Oedipus the King

Oedipus Rex

In Oedipus the King by Sophocles, the central character is high-born, a king, and a man of power, but by the end of the play he has been destroyed. He loses his kingdom, his sight, and his place in society. His sin is not simply blindness, though the literal blindness at the conclusion evokes the idea of his metaphorical blindness before that. His crime is pride, seen as a particularly egregious sin in the Greek view. The sort of pride detailed in the Greek myths is often called hubris, though in fact hubris haws a broader meaning than simply pride. Oedipus fails to take proper precautions even though he knows his fate from what the Oracle has foretold, but he does not exercise sufficient care to avoid that fate. The failure is because of his pride, because he sets himself above the gods and believes himself to be invulnerable.

In Oedipus the King, cultural memory is central and often represented by the Chorus, which recognizes the nature of the prophecy that Oedipus has essentially ignored. The prophecy itself is a cultural memory, a warning meant to be heeded, and when broken, a sign to others not to make the same error. Oedipus's parents, Laius and Jocasta, are told that their offspring will kill the father and marry the mother. In order to avoid this fate, the parents place the child on a hill and leave him. The boy is instead raised in another household, but he is told about the prophecy by the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle does not tell the boy who his parents really are, and he does indeed meet and kill his father and marry his mother. He then rules for years unaware of his crime. He has not forgotten his crime, for he does not realize he has committed it. From the point-of-view of the gods, though, he should have known this would happen and should not have killed anyone or married at all. At the same time, it is always clear that he had no choice because the prophecy was a statement of fate and could not be avoided, which really suggests that human memory of the prophecy is in some ways irrelevant. As Teiresias says, "Alas, how terrible is wisdom when / it brings no profit to the man that's wise!" (Sophocles lines 316-317). Oedipus could not use his memory to avoid the crime, for he could never really avoid the crime at all. He was foreordained from the first to do just as he has done.

This indicates that the memory that counts is the social memory of the people, who are to learn humility and to heed the words of the gods. From a point-of-view outside the Greek society of the time, even this may seem futile, for if all actions are preordained, then individuals have no choice whether to heed or not. The essence of the Oedipus myth revolves around personal responsibility in the Greek conception. Even though Oedipus appears to be the victim of a series of circumstances so that what happens to him should be no fault of his own, in the Greek view this is not the case, and the essence of Greek tragedy begins with the recognition that the hero is responsible even for actions he cannot control, especially when the failure involves overweening pride, as in the case of Oedipus:

The gravest crimes, the most senseless adventures have sprung from the self-regarding gaze, and though we make poetry of pride in the West, and pretend to ourselves that there are some forms of pride which are legitimate and others which are not so, the most deathly instrument placed in the hands of man remains the mirror. (Payne 301)

The structure of the three plays about Oedipus by Sophocles covering this myth shows that Oedipus should have known what he was doing even if he did not and that his stubbornness in the face of growing evidence as to his crime leads to his downfall.

Raymond Williams indicates that there is something definite that can be considered tragic, differentiating it from other experiences: "Certain events and responses are tragic, and others are not" (Williams 14). In shaping his dramatic theory, Aristotle surveyed the drama of his time and developed certain concepts regarding the nature of the tragic hero. The tragic hero must be an important person with a character flaw that causes him to make a great mistake leading to tremendous suffering and a fall from his high status. The tragedy derives from the fact that none of what occurs is the tragic hero's fault, for the tragic flaw predetermines his actions and seals his fate. This is the pattern found in the plays of Sophocles, among other playwrights of Ancient Greece. The world of Sophocles is a world of myth brought into the human realm, and the tragic vision derives from the conflict between the actions of human beings and the requirements of the gods:

Compared with the Homeric epics, Athenian tragedy reflected a more conscious sense of the gods' metaphorical significance and a more poignant appreciation of human self-awareness and suffering. Yet through profound suffering came profound learning, and the history and drama of human existence, for all its harsh conflict and wrenching contradiction, still held overarching purpose and meaning. The myths were the living body of that meaning, constituting a language that both reflected and illuminated the essential processes of life. (Tarnas 18)

Throughout the play, Oedipus insists on the importance of knowing the truth and speaks as if he himself is able to see the truth when it is presented to him. He sees others as hiding the truth from him, notably Teiresias, whom he describes in terms that really apply to himself, telling Teiresias that the truth "has no strength / for you because you are blind in mind and ears / as well as in your eyes" (Sophocles lines 370-372). At this stage, Oedipus is blind in mind and ears and will later be blind in his eyes as well, and one critic explains the meaning of this transition:

Spiritual blindness is equated with obduracy and arrogance--hubris -- and towards the end of Oedipus Rex, the physical blinding is already encouraging new insight, awareness, and compassion. When Oedipus could see, he beheld the piercing light of Greece, but he had then less understanding of his fate, less inner vision, and less humility than he is beginning to achieve after he loses that flooding, outer light. (Green 2-3)