book review of oedipus rex

Oedipus Rex

Introduction.

Welcome to the fascinating world of Oedipus Rex , a timeless classic penned by the legendary playwright Sophocles 📜✨. Situated in the golden era of Ancient Greece, around the 5th century BCE, this tragic play takes us deep into the heart of Greek drama, culture, and mythology . Sophocles, one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, crafted this masterpiece that continues to captivate audiences and readers to this day.

Oedipus Rex is often heralded as the quintessential example of Greek tragedy, introducing us to the concept of tragic heroes and the inexorable fate that guides their lives. Sophocles’ work explores themes of destiny, free will, and the search for truth, wrapped in a narrative so compelling that it has remained relevant through the ages.

Sophocles himself was not just a playwright but a significant figure in Athenian society, having been born around 496 BCE in Colonus, near Athens. His contributions to literature and the dramatic arts have left an indelible mark on the canon of Western literature, making him an enduring symbol of the cultural and intellectual achievements of Ancient Greece.

So, grab your togas and let’s journey back to the ancient city of Thebes, where kings and oracles, prophecies and mysteries, set the stage for a tale of tragic proportions. Welcome to the story of Oedipus, a tale that teaches us about the complexities of human nature, the shadows of fate, and the light of understanding 🏛️📖.

Plot Summary

Oedipus Rex unfolds a tale that bridges the gap between man’s quest for truth and the harsh realities of fate. Let’s delve into the main events of this gripping tragedy:

Exposition — The city of Thebes is plagued by a mysterious blight. Oedipus, the king, vows to discover the cause and save his people. An oracle reveals that the plague will end only when the murderer of the previous king, Laius, is discovered and punished.

Rising Action — Oedipus’s investigation leads him closer to a terrifying truth about his own identity. He learns from various sources, including a blind prophet named Tiresias, that he might be more closely linked to the city’s turmoil than he had ever imagined.

Climax — The climax hits with the revelation that Oedipus himself is the murderer of Laius, who was his father, and that he has married his own mother, Jocasta. This discovery is the fulfillment of a prophecy that Oedipus had desperately tried to avoid.

Falling Action — Upon the revelation, Jocasta hangs herself in despair, and Oedipus, overwhelmed by his guilt and the realization of his actions, blinds himself with the pins from her dress.

Resolution — The play concludes with Oedipus relinquishing his throne and requesting to be exiled from Thebes to lift the curse from his people. His wish is granted, and he leaves the city, led by his daughters Antigone and Ismene, into an uncertain but hopeful future, seeking atonement and forgiveness for his sins.

Through these events, Oedipus Rex navigates the complex interplay between fate and free will, presenting a narrative that is as thought-provoking as it is tragic. The journey of Oedipus is a testament to the search for truth, no matter how painful, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of insurmountable odds.

Character Analysis

In Oedipus Rex , Sophocles presents a cast of characters whose lives are intricately woven into the fabric of fate and free will. Here’s a closer look at the main characters:

• Oedipus — The tragic hero of the play, Oedipus becomes king of Thebes by solving the riddle of the Sphinx. He is determined, intelligent, and quick to action but also quick to anger. His quest for the truth leads to his downfall, fulfilling the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus’s journey is one of self-discovery, culminating in a devastating realization and leading to his ultimate act of penance: blinding himself.
• Jocasta — Jocasta is the queen of Thebes, wife of Oedipus, and unknowingly, his mother. She is pragmatic and seeks to avoid the prophecies by abandoning her son at birth. As the truth unfolds, the revelation of her incestuous relationship leads to her suicide, showcasing her inability to confront her past actions and their implications.
• Creon — Creon is Jocasta’s brother and Oedipus’s brother-in-law. He is a voice of reason and moderation, contrasting with Oedipus’s impulsive nature. Creon’s loyalty to Thebes and its laws positions him as a stabilizing force amidst the chaos, although Oedipus’s accusations of treachery strain their relationship.
• Tiresias — The blind prophet, Tiresias, represents the theme of seeing beyond physical sight. His knowledge of the truth about Oedipus and his refusal to speak it directly highlights the complexity of knowledge and the burden of truth. Tiresias’s confrontation with Oedipus is a pivotal moment, revealing the limits of human understanding and the power of fate.
• Laius — Although deceased before the play begins, Laius’s actions set the tragic events in motion. His attempt to avoid the prophecy by ordering the death of his son, Oedipus, ironically ensures its fulfillment. Laius’s past decisions haunt the present, underscoring the play’s exploration of fate and consequences.

Here’s a summary of the character analysis in a table format:

This character analysis showcases the depth and complexity of Sophocles’s characters, each contributing uniquely to the unfolding of the tragic narrative in Oedipus Rex . Through their personalities, motivations, and developments, we gain insight into the themes of fate, free will, and the pursuit of truth that lie at the heart of this timeless tragedy.

Themes and Symbols

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is rich with themes and symbols that contribute to its depth and enduring appeal. Let’s explore some of the major ones:

• Fate vs. Free Will — The tension between fate and free will is central to the tragedy of Oedipus. Despite efforts to avoid destiny, Oedipus fulfills the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. This theme questions the extent of control one has over their life and suggests that some outcomes may be inevitable, regardless of human action .
• Blindness and Sight — Sight and blindness serve as powerful symbols in the play. Tiresias, the blind prophet, can “see” the truth, while Oedipus, who has physical sight, is “blind” to his reality. The motif culminates in Oedipus’s self-blinding, representing an awakening to truth and acceptance of his fate. This symbol explores the idea that understanding and insight are deeper than physical sight.
• The Quest for Truth — Oedipus’s determination to uncover the truth about Laius’s murder reflects the human desire for knowledge. However, this quest leads to his tragic realization and downfall. The theme examines the duality of knowledge — as a tool for enlightenment and as a source of suffering.
• The Inevitability of Fate — The unavoidable nature of fate is a recurring motif. Despite attempts to escape destiny, the characters find themselves trapped by the prophecies. This theme underscores the play’s exploration of predestination and the limits of human agency.
• Purity and Pollution — Thebes’s suffering from the plague is attributed to a miasma stemming from Laius’s unresolved murder. The distinction between purity and pollution reflects the moral and spiritual health of the city and its leaders. Oedipus’s journey from a revered savior to a source of pollution embodies this theme, highlighting the impact of sin and guilt on communal well-being.
• The Crossroads — The crossroads where Oedipus kills his father symbolizes a point of decision and fate’s intersection with free will. It represents the moment when Oedipus’s destiny is irrevocably set in motion, despite his unawareness at the time.
• Oedipus’s Swollen Foot — Oedipus’s name itself, meaning “swollen foot,” is symbolic of his identity and fate. It harks back to his infancy when his feet were bound, marking him from birth and foreshadowing his tragic discovery of his origins and destiny.
• The Sphinx’s Riddle — The Sphinx’s riddle, which Oedipus solves to become king of Thebes, symbolizes the human struggle to understand profound truths. It also foreshadows Oedipus’s inability to decipher the more significant riddle of his own life until it is too late.

These themes and symbols intertwine to weave a complex narrative that explores profound questions about human existence, morality, and the divine. Through Oedipus Rex , Sophocles invites the audience to reflect on the mysteries of fate, the quest for truth, and the human condition, making the play a timeless piece of literature.

Style and Tone

In Oedipus Rex , Sophocles employs a writing style and tone that not only define the essence of Greek tragedy but also contribute significantly to the mood and atmosphere of the play. Let’s explore these elements:

• Tragic Tone — Sophocles masterfully maintains a tragic tone throughout the play, which is essential in foreshadowing Oedipus’s fate and engaging the audience in the inevitable downfall of the tragic hero. This tone is imbued with a sense of solemnity and inevitability, underscoring the serious themes of fate, guilt, and self-discovery.
• Dramatic Irony — One of the most striking aspects of Sophocles’s style is his use of dramatic irony. The audience is aware of Oedipus’s true identity and the tragic outcome of his quest for truth long before the protagonist himself comes to these revelations. This technique heightens the emotional impact of the play, as viewers are compelled to witness Oedipus’s relentless pursuit of a truth that leads to his undoing.
• Poetic Language — The dialogue in Oedipus Rex is characterized by its poetic quality, using meter and verse to elevate the speech. This poetic language enhances the dramatic effect of the narrative, allowing for expressive monologues and dialogues that delve into complex emotions and philosophical themes.
• Symbolism and Imagery — Sophocles’s writing is rich in symbolism and imagery, which serve to deepen the thematic complexity of the play. From Oedipus’s blindness to the crossroads, Sophocles uses vivid imagery to encapsulate key themes and character developments, making abstract concepts tangible and resonant.
• Chorus Commentary — The Chorus in Oedipus Rex serves as both a narrator and commentator, offering insights into the play’s moral and thematic concerns. Their odes and reflections provide a communal perspective on the events unfolding, bridging the gap between the audience and the characters. The Chorus’s role enhances the tone by providing context, commentary, and foreshadowing, enriching the narrative’s emotional and philosophical depth.

These stylistic choices and the overall tone of Oedipus Rex work together to create a compelling tragedy that captures the complexity of human nature and fate. Sophocles’s ability to weave poetic language with dramatic irony and symbolism allows the play to transcend time, remaining a powerful exploration of the human condition.

Literary Devices used in Oedipus Rex

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is renowned for its rich use of literary devices that enhance the storytelling and underscore the play’s themes. Let’s explore the top 10 devices used:

• Dramatic Irony — The audience knows Oedipus’s true identity and the outcome of his search long before he does. This creates tension and anticipation as we watch him unknowingly condemn himself with his quest for the truth.
• Symbolism — Objects and events symbolize deeper themes, such as the crossroads representing fate and free will, and Oedipus’s blindness symbolizing insight and ignorance.
• Foreshadowing — Early mentions of prophecies and Oedipus’s past actions hint at the tragic revelations to come, preparing the audience for the inevitable outcome.
• Metaphor — The plague ravaging Thebes is a metaphor for the moral and political corruption stemming from Laius’s murder, suggesting that the city’s suffering is linked to unresolved guilt and sin.
• Imagery — Sophocles uses vivid descriptions to enhance the narrative, such as the gruesome image of Oedipus gouging his eyes out, which evokes a strong emotional response from the audience.
• Pathos — The playwright masterfully elicits feelings of pity and fear, especially through the downfall of Oedipus, a once-great king reduced to a blind outcast, fulfilling Aristotle’s definition of tragedy.
• Anagnorisis — This is the moment of critical discovery, primarily when Oedipus realizes his true identity and his part in the prophecies, a pivotal device in the tragedy.
• Peripeteia — The sudden reversal of fortune experienced by Oedipus, from respected king to disgraced exile, emphasizes the play’s exploration of fate and free will.
• Allusion — References to Greek mythology and cultural beliefs, such as the Oracle at Delphi, enrich the story’s context and deepen the audience’s understanding of the characters’ motivations.
• Motifs — Recurring elements like prophecies, sight and blindness, and the quest for knowledge reinforce the play’s themes and contribute to its layered meaning.

These literary devices collectively contribute to the depth, complexity, and enduring appeal of Oedipus Rex . Sophocles’s skillful use of these tools not only defines the play as a masterpiece of Greek tragedy but also as a profound exploration of human nature, destiny, and the pursuit of truth.

Literary Device Examples

For each of the top 10 literary devices used in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, here are tables providing examples and explanations:

Dramatic Irony

Foreshadowing, anagnorisis.

These examples illustrate how Sophocles uses literary devices to deepen the narrative, enhance thematic resonance, and engage the audience’s emotional and intellectual response to the tragedy of Oedipus Rex .

Oedipus Rex – FAQs

What is the main theme of Oedipus Rex?

The main theme of Oedipus Rex is the tension between fate and free will. Sophocles explores whether humans have control over their destiny or are subject to the predetermined outcomes set by the gods. The tragedy of Oedipus is rooted in his attempt to avoid his fate, only to fulfill it through his actions.

Who is responsible for the tragedy of Oedipus?

Responsibility for the tragedy can be interpreted in multiple ways. Some argue that Oedipus himself is responsible due to his pride and insistence on uncovering the truth. Others see the gods and fate as the culprits, as they set the prophecy that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother, making the tragic outcome inevitable regardless of Oedipus’s actions.

What is the significance of blindness in Oedipus Rex?

Blindness in Oedipus Rex serves as a powerful symbol for knowledge and ignorance. Tiresias, the blind prophet, possesses the true insight into Oedipus’s situation, while Oedipus, who has physical sight, remains ignorant of his true identity and fate until the climax. Oedipus’s act of blinding himself represents his transition from ignorance to the painful awareness of his actions and their consequences.

How does Oedipus Rex address the concept of justice?

Oedipus Rex addresses justice in the context of divine law versus human law. Oedipus’s quest to find Laius’s murderer is initially seen as a pursuit of justice. However, as it becomes clear that Oedipus himself is the murderer, the play questions the justice of his punishment, given that his actions were preordained by the gods. The play suggests that divine justice, as dictated by fate, can seem cruel and unjust from a human perspective.

Can Oedipus be considered a hero?

Oedipus can be considered a tragic hero. He embodies qualities of heroism, such as bravery, intelligence, and a strong sense of justice. His tragic flaw, or hamartia, is his determination to defy fate and discover the truth, leading to his downfall. According to Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero, Oedipus’s fall from grace and subsequent suffering evoke pity and fear, fulfilling the cathartic purpose of tragedy.

These FAQs provide a concise exploration of some of the key questions surrounding Oedipus Rex , offering insights into its themes, characters, and moral quandaries.

This quiz is designed to test comprehension and understanding of the plot, characters, and themes of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. It covers key aspects of the story, including the prophecy, characters’ roles, and symbolic elements, providing a broad overview of the play’s critical points.

Identify the literary devices used in the following paragraph from Oedipus Rex and explain their significance.

“Upon the murderer I invoke this curse- whether he is one man and all unknown, Or one of many- may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth, I pray that I myself may feel my curse.”

• Curse – This is a form of symbolism , representing the self-destructive nature of Oedipus’s quest for truth and justice. It symbolizes the tragic irony of his situation, as the curse he calls upon the murderer ultimately falls upon himself.
• “Whether he is one man and all unknown, Or one of many” – This phrase uses ambiguity to reflect the uncertainty surrounding the identity of Laius’s murderer. It highlights Oedipus’s ignorance and the dramatic irony of his situation, as the audience is aware that he is unwittingly cursing himself.
• “May he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom!” – This is an example of pathos , designed to evoke pity and fear in the audience. It foreshadows Oedipus’s own fate, as he will indeed live out the rest of his life in misery once he discovers the truth about himself.
• “If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth, I pray that I myself may feel my curse.” – This statement is filled with dramatic irony , as Oedipus is the murderer living at his own hearth. His prayer for justice, in essence, seals his own tragic fate, illustrating the theme of blindness and insight.

This exercise highlights the complexity and depth of Sophocles’s use of literary devices in Oedipus Rex , showcasing how they contribute to the play’s thematic development and emotional impact.

Book Review: Oedipus Rex

The hero isn’t always epic and won’t always have a happy ending, sometimes he may face a tragic event and meet his downfall. Sophocles Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex, or Oedipus the King, is a phenomenal play written and first performed around 430 B.C. The play follows the story of Oedipus, a man who became the King of the city Thebes by solving a riddle and defeating a sphinx that was threatening the city and then marrying the queen of Thebes, Jocasta. One day, when Thebes is suffering from a catastrophic plague, Oedipus sends his brother-in-law Creon to an oracle to find out how to stop the plague. Creon returns telling Oedipus that the plague will cease if the killer of the previous king, Laius, is found and exiled. Little does Oedipus know, he is Laius’s killer. Before Oedipus was born, a prophecy was told to Jocasta that her son would kill his father and marry his mother, and so she sent her son out to be killed in the mountains. That boy was Oedipus, and as the prophecy stated, he has returned to Thebes unknowingly to fulfill that prophecy. I love this Greek play by Sophocles because it is one of the first pieces of literature that tells the story of the “tragic hero” and his downfall. I recommend this play to all, but more advanced readers as the translation is also a bit complex. Reviewer Grade: 11

A Summary and Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The plot of Sophocles’ great tragedy Oedipus the King (sometimes known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannos ) has long been admired. In his Poetics , Aristotle held it up as the exemplary Greek tragedy . Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it one of the three perfect plots in all of literature (the other two being Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist and Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones ).

Oedipus the King might also be called the first detective story in Western literature. Yet how well do we know Sophocles’ play? And what does a closer analysis of its plot features and themes reveal?

The city of Thebes is in the grip of a terrible plague. The city’s king, Oedipus, sends Creon to consult the Delphic oracle, who announces that if the city rids itself of a murderer, the plague will disappear. The murderer in question is the unknown killer of the city’s previous king, Laius. Oedipus adopts a sort of detective role, and endeavours to sniff out the murderer.

He himself is plagued by another prophecy: that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. He thinks he’s managed to thwart the prophecy by leaving home – and his parents – back in Corinth. On his way from Corinth to Thebes, he had an altercation with a man on the road: neither party would back down to let the other past, and Oedipus ended up killing the man in perhaps Western literature’s first instance of road rage.

Then Oedipus learns that his ‘father’ back in Corinth was not his biological parent: he was adopted after his ‘real’ parents left him for dead on a hillside, and he was rescued by a kindly shepherd who rescued him, took the child in, and raised him as his own. (The name Oedipus is Greek for ‘swollen foot’, from the chains put through the infant’s feet when it was left on the mountain.)

Tiresias the seer then reveals that the man Oedipus killed on the road was Laius – the former king of Thebes and (shock horror! Twist!) Oedipus’ biological father. Laius’ widow, Jocasta, is Oedipus’ own mother – and the woman Oedipus had married upon his arrival in Thebes.

When this terrible truth is revealed, Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus puts out his own eyes and leaves Thebes, going into self-imposed exile so he can free the Thebans from the plague.

This much constitutes a brief recap or summary of the plot of Oedipus the King . How we should interpret and analyse its use of prophecy and Oedipus’ own culpability, however, remains a less clear-cut matter. Is Oedipus to blame for what happens to him? Or is he simply a pawn of the gods and fates, to be used according to their whim?

Eventually, the nemesis can take no more and raises an army against Winter Kay. One of his soldiers, bearing a golden badge that resembles an eye in shape, is the one who kills Winter Kay in battle. In his dying moments, the hapless villain realises that, in seeking to avert the prophecy, he had, in fact, helped it to come true.

This is similar to the story of Oedipus the King . Oedipus heard the prophecy that he would one day murder his father and marry his mother, and so fled from his presumed parents so as to avoid fulfilling the prophecy. Such an act seems noble and it was jolly bad luck that fate had decreed that Oedipus would turn out to be a foundling and his real parents were still out there for him to bump into.

But what is clever about Sophocles’ dramatising of the myth is the way he introduces little details which reveal Oedipus’ character. The clues were already there that Oedipus was actually adopted: when he received the prophecy from the oracle, a drunk told him as much. But because the man was drunk, Oedipus didn’t believe him.

But, as the Latin phrase has it, in vino veritas . Then, it is Oedipus’ hubris, his pride, that contributes to the altercation on the road between him and Laius, the man who turns out to be his real father: if Oedipus was less stubborn, he would have played the bigger man and stepped aside to let Laius pass.

What does all this mean, when we stop and analyse it in terms of the interplay between fate and personal actions in Oedipus the King ? It means that Sophocles was aware of something which governs all our lives. Call it ‘karma’ if you will, or fate, but it works even if we remove the supernatural framework into which the action of Oedipus the King is placed.

Our actions have consequences, but that doesn’t mean that a particular action will lead to a particular consequence: it means that one action might cause something quite different to happen, which will nevertheless be linked in some way to our lives. A thief steals your wallet and you never see him, or your wallet, again. Did the criminal get away with it? Maybe.

Or maybe his habit of taking an intrusive interest in other people’s wallets will lead him, somewhere down the line, to getting what the ancient Greeks didn’t call ‘his comeuppance’. He wasn’t punished for pilfering your possessions, but he will nevertheless receive his just deserts.

Oedipus kills Laius because he is a stubborn and angry man; in his anger and pride, he allows himself to forget the prophecy (or to believe himself safe if he kills this man who definitely isn’t his father, no way ), and to kill another man. That one event will set in motion a chain of events that will see him married to his mother, the city over which he rules in the grip of plague, and – ultimately – Oedipus blinded and his wife/mother hanged.

Or perhaps that’s to impose a modern reading onto a classical text which Sophocles himself would not recognise. Yet works of art are always opening themselves up to new readings which see them reflecting our changing and evolving moral beliefs, and that is perhaps why Oedipus the King remains a great play to read, watch, analyse, and discuss. There remains something unsettling about its plot structure and its ambiguous meaning, and that is what lends it its power.

7 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King”

Reblogged this on Writing hints and competitions and commented: Insight, the fate that launched a thousand clips

Wonderful analysis. Thank you. ~~dru~~

Thank you :)

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Oedipus: The Classic Story of Spiteful Fate

Author: Sophocles

“Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.”

Back on the classics kick, my randomized list set me off to read  Oedipus   by Sophocles. The story, more commonly referred to as  Oedipus Rex  or  Oedipus the King   (to distinguish from a later work regarding the same ill-fated King of Thebes) is a story already commonly known and popularized by Freudianism. Unlucky Oedipus, through the viciousness of uncaring fate and an unshakable belief that his blessings would always continue, manages to murder his father, marry his mother, and create a cursed progeny from the same marriage bed from which he was produced – all without suspecting anything. As with most things in life, and especially in Greek plays, Oedipus brings the sour knowledge upon himself, his very own surety in his happiness a guarantee that a sorrowful chorus would (literally) follow him to his doom.

After having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and gained renown as a wise and intelligent man, Oedipus ascends the throne of a grateful Thebes and takes the widow of former King Laius, who has been missing so long his death is certain, to be his wife. When the good fortune of Thebes, however, turns Oedipus is convinced that the gods are angry and seeks to find out the truth of Laius’s demise. Despite warnings to the contrary, the King becomes cocky and swears a grand revenge on the killer of Laius. Thus begins a strange and twisted journey with the obvious moral that the higher you rise, the harder and longer you will fall. Oedipus is his own worst enemy, proving indeed that sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Despite the sheer complications of backstory and the scope of Oedipus’s fall from grace, the play is surprisingly short. A fast read, even the most perambulating pace leaves the admittedly disturbing narration finished within a few days. Recovery, of course, takes much longer what with images of hangings, gouged eyes, incest, and patricide fresh on the mind from a chorus who does dearly love woe.

Being a classic Greek play, the structure is pretty much what you would expect. A Chorus does most of the narration and also the foreshadowing and although Oedipus cannot hear them and happily goes on his way, readers hear the dirge long before the revelation, building up an epically depressing atmosphere that is sure to ruin your sunshiney-est day. Other characters, such as Jocasta’s brother Creon, populate the dialogue but its mostly focused on our Hamlet like character who spills his soul in monologue. Of course, its drastically different from contemporary writing styles but if you thought that antiquity and the “strangeness” was going to provide distance from the heartache, then you were wrong.  Oedipus  is just as shattering and shockingly rendered as the day it was written . . . and just wait until you get to the brief but overly gory and lavishly described eye gouging scene…

The only distracting element, or at least potential negative aspect, of a story that keeps its freshness and bitterness all these thousands of years later, is the language. I found myself having some difficulty following everything that was said due to the antiquity of phrasing and the set-up of the chorus. Along these lines,  Oedipus , at least in its original version, has a level of difficulty aligned with that of Shakespeare. For the most part, you get what is said and being done, but every now and then the very arcaneness twists your brain and you have to shrug, keep going, and mentally say “hope whatever that was wasn’t important.” It’s not an especially hard struggle, but difficult enough that you won’t be toting  Oedipus  and his grim reality to the beach. You probably also shouldn’t be listening to it while commuting, as I was. This book deserves respect and concentration.

On those notes – one other word of somewhat warning. If you’re listening to  Oedipus  from an audio book version, as I did to spice-up my daily commute with some ancient misery, be sure that you read up on the voice actors and get a good recording. My version, translated by Sir George Young, was read by the Online Stage, which probably explained why it was pretty cheap for an Audible book. The main reader had all the verve and clear enunciation of an octogenarian having a stroke. Often, my mind just drifted away, despite the intense sordidness of the plot, because the main reader presented as though he was half-asleep while reading a chore list. Narration, especially with classics which already have some of a language barrier for the reader to overcome, should be presented with the excitement and fire that has kept them burning in the hearts of readers for so many generations. For that reason alone, don’t select the Online Stage as your first intro to ancient Grecian drama!

– Frances Carden

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 27, 2020 • ( 0 )

The place of the Oedipus Tyrannus in literature is something like that of the Mona Lisa in art. Everyone knows the story, the first detective story of Western literature; everyone who has read or seen it is drawn into its enigmas and moral dilemmas. It presents a kind of nightmare vision of a world suddenly turned upside down: a decent man discovers that he has unknowingly killed his father, married his mother, and sired children by her. It is a story that, as Aristotle says in the Poetics , makes one shudder with horror and feel pity just on hearing it. In Sophocles’ hands, however, this ancient tale becomes a profound meditation on the questions of guilt and responsibility, the order (or disorder) of our world, and the nature of man. The play stands with the Book of Job, Hamlet, and King Lear as one of Western literature’s most searching examinations of the problem of suffering.

—Charles Segal, Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge

No other drama has exerted a longer or stronger hold on the imagination than Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (also known as Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus Rex ). Tragic drama that is centered on the dilemma of a single central character largely begins with Sophocles and is exemplified by his Oedipus, arguably the most influential play ever written. The most famous of all Greek dramas, Sophocles’ play, supported by Aristotle in the Poetics, set the standard by which tragedy has been measured for nearly two-and-a-half millennia. For Aristotle, Sophocles’ play featured the ideal tragic hero in Oedipus, a man of “great repute and good fortune,” whose fall, coming from his horrifying discovery that he has killed his father and married his mother, is masterfully arranged to elicit tragedy’s proper cathartic mixture of pity and terror. The play’s relentless exploration of human nature, destiny, and suffering turns an ancient tale of a man’s shocking history into one of the core human myths. Oedipus thereby joins a select group of fictional characters, including Odysseus, Faust, Don Juan, and Don Quixote, that have entered our collective consciousness as paradigms of humanity and the human condition. As classical scholar Bernard Knox has argued, “Sophocles’ Oedipus is not only the greatest creation of a major poet and the classic representative figure of his age: he is also one of a long series of tragic protagonists who stand as symbols of human aspiration and despair before the characteristic dilemma of Western civilization—the problem of man’s true stature, his proper place in the universe.”

For nearly 2,500 years Sophocles’ play has claimed consideration as drama’s most perfect and most profound achievement. Julius Caesar wrote an adaptation; Nero allegedly acted the part of the blind Oedipus. First staged in a European theater in 1585, Oedipus has been continually performed ever since and reworked by such dramatists as Pierre Corneille, John Dryden, Voltaire, William Butler Yeats, André Gide, and Jean Cocteau. The French neoclassical tragedian Jean Racine asserted that Oedipus was the ideal tragedy, while D. H. Lawrence regarded it as “the finest drama of all time.” Sigmund Freud discovered in the play the key to understanding man’s deepest and most repressed sexual and aggressive impulses, and the so-called Oedipus complex became one of the founding myths of psychoanalysis. Oedipus has served as a crucial mirror by which each subsequent era has been able to see its own reflection and its understanding of the mystery of human existence.

If Aeschylus is most often seen as the great originator of ancient Greek tragedy and Euripides is viewed as the great outsider and iconoclast, it is Sophocles who occupies the central position as classical tragedy’s technical master and the age’s representative figure over a lifetime that coincided with the rise and fall of Athens’s greatness as a political and cultural power in the fifth century b.c. Sophocles was born in 496 near Athens in Colonus, the legendary final resting place of the exiled Oedipus. At the age of 16, Sophocles, an accomplished dancer and lyre player, was selected to lead the celebration of the victory over the Persians at the battle of Salamis, the event that ushered in Athens’s golden age. He died in 406, two years before Athens’s fall to Sparta, which ended nearly a century of Athenian supremacy and cultural achievement. Very much at the center of Athenian public life, Sophocles served as a treasurer of state and a diplomat and was twice elected as a general. A lay priest in the cult of a local deity, Sophocles also founded a literary association and was an intimate of such prominent men of letters as Ion of Chios, Herodotus, and Archelaus. Urbane, garrulous, and witty, Sophocles was remembered fondly by his contemporaries as possessing all the admired qualities of balance and tranquillity. Nicknamed “the Bee” for his “honeyed” style of fl owing eloquence—the highest compliment the Greeks could bestow on a poet or speaker—Sophocles was regarded as the tragic Homer.

In marked contrast to his secure and stable public role and private life, Sophocles’ plays orchestrate a disturbing challenge to assurance and certainty by pitting vulnerable and fallible humanity against the inexorable forces of nature and destiny. Sophocles began his career as a playwright in 468 b.c. with a first-prize victory over Aeschylus in the Great, or City, Dionysia, the annual Athenian drama competition. Over the next 60 years he produced more than 120 plays (only seven have survived intact), winning first prize at the Dionysia 24 times and never earning less than second place, making him unquestionably the most successful and popular playwright of his time. It is Sophocles who introduced the third speaking actor to classical drama, creating the more complex dramatic situations and deepened psychological penetration through interpersonal relationships and dialogue. “Sophocles turned tragedy inward upon the principal actors,” classicist Richard Lattimore has observed, “and drama becomes drama of character.” Favoring dramatic action over narration, Sophocles brought offstage action onto the stage, emphasized dialogue rather than lengthy, undramatic monologues, and purportedly introduced painted scenery. Also of note, Sophocles replaced the connected trilogies of Aeschylus with self-contained plays on different subjects at the same contest, establishing the norm that has continued in Western drama with its emphasis on the intensity and unity of dramatic action. At their core, Sophocles’ tragedies are essentially moral and religious dramas pitting the tragic hero against unalterable fate as defined by universal laws, particular circumstances, and individual temperament. By testing his characters so severely, Sophocles orchestrated adversity into revelations that continue to evoke an audience’s capacity for wonder and compassion.

The story of Oedipus was part of a Theban cycle of legends that was second only to the stories surrounding the Trojan War as a popular subject for Greek literary treatment. Thirteen different Greek dramatists, including Aeschylus and Euripides, are known to have written plays on the subject of Oedipus and his progeny. Sophocles’ great innovation was to turn Oedipus’s horrifying circumstances into a drama of self-discovery that probes the mystery of selfhood and human destiny.

The play opens with Oedipus secure and respected as the capable ruler of Thebes having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and gained the throne and Thebes’s widowed queen, Jocasta, as his reward. Plague now besets the city, and Oedipus comes to Thebes’s rescue once again when, after learning from the oracle of Apollo that the plague is a punishment for the murder of his predecessor, Laius, he swears to discover and bring the murderer to justice. The play, therefore, begins as a detective story, with the key question “Who killed Laius?” as the initial mystery. Oedipus initiates the first in a seemingly inexhaustible series of dramatic ironies as the detective who turns out to be his own quarry. Oedipus’s judgment of banishment for Laius’s murderer seals his own fate. Pledged to restore Thebes to health, Oedipus is in fact the source of its affliction. Oedipus’s success in discovering Laius’s murderer will be his own undoing, and the seemingly percipient, riddle-solving Oedipus will only see the truth about himself when he is blind. To underscore this point, the blind seer Teiresias is summoned. He is reluctant to tell what he knows, but Oedipus is adamant: “No man, no place, nothing will escape my gaze. / I will not stop until I know it all.” Finally goaded by Oedipus to reveal that Oedipus himself is “the killer you’re searching for” and the plague that afflicts Thebes, Teiresias introduces the play’s second mystery, “Who is Oedipus?”

You have eyes to see with, But you do not see yourself, you do not see The horror shadowing every step of your life, . . . Who are your father and mother? Can you tell me?

Oedipus rejects Teiresias’s horrifying answer to this question—that Oedipus has killed his own father and has become a “sower of seed where your father has sowed”—as part of a conspiracy with Jocasta’s brother Creon against his rule. In his treatment of Teiresias and his subsequent condemning of Creon to death, Oedipus exposes his pride, wrath, and rush to judgment, character flaws that alloy his evident strengths of relentless determination to learn the truth and fortitude in bearing the consequences. Jocasta comes to her brother’s defense, while arguing that not all oracles can be believed. By relating the circumstances of Laius’s death, Jocasta attempts to demonstrate that Oedipus could not be the murderer while ironically providing Oedipus with the details that help to prove the case of his culpability. In what is a marvel of ironic plot construction, each step forward in answering the questions surrounding the murder and Oedipus’s parentage takes Oedipus a step back in time toward full disclosure and self-discovery.

As Oedipus is made to shift from self-righteous authority to doubt, a messenger from Corinth arrives with news that Oedipus’s supposed father, Poly-bus, is dead. This intelligence seems again to disprove the oracle that Oedipus is fated to kill his father. Oedipus, however, still is reluctant to return home for fear that he could still marry his mother. To relieve Oedipus’s anxiety, the messenger reveals that he himself brought Oedipus as an infant to Polybus. Like Jocasta whose evidence in support of Oedipus’s innocence turns into confirmation of his guilt, the messenger provides intelligence that will connect Oedipus to both Laius and Jocasta as their son and as his father’s killer. The messenger’s intelligence produces the crucial recognition for Jocasta, who urges Oedipus to cease any further inquiry. Oedipus, however, persists, summoning the herdsman who gave the infant to the messenger and was coincidentally the sole survivor of the attack on Laius. The herdsman’s eventual confirmation of both the facts of Oedipus’s birth and Laius’s murder produces the play’s staggering climax. Aristotle would cite Sophocles’ simultaneous con-junction of Oedipus’s recognition of his identity and guilt with his reversal of fortune—condemned by his own words to banishment and exile as Laius’s murderer—as the ideal artful arrangement of a drama’s plot to produce the desired cathartic pity and terror.

The play concludes with an emphasis on what Oedipus will now do after he knows the truth. No tragic hero has fallen further or faster than in the real time of Sophocles’ drama in which the time elapsed in the play coincides with the performance time. Oedipus is stripped of every illusion of his authority, control, righteousness, and past wisdom and is forced to contend with a shame that is impossible to expiate—patricide and incestual relations with his mother—in a world lacking either justice or alleviation from suffering. Oedipus’s heroic grandeur, however, grows in his diminishment. Fundamentally a victim of circumstances, innocent of intentional sin whose fate was preordained before his birth, Oedipus refuses the consolation of blamelessness that victimization confers, accepting in full his guilt and self-imposed sentence as an outcast, criminal, and sinner. He blinds himself to confirm the moral shame that his actions, unwittingly or not, have provoked. It is Oedipus’s capacity to endure the revelation of his sin, his nature, and his fate that dominates the play’s conclusion. Oedipus’s greatest strengths—his determination to know the truth and to accept what he learns—sets him apart as one of the most pitiable and admired of tragic heroes. “The closing note of the tragedy,” Knox argues, “is a renewed insistence on the heroic nature of Oedipus; the play ends as it began, with the greatness of the hero. But it is a different kind of greatness. It is now based on knowledge, not, as before on ignorance.” The now-blinded Oedipus has been forced to see and experience the impermanence of good fortune, the reality of unimaginable moral shame, and a cosmic order that is either perverse in its calculated cruelty or chaotically random in its designs, in either case defeating any human need for justice and mercy.

The Chorus summarizes the harsh lesson of heroic defeat that the play so majestically dramatizes:

Look and learn all citizens of Thebes. This is Oedipus. He, who read the famous riddle, and we hailed chief of men, All envied his power, glory, and good fortune. Now upon his head the sea of disaster crashes down. Mortality is man’s burden. Keep your eyes fixed on your last day. Call no man happy until he reaches it, and finds rest from suffering.

Few plays have dealt so unflinchingly with existential truths or have as bravely defined human heroism in the capacity to see, suffer, and endure.

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Book Review: Sophocles., R. D. (Roger David) Dawe, Oedipus Rex. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics

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Oedipus Rex (Wisconsin Studies in Classics) Paperback – May 19, 2011

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Oedipus Rex is the greatest of the Greek tragedies, a profound meditation on the human condition. The story of the mythological king, who is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, has resonated in world culture for almost 2,500 years. But Sophocles’ drama as originally performed was much more than a great story—it was a superb poetic script and exciting theatrical experience. The actors spoke in pulsing rhythms with hypnotic forward momentum, making it hard for audiences to look away. Interspersed among the verbal rants and duels were energetic songs performed by the chorus.

• Print length 154 pages
• Language English
• Publisher University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date May 19, 2011
• Dimensions 5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• ISBN-10 0299282546
• ISBN-13 978-0299282547
• Lexile measure 1010L
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“A great work of world literature has at last become a great poem in English. Mulroy’s translation is far superior to other available English verse translations.”—Robert J. Rabel, editor of Approaches to Homer, Ancient and Modern

“Introductory notes on such matters as the historical background, fate vs. free will, and (inevitably) the Oedipus Complex are clear and useful.”—Peter Green, The New York Review of Books

From the Publisher

Wisconsin Studies in Classics

William Aylward, Nicholas D. Cahill, and Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, General Editors

About the Author

Sophocles (ca. 497/6–407/6 BCE) was the most acclaimed dramatist of his era, winning more than twenty festival competitions in ancient Athens. He is believed to have written 123 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form. David Mulroy is professor of classics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has translated The Complete Poetry of Catullus , also published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Wisconsin Press; 1st edition (May 19, 2011)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 154 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0299282546
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0299282547
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1010L
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• #604 in Drama Literary Criticism
• #765 in Ancient & Classical Dramas & Plays
• #1,664 in Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism (Books)

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