oedipus the king

Oedipus the King

Blinded to see the horror of his fate -- Sophocles' Tragedy "Oedipus Rex"

It is easy for a contemporary viewer to apprehend that the fate of Sophocles' "Oedipus the King" is a horrible. Oedipus fulfills his foretold destiny to marry his mother Queen Jocasta and kill his father King Laius. However, for a Greek audience Oedipus' fate would be especially terrible. Oedipus loses his vision, the most precious of all the senses, fulfils his fate to become a parricide in a world where filial duty and respect was of paramount importance, and becomes dominated by the influence of women in a patriarchal society. His only reward at the end of the play is that, now blinded, he can finally see the nature of human life clearly -- human beings are blind when they think themselves powerful, and they are playthings of the gods and goddesses.

The theme of blindness allowing people to see clearly is perhaps best embodied not by Oedipus' self-inflicted fate of blindness at the very end of the play but by the presence of the blind prophet Tiresias. Only the blind prophet knows why a plague has been inflicted upon Thebes. Oedipus begins the play full of self-confidence. "The opening of the play makes at least two things clear to us. First, the citizens have enormous respect, even love, for Oedipus. They acknowledge not only his political power (which they have given him), but also his pre-eminence among all human beings for wisdom, especially in dealing with things they don't understand: 'We judge you / the first of men in what happens in this life/and in our interactions with the gods'" (37-39) (Johnson, 2004).

However, because of the zealous confidence of the citizenry in his ability to solve problems and because of his success solving the riddle of the Sphinx, Oedipus cannot conceive that he is the real source of his city's ills, despite mounting evidence to the contrary as the play progresses. He condemns Tiresias, just as he condemns the then- unknown man who caused the plague in the first scene -- ironically condemning his own self. Although sighted, the king cannot see clearly, because his human arrogance in his capabilities conceals the real truth of human life. Human beings have little control over their fate and the will of the gods. As a blind man, Tiresias already knows this all too well. This is why, although "not in the original myth" Sophocles chose to include the blind prophet, to contrast his insight with the sighted Oedipus' stubbornness. (Roisman 2003:1)

Although Oedipus is arrogant, and hubristic, his tragic flaw is not the flaw of over-confidence in the manner of some heroes, like Odysseus, for example, who tells the Cyclops his name after blinding the demigod, and unwittingly condemns himself to wandering the seas in punishment. "It should be noted that Sophocles never suggests that Oedipus has brought his destiny on himself by his "ungodly pride" (hubris) alone, although this is a common theme in other Greek tragedies (Pontikis, 1988). Rather, for reasons unknown to mortals, Oedipus has been marked for an especially unhappy destiny in life. Sophocles even "makes a special effort to explain that Oedipus killed King Laius in self-defense" (Pontikis, 1988). Oedipus does not show unusual arrogance, no more so than his father did when he abandoned his child to cheat death. Oedipus leaves his natural parents out of a desire to protect them, as any son possessing filial pity should do, in the eyes of the Greeks.

However, in contrast to the Christian economy of good and evil, where good is rewarded and evil is punished by God, in ancient Greece: "The gods frequently interfere physically and psychically in human affairs (bringing on, for example, madness, illnesses, unusual acts of courage or folly, natural disasters, untimely death, and so on), but there is nothing consistent about these interactions, and they may or may not take place, no matter how many times the human beings offer sacrifices or prayers" (Johnson, 2007). Fate in "Oedipus Rex" is arbitrary, and Oedipus' terrible punishment has nothing to do with his uniquely terrible status as a human being. Oedipus is fallible, but not evil.

One of the greatest horrors of Oedipus' fate, however, is not simply that he kills his father but that he marries his mother. He thus is also fated to become a slave to female desire and female words, as the Oracle of Delphi who foretold his fate was traditionally represented as a female figure. Oedipus was filled with confidence that he had triumphed over femininity, because he vanquished the Sphinx, a monster with a female head, by solving her riddle. At the end of the play Oedipus is seen as entirely enwrapped in the influence of women. He blinds himself with his mother and wife's pins, and his last scene on stage shows him saying good-bye to his sisters and daughters.