Analyzing Oedipus the King - Article Example

112948 STARTING FROM LINE 690, PAGE 90 TO LINE 725. The royal couple were leading a contented family life with their children while Thebes flourished and people were happy, when plague struck and compelled the King for look for reasons and eradicate the calamity. These pages are the fist indicators that the future would be dark. Oedipus initially had thought that he was the son of the king and queen of Gorinth, as he was not informed that he was a foundling. The mutilation of his feet was not explained either. As a child, this unfortunate prince was exposed to death and remained alive due to the mercy of a servant. Father, who inflicted ever-lasting injury on the infant and sent him to his death, strangely did not murder him. “He (Laius) chose exposure rather than outright murder for the same reason the Creon has Antigone entombed alive: so that he would avoid the pollution” (Gould, 1970, p.93). Oedipus when he came to save the people of Thebes from the Sphinx and was victorious, had no idea how the earlier King, Laius looked. Oedipus was a stranger to Thebes and thought that Jocasta’s husband was of his own age or even younger, perhaps due to her youthful appearance and the man he murdered was definitely a much older man. This prompts him to swiftly ask Jocasta the age of the first King. According to the Queen, her first husband ‘had the splendid figure of a nobleman’, not unlike that of Oedipus and this description makes all the difference to Oedipus. The servant, who begged Jocasta to relieve him so that he could go to the village and live there, had already seen Oedipus on the throne and instantaneously recognised the killer of Laius. He was escaping from the new King. But once Oedipus came to know about it, in his characteristically shrewd and bold way, he requests the Queen to call the servant back to the court, so that he could meet him. The complicated relationships in the play are the main theme. Jocasta was Oedipus’ wife, only to be discovered as his mother is the main person of this play, because she was linked with both the father and son and had been wife to both, even though she was unaware of the situation. “The poet who created him has penetrated so deeply into the permanent elements of the human situation that his creation transcends time,” (Knox, 1957, p.1). In the famous ‘Tragedy of Fate’, Sophocles shows the helplessness of the man pitted against fate. It is a conflict between the all-powerful will of Gods against the vain attempt of humans to fight against that will. “It may be that we were all destined to direct our first sexual impulses towards our mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and violence towards our fathers; our dreams convince us that we were,” says Sigmund Freud (Knox, p.4). After dismissing Tiresias’ claim about Oedipus having killed Laius, Oedipus jumps into the conclusion that it was an invention of Creon’s thus showing his dislike and suspicion for Creon, his brother-in-law. A conflict between the two was prevented by Jocasta’s appearance on the scene, and here the journey downhill for the King and the royal family starts. The Prince of Corinth, who refused the crown after his father Polybus’ death, fearing a later prophecy that he would marry his mother (The Prince was under the impression that his mother was Queen Morope), and flees the country till his mother dies, rescues the people of Thebes from the riddling Sphinx, was living a useful life blissfully unaware that he had already murdered his real father and has become the husband to the real mother. The present scene is of Jocasta’s trying to convince her husband that all soothsayers could not be believed citing her own experience involving her infant son. This narration, instead of consoling him, makes him lose further peace of mind and now he is off again to solve another riddle that would bring him utter ruin, needless to say. Oedipus was not a soft King, but a man of swift action as his decisions and actions show. Even though he was the prince of Corinth, he was an insignificant person in Thebes and becomes its self-made, beloved ruler depending on his own energy and strength, apart from wit and cleverness. He was a just and noble person, even to his own peril. His character has splendid consistency and ‘Oedipus is surely the greatest single individual in Greek tragedy’. Oedipus gives complete attention to clarity and knowledge and he was critically, reflectively and creatively intelligent. In this scene too, the swiftness with which he brings Tiresias to the court, the sharp mental reaction suspecting Creon, his just decision not to harm a blind old man, and his immediate reaction to Jocasta’s story, his unwavering request to the Queen to bring the servant to the court immediately, in spite of his uneasiness remembering a similar incident in which he killed an older man answering to Laius’ description, all show his sharp decisions and desire to know the truth, however negative it could be to him personally. Even after knowing the disastrous truth, his main worry was how to save the city and kingdom. His unwavering devotion for the people, even at the risk of sacrificing his own children’s welfare is very impressive. Also it was not difficult to suppress the truth, as hardly anybody was aware of it. Risking his well being and life is the characteristic nature of Oedipus, especially when he attacks the unknown. After knowing the details of the murder, Oedipus apprehensively says that ‘perhaps the blind prophet can see (747); but this does not prevent him from further action to self-discovery. Prophecy of Tiresias does not come here as the main point. Oedipus was already aware of it when he was in Corinth. Court of Thebes too was aware of it, since the day Oedipus was born and later abandoned. “This prophecy of Tiresias, then, is in the first place produced by the action of Oedipus, and in the second place has no effect on his subsequent action. It can be considered neither external nor causal,” (Knox, p.6). What Tiresias’ prophecy does at this point is proving its potency and tying it to Oedipus. The plot structure is so commanding that the story is opening up slowly and painfully. These pages are the beginning of unfolding an unimaginably hurtful story and how the much-loved King, almost a democrat in his fierce devotion to his people, responds to the mystery of past that is like telling the story in reverse. From this point, it is a riddle being solved by the hero of the story. The horizons of the lives of all connected are getting clouded. Here Creon’s intentions are suspicious as he was the first person who links the plague to Oedipus. “The possibility that Oedipus may not be the cause of the plague and that he may be linked to it by the accidental or purposeful intentions of the Creon looms already in this passage,” (Pucci, 1992, p.24). From here, the story marches from strength to strength, with power points that emerge out of Oedipus’ meeting various shadowy figures that were in the mysterious background, but never came into the sunlight till now. “Against this backdrop is played out a series of encounters between Oedipus and others, where others’ actions, ambitions, and desires – their ways of being in the world – are tested and judged by the touchstone of Oedipus’ achieved wisdom,” (Grennan and Kitzinger, 2005, pp. 6-7). As far as stage direction is concerned, it is hard to find a better play that could be directed more effectively on the stage. Greek tragedies are known for their superb stage awareness; but Oedipus is perhaps one of the best plays that would leave a lasting, haunting impression on the audience. Language, though we are referring to the translated language, is brisk, pert, effective, masculine and hard hitting. It is to the point, without any words to waste and has the ultimate effect in each line. The language is at its best in places like ‘The things a god must track he will himself painlessly reveal1’ and ‘what peak of youthful vigour he has reached2’, and ‘He had a figure not unlike your own3’. But the most doomed line is Oedipus’ saying with utter foreboding: ‘Alas! It seems that in my ignorance I laid those fearful curses on myself4’. From these pages, action in Oedipus the King starts with a much higher reaction potential. From here onwards, Oedipus’ every action, fires up the stage and brings the audience closer to the disastrous end. Jocasta’s entreating her husband to tell her the quarrel between him and her brother, his trust and respect for her (‘Creon has conspired against me5’.) even though the adversary was her own brother, and the innocent way with which this conversation starts is heartbreaking if read after the play. He is seething with anger against Creon, whom he accuses of sending this ‘seer’, ‘so he could keep his own mouth innocent6’. Jocasta’s consoling the King (‘Listen to this and you’ll agree7,’) is meant to be an ordinary reassurance about her belief that ‘no mortal is ever given skill in prophecy’8. As the beginning of the tragedy unfolds itself, readers and audience experience a fierce desire to safeguard the just, the brave King Oedipus from knowing the entire truth. But as he abhorred half-truths, he rushes into the whole doomed truth, knowingly, and well aware of the impending danger. “Our irrational wish that he should save himself is countered by the realization that since he has to fall, it is better that he fall in self-destruction than by self-betrayal. The discovery of his identity is the most catastrophic defeat imaginable, but there is a sense in which it is also a great victory,” (Knox, p.52). BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Berkoff Steven (2000), Plays Three, Faber and Faber, London. 2. Gould, Thomas (1970), Oedipus the King, Prentice-Hall, London. 3. Grennan and Kitzinger (Trans), (2005), Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, Oxford University Press. 4. Knox, Bernard (1957), Oedipus at Thebes, Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and His time, Yale University Press. 5. Pucci, Pietro (1992), Oedipus and the Fabrication of the Father, The Johns Hopkins University Press, London. 6. Segal, Charles, (2001), Oedipus Tyrannus, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press. Read More