Oedipus Rex

Assignment to have been completed: Students should have read pages 1310-1327 of Oedipus Rex.

Activities:

• A. Distribute quiz over assigned scenes. Allow students about 10 minutes (less if everyone is finished) to complete the quiz. Collect the quizzes and place them with these plans.

• B. Go over the following questions with the students. Call on volunteers or go up and down the seating chart. I have provided answers to guide your judgment of their responses.

  Prologue

  • 1. What do the following words mean: suppliant, chaplet, lamentation, bay, defile, highwayman, compunction?

    Suppliant – a person who asks humbly and earnestly

    Chaplet – a wreath or garland for the head

    Lamentation – the act of expressing grief

    Bay – an aromatic laurel leaf

    Defilement – the result of polluting something or of rendering it unfit or unholy

    Highwayman – A man who holds up and robs travelers on a road

    Compunction – any uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action; guilt

  • 2. How were the ancient Greek playwrights able to turn to their advantage the fact that their audiences already knew the legends on which they based most of their plays?

    Powerful use of dramatic irony

    Powerful use of allusion

    Audience’s delight in seeing how the playwright worked out the details of the story

  • 3. In Oedipus’ opening speech, how does he immediately establish and characterize his relationship with the people of Thebes?

    He uses the word children, implying that he is a father to them.

    What is the tone of his words, “never doubt that I will help you / In every way I can”?

    He intends them to be reassuring and authoritative, but students may see them as presumptuous or arrogant.

  • 4. How do the people regard Oedipus? Offer specific details.

    They praise his wisdom and profess that he seems to have “a god’s touch” that “enabled [him] to help us.”

    How does Oedipus regard his people’s pain?

    He asserts that they each suffer separately, but he suffers all their pain.

    Is his attitude supported by their own feelings about him? How or how not?

    He feels like a savior, and they see him as one.

  • 5. What do lines 71-80 reveal about Oedipus?

    Oedipus sees himself as central to the solution of the plague on Thebes.

    How do his words exemplify dramatic irony?

    Oedipus seeks to take action against himself.

    What other instances of such irony occur in this portion of the play?

    The cause of the plague is “An old defilement,” a “murder” – Oedipus’ murder of his father Laios.

    In lines 141-143, Oedipus asserts, “I act for the murdered king in my own interest,” though he, in fact, works against his own interest.

  • 6. What piece of misinformation do the Thebans possess regarding Laios’ murder?

    The sole survivor claims, “a band of highwaymen attacked them.” (125-126)

  Parados

  • 1. What do the following words mean: parados, strophe, antistrophe, choragos?

    Parados – the lines recited by the Chorus as they make their first entrance

    Strophe – the part of an ancient Greek choral ode sung by the chorus when moving from right to left

    Antistrophe – the part of an ancient Greek choral ode answering a previous strophe, sung by the chorus when returning from left to right

    Choragos – the leader of a dramatic chorus

  • 2. Identify four functions of the Chorus.

    To separate one scene from another

    To comment on the action

    To reinforce the emotions of the actors

    To interpret the action

    What is the tone of the Chorus’s words?

    Fear, supplication, anxiety

    From stanza to stanza, to whom are their words directed? (It will help if you know whom among the twelve Olympian gods is the god of healing and who is the god of the sky.)

    Strophe 1 – Apollo

    Antistrophe 1 – Athene, Artemis, Apollo

    Strophe 2 – the same

    Antistrophe 2 – Apollo

    Strophe 3 – Zeus

    Antistrophe 3 – Apollo, Artemis, Bacchos

    What do the members of the Chorus pray for?

    Deliverance from the plague

  • 3. What function does this choral ode serve?

    To separate one scene from another

    To comment on the action

  Scene 1

  • 1. What do the following words mean: contagion, insolence?

    Contagion – A disease that is or may be transmitted by direct or indirect contact; a contagious disease

    Insolence – the trait of being rude and disrespectful

  • 2. Identify instances of dramatic irony in Scene 1.

    “Until now I was a stranger to this tale, / As I had been a stranger to the crime. (207-208)

    “[I] take the side of the murdered king.” (231)

    “As for the criminal, I pray to God –

    Whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number –

    I pray that that man’s life be consumed in evil and wretchedness.

    And as for me, this curse applies no less” (232-235)

    “Their son would have been my children’s brother.” (248)

    “I take the son’s part, just as though

    I were his son, to press the fight for him

    And see it won!” (252-253)

    “I pray the favor / Of justice” (261-262)

    “The man who dared that act will fear no curse” (283)

    When Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx, he sealed his own doom (since his reward included marriage to the queen – his mother). On the other hand, his act saved Thebes. (427-429)

  • 3. Consider Oedipus’ statement about the gods in lines 267-268: “. . . no man in the world / Can make the gods do more than the gods will.” What relationship between humans and the divine does Oedipus express in these words?

    He sees men as inferior to the gods, as subject to their will, and as above questioning.

  • 4. Compare line 274 to line 67.

    In both lines Oedipus takes some pride in having anticipated the suggestions of the Chorus in advance.

  • 5. Explain the paradox voiced by Teiresias in lines 304-305.

    Knowledge is generally regarded as helpful, but Teiresias suggests that the truth he has to impart will not be so.

    What is the prophet’s tone in lines 304-327?

    Reluctant, fearful of the consequences of releasing what he knows

    What is Oedipus’s tone in lines 310-333?

    Angry, accusatory

    What attitude does Teiresias charge against Oedipus in lines 325-326?

    That Oedipus is arrogant

    Does anything in the play so far support that charge?

    Oedipus sees himself as the sole savior of the city. He is rash in his decrees.

  • 6. What is the tone of Oedipus’s words in lines 339-389?

    Enraged, incredulous, accusatory, threatening

    How do his words measure up against those in lines 213-217?

    His anger directly contradicts his promise.

  • 7. How does the interplay of the imagery of sight and blindness contribute to the development of theme in Teiresias’s speech in lines 394-414?

    The blind man sees more clearly than the sighted man. That is, the blind man’s knowledge trumps the seeing man’s ignorance.

  Ode 1

  • 1. What do the following words mean: regicide, coursers?

    Regicide – the killing of a king

    Courser – a swift horse

  • 2. What is the ancient regicide (450)?

    The murder of Laios

    Who is the secret man (459)?

    The murderer (Oedipus)

    What is the secret man’s fate?

    Exile, desolation

    Who is the “old man skilled at hearing Fate” (468)?

    Teiresias

    What is the tone of lines 469-484?

    Rejection of the intimation that Oedipus killed Laios

  • 3. What function does this choral ode serve?

    To separate one scene from another

    To comment on the action

Assignment for next class meeting: Read pages 1327-1345 of Oedipus Rex.