Oedipus Rex

Assignment to have been completed: Students should have read Oedipus Rex.

Activities:

• A. Distribute the quiz which you should find in the red folder labeled Oedipus Rex. Allow students about 5-7 minutes to complete this task. Collect the quizzes and place them in the red folder.
• B. Use the following questions to direct a discussion of the assignment. I have provided answers to help you.

  • 1. The oracles had prophesied that Oedipus would kill his father and beget children by his mother. Is Oedipus therefore made to do these things? Is the play premised on the notion that Oedipus is bound or free – the puppet of fate or the creator of his own fate? Or some of each?

    The only causal effect of the oracle in the action is Oedipus’s vow to discover and punish the murderer; the whole movement of the plot is toward knowledge, first the discovery of the identity of the murderer, and then the discovery of Oedipus’s true parentage.

    The play is premised on the notion that Oedipus is “free” to submit to the gods. He and Laios both “freely” sought to circumvent fate, but in exercising the hubris that believes itself greater than the divine will they both brought about the horrors of parricide, incest, and ruin.

    Discussions of the causal role of the gods and oracles are not necessary even though they are tempting: we are presented with what Oedipus is not with what he was; we are with him on his quest for the truth, not his flight from Corinth to avoid a prophecy, not his defensive murder, not his glorious achievement of the throne nor the early years of his marriage.

    In the justified pride of his position, he undertakes the actions that will save the country and then unflinchingly goes on when others beg him to stop. The search for enlightenment is rewarded with knowledge of the most horrid kind, too horrid for a mere mortal to look upon, and yet he presses for the execution of the sentence he has pronounced upon himself.

  • 2. Outline the actions presented on the stage: begin where the play begins, with the people turning to their king for relief from the plague, and disregard for the moment the revelation of incidents that preceded the play. Then summarize the antecedent actions as they are gradually revealed. In what ways are Oedipus’s stage actions consistent with his prior actions? In what ways are they different? How do these two sets of actions reveal him to be a person of extraordinary stature?

    In both his stage actions and those performed offstage Oedipus is bold (perhaps even rash). He also places confidence in his own intellect.

    In actions prior to the beginning of the play, Oedipus acted out of personal motivations – anger and pride. In the course of the play, he acts on behalf of his city, seeking to relieve the population of the ravages of the plague sent by Apollo.

    Both sets of actions reveal him to be a man of supreme confidence and decisiveness. The king at the beginning of the play is “not one of the immortal gods, …[but] the man surest in mortal ways / And wisest in the ways of God,” (35-38).

  • 3. What is Oedipus’s primary motivation throughout the action of the play? What were his motives in actions prior to the play? What characters try to dissuade him from pursuing his purpose, and why do they do so? How do his subjects regard him?

    Oedipus’s primary motivation is the quest for knowledge, specifically to know the identity of Laios’ murderer and to know the identity of his own parents.

    Prior to the play, his motives lay in escaping the horrors prophesied for him by Delphi.

    Teiresias, Iokaste, the shepherd, and the chorus all try to dissuade him from pursuing his purpose because they see the truth and consider it too horrifying to conceive.

    Oedipus’s subjects regard him with awe almost like that accorded to the gods.

  • 4. Is any common pattern of behavior exhibited in Oedipus’s encounters with Laios, with Teiresias, and with Kreon? Is there any justification for his anger with Teiresias? For his suspicion of Kreon? Why?

    In instances involving all three men, Oedipus reacts with anger.

    His rage at Teiresias and his suspicion of Kreon’s plot are motivated by his certainty that he did not kill the king and an intelligent inference based on the fact that Kreon had recommended consulting the soothsayer.

  • 5. Oedipus’s original question, “Who killed Laios?” soon turns into the question “Who am I?” On the level of plot, the answer is “Son of Laios and Iokaste, father’s murderer, mother’s husband.” What is the answer at the level of character — that is, in a psychological or philosophical sense?

    The psychological or philosophical answer to “Who am I?” when asked by Oedipus is the same as it is for most men (and women): I am the offspring of my parents whom I do not fully know. Further, the answer may be that Oedipus is a man who seeks to do what is right though those actions may result in what is horrifyingly wrong.

  • 6. What philosophical issues are raised by Iokaste’s judgment on the oracles (scene 2)? How does the chorus respond to her judgment? How does the play resolve these issues?

    Iokaste’s questioning of oracles raises the philosophical question of the meaning, reliability, or significance of religious belief. The chorus is shocked by Iokaste’s judgment, and the play leaves the audience (readers) pondering the fact that Oedipus’s defiance of the oracle led him to fulfill it.

  • 7. Why does Oedipus blind himself? Is this an act of weakness or of strength? Why does he ask Kreon to drive him from Thebes? Does he feel that his fate has been just or unjust? Is his suffering, in fact, deserved? Partially deserved? Undeserved?

    Oedipus blinds himself because he cannot bear to look upon the horror his own actions have created: a murdered father, an incestuous mother, offspring that are also siblings, and the death by plague of his subjects.

    Whether his self-blinding shows weakness or strength is up to the individual. However, Sophocles seems to use it as another example of Oedipus’s bold actions.

    He probably regards his fate as just since he himself decreed banishment or death upon the man who murdered Laios and brought down the plague on Thebes. In fact, he begs Kreon to execute that decree.

    Within the context of Oedipus’s world his fate is deserved because of his hubris in assuming he could not possibly have been the guilty party even though he knows he murdered a man and his party.

  • 8. There is a good deal in the play about seeing and blindness. What purpose does this serve? How is Oedipus contrasted with Teiresias? How does Oedipus at the beginning of the play contrast with Oedipus at the end? Why is his blinding himself dramatically appropriate?

    The interplay of images of seeing and blindness points to the role of ignorance of self. It also supports the central irony that though Laios and Oedipus both see the danger of the oracle they are blind to its divine inspiration.

    At the beginning of the play, Oedipus is concerned exclusively about easing the suffering of his city with whom he identifies himself. Next, he pursues the injunction of the oracle to find the murderer of Laios with equal zeal since it will yield the solution to ending the plague.

    By the end of the play, Oedipus is humbler, not so presumptive of his ability to overcome all obstacles by force of his god-like intellect.

    His self-blinding symbolizes his willful ignorance and proud defiance of Teiresias’s revelations (who is himself blind: a seer whose blindness makes matters clearer to him).

  • 9. In what sense may Oedipus be regarded as a better man, though a less fortunate one, at the end of the play than at the beginning? What has he gained from his experience?

    He is a better man because he knows himself more fully. He has gained insight into himself that has helped him to overcome his own hubris.

  • 10. Some critics have suggested Oedipus’s answer to the Sphinx’s riddle was incomplete — that the answer should have been not just man but Oedipus himself — and that Oedipus was as ignorant of the whole truth here as he is when he lays his curse in scene 1 on the murderer of Laios. Does this suggestion make sense? On how many legs does Oedipus walk at the end of the play?

    The suggestion makes sense in that Oedipus’s answer is universal. Since Oedipus himself serves as a sort of Everyman, then the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle applies as well to him.

    On the other hand, as a baby Oedipus walks on no legs since his ankles are stapled together. Still, he walks on three legs at the end of the play if we consider the person assigned the task of leading him serves as a third leg.

  • 11. If the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle is not just man but Oedipus himself, may the answer to Oedipus’s question “Who am I?” pertain not only to Oedipus but also to man, or at least to civilized Western man? What characteristics of Oedipus as an individual are also characteristics of man in the Western world? Is Sophocles writing only about Oedipus the king, or is he saying something about man’s presumed place and his real place in the universe?

    Such may be the case.

    The shared characteristics are the assumption that the solutions to all problems lie within the potential of our own actions. In other words, no problem is so great that human ingenuity cannot overcome it.

    As a playwright, Sophocles must necessarily be saying something about man’s presumed place and his real place in the universe. Though man presumes to aspire to all knowledge and hence to all solutions, he in fact possesses limited knowledge, and much lies beyond his scope to resolve.

  • 12. What purposes are served by the appearance of Antigone and Ismene in the Exodos?

    Their appearance intensifies the pathos of Oedipus’s situation: they are in this scene objects of both his profound love of his family and the ineffable horror of his incest.

  • 13. What purpose does the chorus serve in the play? Whom does it speak for? Comment on the function of each of the four Odes.

    The Chorus has several important functions in this play: it comments on the actions it has witnessed, acting in part as a surrogate for the audience; and its songs reinforce the moods created by the actions. By interrupting the action, it also makes the passage of time between events more dramatically credible.

    Parados: a prayer for divine intervention in the plague, springing directly from the news that the oracle is being consulted.

    Ode 1: comments on the oracle’s warning that Laios’s murderer is still in the city, but rejects as impossible Teiresias’s pronouncements against Oedipus — the chorus is thus torn between belief and disbelief in the messages from the gods.

    Ode 2: a shocked response to Iokaste’s protective and impious skepticism about oracles.

    Ode 3: after the revelation that Oedipus had been rescued from exposure on the mountain, ignores Iokaste’s newfound awareness that her husband will discover himself to be the most miserable of men, and instead is a hymn to Kithairon and the gods who attended Oedipus’s rescue, as if the chorus cannot bring itself to face the situation being revealed.

    Ode 4: after the full revelation of Oedipus’s past, grieves for the fall of so great a man, “Majestic Oedipus! / . . . now of all men ever known / Most pitiful is this man’s story (1147-1151)

    Exodos: the chorus joins with Oedipus in a commos, a responsive song or chant, as an introduction to the lament in which he looks back on his life; and it concludes the play with a moral which is not exactly the central theme of the action but is appropriate to the insight of the chorus.

  • 14. What does the final speech of the Choragos tell us about human life?

    Human life is unpredictable insofar as human powers of prediction extend. No man may call himself happy until he has reached the end of his days.

  • 15. A central formal feature of the play is its use of dramatic irony. Point out speeches by Oedipus, especially in the Prologue and scene 1, that have a different or a larger meaning for the audience than for Oedipus himself. Sophocles’ title literally translates “Oedipus the Tyrant,” but the word tyrant denoted a ruler who had earned his position through his own intelligence and strength rather than by inheritance — it was not a negative term. Given that, what ironies are suggested by Sophocles’s title?

    In lines 79-80, Oedipus says, “I should do ill / Not to take any action the god orders.”

    In lines 141-143, he says “Whoever killed King Laios might — who knows? — / Lay violent hands even on me — and soon. / I act for the murdered king in my own interest.”

    In lines 232-235, he says “I pray that that man’s life be consumed in evil and wretchedness. / And as for me, this curse applies no less / If it should turn out that the culprit is my guest here, / Sharing my hearth.”

    In lines 251-253, he says “I take my son’s part, just as though / I were his son, to press the fight for him / And see it won!”

    In line 283, he says, “The man who dared that act will fear no curse.”

    Oedipus is king both by virtue of intelligence (having solved the riddle of the Sphinx) and inheritance (having been sired by Laios). However, he is also king by having created a vacancy on the throne of Thebes (having killed Laios), the act that concurrently had him killing his own father.

  • 16. The plot of Oedipus Rex has been called one of the most perfect dramatic plots ever devised. Why is it admired? What are its outstanding characteristics?

    The first writer to look upon Oedipus Rex as a “perfect drama” was Aristotle. For him Oedipus was the perfect tragedy, observing the unities of time, place, and action, presenting as its central character a model human being, whose hamartia brings him down. This hamartia (tragic flaw, the same word that early Christians will use for “sin,” especially for original sin, the sin we are born with, the sin beyond any human being’s control) is not incidental to Oedipus but is, rather, essential to his admirable character. He is strong, courageous, self-possessed, taking charge and striding boldly where others fear to go — the very qualities that foretell his undoing.

Assignment for next class meeting: Prepare to write in-class essay over Oedipus Rex tomorrow.