Here is the riddle of the Sphinx: "There exists on land a thing with two feet and four feet, with a single voice, and that has three feet as well. It changes shape, alone among the things that move on land or in the air or down through the sea. Yet during the periods when it walks supported by the largest number of feet, then is the speed of its limbs the feeblest of all." The answer to the riddle is "man."

Oedipus' family, the family of Kadmos, has a long, complex, and dark mythological history; and it is significant that Kadmos invented the alphabet. Notice the power of words throughout the play: Oedipus solves a riddle, the oracle's words are irrefutable, and curses hold more power than people today would likely attribute to them.

Questions:

1.     Do you find Oedipus likable? Does he have any good qualities?

2.     Early in the play, Oedipus says,

          Sick as you are, no one is sick as I.

          Each of you suffers in himself alone,

          His anguish, not another's; but my spirit

          Groans for the city, for myself, for you.

In certain ancient fertility rites, as described in James Frazer's The Golden Bough, the king-or a person picked for a day to serve as the king-took on all the troubles and wrongdoings of his people and then was sacrificed. Is there an echo of this in Oedipus Rex? Is he meant to take this role for us the readers/spectators? What mythical function(s) does Oedipus serve?

3.     Look at the priest's words:

               You saved us

          From the Sphinx, that flinty singer, and the tribute

          We paid to her so long; yet you were never

          Better informed than we, nor could we teach you:

          It was some god breathed in you to set us free.

Yet later in the play, Oedipus brags,

               I came by,

          Oedipus, the simple man, who knows nothing-

          I thought it out for myself, no birds helped me!

Would you say that Oedipus has problem-solving skills, or is it a question of inspiration? What is the verdict of the play?

4.     How would we square Oedipus' story with the Delphic Oracle's (the Oracle of Apollo's) famous dictum, "know thyself"?

5.     Tiresias tells Oedipus that the king's skill at "solving riddles" "brought about . . . his ruin." Should we then extrapolate and say that the moral is something like, "humans should not take pride in their cleverness, but instead trust in the inscrutable gods"? Or is this insufficient?

6.     If the play has an ethical message, what would it be? What lesson about interpretation might it teach?

7.     Explain which character do you find more admirable, Tiresias with his "why try?" point of view and his efforts to spare people's feelings, or Oedipus with his "truth at any cost" point of view.

8.     Iocaste poses a carpe diem [seize the day] idea, starting with a question:

          Why should anyone in this world be afraid,

          Since fate rules us and nothing can be foreseen?

          A man should live only for the present day.

Given that there appears to be absolutely nothing Oedipus could do to avoid the fate foretold by the oracle, is she wrong?

9.     What does Oedipus means when he calls what he's done "[m]ore primal than sin itself"?

10.     What and how does blindness signify in the play?

11.     Could we read the play as a critique of patriarchy? If so, how so? If not, why not?

12.     The chorus, singing of humanity in general, asks rhetorically,

          Who bears more weight of joy,

          Than mass of sunlight shifting in images,

          Or who shall make his thoughts stay on

          That down time drifts away?

Yet considering that Kadmos had supposedly invented the alphabet, as well as the fact that Sophocles' play has survived intact for two-and-a-half millenia, how much weight should we give these words?

Assignment for February 7 (first class)

Read Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, and a selection from Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (print from this website).

Notes

While Sigmund Freud places greatest emphasis on Oedipus Rex, and while the Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, considers it the ultimate literary work, Freud's most prominent psychoanalytic follower, Jacques Lacan, favors Antigone, as does the German philosopher, Hegel. Which of the three plays is your favorite (answer in class)?

Though Antigone comes last in the cycle, it was composed first.

 

 

Back

Home