Oedipus the King: Victim of the Gods - Essay Example

YOUR FULL YOUR Oedipus the King: Victim of the Gods The play Oedipus the King is a ic example of the Greek tragedy. In this paper, I will propose that Oedipus was a victim of the capricious whims of the gods as a philosophical argument. It should be noted, however, that this play is just that; a piece of literature designed for the stage. As such, my argument will be undertaken in the context of the thematic elements present in a work of this type. Oedipus is a character who represents many things to many people. His story, however, does not take place within a vacuum, nor is it historical. The tale is the function of a plot designed by its author to entertain and educate a specific audience in a particular culture. Accordingly, this work contains elements that are prescribed by the artistic conventions of the day. The character of Oedipus is not only impacted by the gods, but by the fact that a dramatic production of this era would have plot requirements that contained "painful or fatal acts...; a change in the fortune of a main character; the right kind of recognition, i.e.,...good or bad fortune of another who is related and dear to him or her; and sudden reversals in the actions" (Sethurst 69). Accordingly, Oedipus the King is intentionally staged for the main character to encounter pain, change, and reversal of fortune. That said, I will argue that Oedipus was a victim; his fate was beyond his personal control, the gods synchronized the prophecies and events of his life with particular malice, and the rash personality of Oedipus was exploited for the purposes of destroying him. The downfall of Oedipus the King was caused by the gods. Fate Oedipus was designed to live the life he did, one that was shaped by the gods. One of the great ironies of Greek tragedy is how the choices of the individual coincide with the impulses of the gods, and Oedipus stands as a stark representation. In this case, however, the early and formative years of Oedipus were pre-determined through the actions of others, and by the time he was old enough to make his own informed choices, it was too late; his fate was sealed. Professor Bagg, in his preliminary comments on his own translation of the play, ponders this very question; "[c]an it be true, as the events of his life strongly suggest, that Oedipus' actions have been shaped by a malign divinity ...it seems to me that our first and overwhelming impression is correct, that the gods have willed Oedipus to do what he did. Not only do Oedipus and all the other characters come to this conclusion, but the design and verbal texture of the play confirm it. (Sophocles/Bagg 2) The life of Oedipus was orchestrated by the gods so that the outcome would be tragic. He was framed. A second indicator of Oedipus' tragic fate is in the very timing of the gods' retribution on Thebes. We join Oedipus after he is the king, as he is being supplicated by the inhabitants to do something about the plague upon the land. At this point in time, the crimes for which Oedipus is ostensibly being punished have long-since been committed. In fact, as one author has put it, we should "wonder why the plague, whether it be retribution for murder or for incest, or both, comes so late on Thebes, years after the death of Laius, when Oedipus and Jocasta have grown children" (Hogan 23). The reason is that the gods intentionally waited until Oedipus was a king, calculating his demise so that it would be a public spectacle. Had the gods wished to simply kill Oedipus, there were manifest opportunities in his life. They could have prevented his discovery by the shepherd, Laius could have killed him on the road, or the Sphinx could have prevailed in Oedipus' defining battle to become king of Thebes. Yet, none of these events happened; the gods waited until he was at the apex of his life, secure in his own mind that he had avoided committing a heinous crime, to reveal to him that he was, indeed, the very pariah he had dreaded becoming. His life was timed for perfect humiliation. He was stalked. Finally, evidencing the gods' complicity and orchestration, Oedipus himself identifies his tormentor. He specifically states that "Apollo, friends, it was Apollo who did this. He made evil, perfect evil of my life" (Sophocles/Kennedy ll. 1530-1532). It is in this area that the capricious and particularly vicious nature of the gods is best understood. In her article on the topic, Janet Green says, "[w]e have a powerful statement that the inscrutable gods exert extreme power over the unjust and the just, who suffer alike from their mysteriously random power" (3). Oedipus was the recipient of a direct exercise of power by the gods, for their own fickle reasons, and he suffered the consequences of being chosen for victimization. He was a target. Oedipus's life was not his to control. From the beginning, the gods had their malevolent eye on Oedipus. He was framed, stalked, and targeted for a tragic and disgraced end. Prophecy The use of prophecy was central to the strategic goals of the gods in destroying the life of Oedipus. It was through these means that the nefarious plan was weaved together even before his birth; and the human responses to those prophecies, certainly predictable from the gods' perspective, sealed his doom. As Hogan notes, Laius was warned by an oracle not to have children at all (19). Obviously, he and Jocasta ignore this prophecy and, when Oedipus is born, resolve the matter of his existence through a scheme of abandonment; which would effectively kill the child. In Jocasta, however, this creates a not-unexpected reaction; resentment. Laius makes the decision to kill Oedipus and, as Nassaar observes, "...his mother's scorn for Apollo and his prophecies is traceable to this terrible event. She defies and rejects Apollo and his priests for the sake of Oedipus, nursing a lifelong contempt for them (Nassaar 188). Jocasta was aware of both the prophecies and what had happened to the baby. Her reaction to the prophecy was natural, as any mother would resent the abandonment of her child. This resentment, nursed through the years, placed Jocasta in the position of opposing the decree of the gods and taking Oedipus as her husband. She was set up so that she would create the pestle in which Oedipus would be ground by the gods' mortar. The other side of the prophetic trap was laid in Oedipus himself, who received his own prophecy from the Oracle at Delphi. Unlike the directive given to Laius, Oedipus had the culminating events of his life laid out before him. He immediately took the prophecy to heart and did everything in his power to avoid fulfilling the spoken words. The problem for Oedipus, however, was that his very determination to prevent the prophecy was used to compel him towards its fulfillment. As one author puts it: All life moves within a shell-like containment of final ignorance and impotence. To act or think in self-founded certainty of what tomorrow will bring is to ape the poor blind madman who throws away his stick, shakes off the guiding hand and plunges forward alone. [In Greek tragedy], [h]umanity's stick is its ritual life, especially its seer-craft. The guiding hand is lent by its gods. (Jones 168) Oedipus, ignorant of his fate and impotent to prevent the prophetic outcome, was under the direction of the gods the entire time. The gods synchronized the two predictions in such a way as to bring about their results; making the events of Oedipus' life inevitable. Personality The gods knew Oedipus better than he knew himself. He was in possession of a particularly rash personality, as can be demonstrated through the events of his life; impulsively killing Laius over a dispute on the road, passionately ordering banishment for Laius' killer, his harsh reaction to the blind prophet, his self-blinding, etc. Herein is the conflicted hero made plain, as Murray points out in the preface to his translation of the play: "Oedipus is too passionate to be just; but he is at least noble in his impetuosity, his devotion, and his absolute truthfulness. (Sophocles/Murray viii). Oedipus possesses the obviously heroic characteristics of devotion and truthfulness. He is not a bad person, per se, he is just tragically doomed. The gods use his passion against him, however, quite unjustly. Oedipus is determined that the prophecy not be fulfilled. He intentionally and continuously seeks to avoid any circumstance that would contribute to the outcome. It is obvious that the prophecy is always on his mind and he is focused on not participating in any event that would bring truth to the words spoken. The absolute recklessness of his nature is perhaps best demonstrated after he has realized that, in spite of his best efforts, the prophecy has indeed come true. His "discovery brings violent guilt: he would kill Jocasta if she were not quicker, and his selfblinding is followed by a demand that he be cast from the city, self-cursed and loathsome to himself, his countrymen and his family" (Hogan 21). These are not the actions of an evil man, intent on killing his father, seducing his mother, and fathering his half-siblings. They are the actions of a passionate, though mis-guided, man who wishes to commit no such atrocity. The gods, in their omniscience, know exactly who they are dealing with and use the oracular pronouncements to bring about the fated outcome. Jocasta, the victimized and resentful mother, will behave in such a way as to empower Oedipus, the honest but rash man, to ensure that the intended consequences come about. The two sides of prophecy are pointed toward each other, channeling the lives of the characters, and the predictable personalities of the fallible humans upon whom the prophecies are focused will bring about the assured and foreordained events. In conclusion, the position that the downfall of Oedipus was caused by the gods is clearly and pointedly made clear in the last lines of the play itself: "Don't call a man god's friend until he has come through his life and crossed over into death never having been god's victim" (Sophocles/Kennedy ll. 1763-1766). Oedipus was truly a victim whose end was the result of the gods' agency. His fate was beyond his personal control; its horrible climax assured in spite of his best efforts. The prophecies given by the gods were calculated to force the humans under their "guidance" into the very place they would have avoided if left to their own devices. The personality of Oedipus himself was used as a tool to assure the outcome he feared the most. The gods willfully and intentionally set him up for disaster and directed the events of his life to ensure that he would become the loathsome creature he otherwise would have shunned. There is no doubt that the downfall of Oedipus the King was caused by the gods. Works Cited Green, Janet M. "Sophocles' Oedipus Rex." The Explicator 52, 1 (1993): 2-3. Hogan, James C. A Commentary on the Plays of Sophocles. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. Jones, John. On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Nassaar, Christopher S. "Sophocles' Oedipus the King." The Explicator 55, 4 (1997): 187-189. Smethurst, Mae J. "The Appeal of a Plotless Tragedy". College Literature 23, 1 (1996): 67-80. Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Ed. Bagg, Robert. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982. Sophocles. "Oedipus the King." An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (Ninth Edition). Ed. Kennedy X.J., and Gioia, Dana. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005, 1365-1433. Sophocles. Oedipus, King of Thebes. Ed. Murray, Gilbert. New York: Oxford University Press, 1911. Read More