Sophocles - Oedipus Rex Oedipus

Sophocles - Oedipus Rex

OEDIPUS REX: A MAN MOVED by PASSION, CONFLICT, and TENSION

One of the ironies of Oedipus Rex is that a character so moved by passion and conflict could have committed a murderous act that would seem to defy all human emotion for its coldness. From the start, Oedipus appears to be condemned by preordination to experience the profound agony of understanding his origin and the realization that he is responsible for his own suffering:

It was Apollo, friends, Apollo, that brought this bitter bitterness, my sorrows to completion. But the hand that struck me was none but my own."

Oedipus becomes so emotional in his confrontation with Teiresias that he is unable to comprehend the straightforward meaning of Teiresias' statement: "I say you are the murderer of the king whose murderer you seek." This lack of comprehension on the part of Oedipus during the exchange with the seer generates his excessive reaction during the confrontation with the mild-mannered Creon:

You venture in my house although you are proved manifestly the murderer...tell me what you saw in me, that made you lay a plot like this against me/" This horrible characterization by Oedipus of the loyal, patient, and humble Creon, a long-time trusted member of the ruling family, also suggests that Oedipus was simply a victim of the intense emotions aroused within him that were triggered by the earlier confrontation with Teiresias. This overreaction to emotional circumstances and a passionate desire to understand the truth of his life repeats itself throughout the play. If further evidence of this dynamic is required, one need consider little more than Oedipus' rushing into the palace "with raging heart," asking for a sword, tearing the doors of Jocasta's chambers from their sockets, removing her from the noose, and then ripping pins from her dress and stabbing them into his own eyes. At different times, Oedipus issues contradictory self-characterizations, perhaps as a metaphor for the duality of his personality and his inability to control his passionate overreactions. Speaking of his cool logical ability in solving the riddle of the Sphinx, he says, "But I came, Oedipus who knew nothing, and I stopped her. I solved the riddle by my wit alone." Yet, in remembering the tragedy that he perpetrated on his way home from Corinth, this same man recounts his murderous reaction to provocation: