completely sure of all that is transpiring around him, Oedipus begins his hunt and in doing so, he follows the history of his own infancy. He finds that he was left to die by his own parents who were trying to circumvent the same prophecy he had tried to circumvent. He finds that in his arrogance and hubris, he has been blind to the truth all along. Reeling in horror, he rushes to the room of his wife and mother, Jocasta, to find that she has ended her own life. Oedipus then fulfills the last of the prophecies, that of Tiresias. Having found the murderer and the one who has caused the plague to be visited upon the city, he blinds himself so that he might not ever have to look upon himself or his crime again, and he banishes himself from Thebes and all that he thought was his rightful kingdom.