Oedipus the King Sophocles 496 406 B C

Oedipus the King Sophocles 496 -406 B. C.

Greek Dramatists • • • Aeschylus— Prometheus Bound Euripides— Medea Sophocles—Antigone, Ajax, Electra, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus

Sophocles • --Produced more than 120 plays • --Introduced the “third actor” to Greek drama, creating “triangular scenes” • --Often used a well-known story as the source of his tragedy; Oedipus’ tale would have been recognized by the audience

Key Terms and Ideas • The Riddle of the Sphinx • Oedipus the King as a tragedy • Oedipus as a tragic hero • Oedipus’ tragic flaw • Role of Prophecy • Fate vs. Free will in Greek Drama • Role of the Gods • Dramatic Irony • Jokasta, Freud and the Oedipal complex

Central Characters • Laios : Former King of • Tiresias: The blind seer Thebes who was whose prophesies are Murdered never wrong concerning Oedipus • Polybos: Queen of the deceased Laios; married • Polybos and Merope: Oedipus after he solved The “parents” of the riddle of the Sphinx Oedipus from Corinth • Kreon: Brother of • The Drunkard: at a Jokasta ; Oedipus banquet, he blurts out a accuses him of lusting rumor about Oedipus’ after the throne suspicious parentage

Characters Continued • The Priest: leader of the • Corinth Messenger: people who pleads with Tells Oedipus Polybos is Oedipus to help the dead; also conveys to people of Thebes Oedipus that Polybos is survive the plague not his real father • The Chorus: really of • Theban Shepherd: kind collection of Theban -hearted individual who citizens that act as an took the infant Oedipus interlude and convey and gave him to a information shepherd on Mount Kithairon

Tragedy “The journey from ignorance to knowledge through suffering>”

Aristotle and the Tragic Plot • 1) Peripeteia: Reversal of a situation, from apparent good to bad • 2) Anagnorisis: Recognition, usually of a terrible truth • 3) “Scene of suffering”—a “destructive or painful action”

Aristotle’s Poetics • Mimesis: Tragedy not an exact imitation of life but a representation • Catharsis: “proper purgation”-- release of emotions at the end of the tragedy. Pity (eleos) and fear (phobos) •

The Tragic Hero • Capable of greatness • Misfortunes caused by some great error or frailty. • Hamartia—the tragic flaw. What humanizes the protagonist. • Tragic dilemma: fate vs. free will in Greek tragedy

The Sphinx pic one

The Sphinx pic two

The Sphinx • Means “strangler” • The Sphinx had a woman's head, a lion's body, an eagle's wings, and the tail of a serpent • First hear of her in the works of Hesiod • Many competing versions of the myth

Sphinx continued • Daughter of a monster, probably Chimaera • Father was the dog Orthos, sister was the Nemean Lion. • Name is Phix, but pronounced in English as Sphinx.

Sphinx Continued • She asked every traveler a riddle: "What goes on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? " Those who failed to answer she would strangle and eat. • After Oedipus answers, the Sphinx hurled herself from the rock to her death • --Oedipus wins Jokasta’s hand in marriage

A Chronology of Oedipus’ life • Laios receives prophesy from oracle: “doom will strike him down at the hands of a son. ” • Oedipus born; at three days old, his ankles are fastened • Henchman supposedly “flings him away on a barren, trackless mountain” • The “henchman”--a shepherd—takes pity on the baby doesn’t kill him but instead gives him to a fellow shepherd on Mount Cithaeron • That shepherd gives the baby to Polybos King of Corinth and Merope, his queen, who raise him as their son

A Chronology of Oedipus’ life • Years pass by; the boy thinks he is the son of Polybos and Merope and is raised as such; Oedipus is thus the “prince of the realm” • Key scene: at a banquet, an drunk man shouted to Oedipus that he was not his father’s son. • Oedipus questions mother and father, who are “enraged at the fool, ” but do not tell him the truth. The entire situation “gnaws” at Oedipus as the slander spreads • Oedipus goes to Delphi; Apollo spurns him, but flashes a vision of the future before Oedipus:

A Chronology of Oedipus’ life • Apollo’s prophecy to Oedipus: “You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see—you will kill your father. . . ” • A distraught Oedipus runs from Corinth to keep the prophecy from coming true • Runs to the “triple crossroads” or “the place where three roads meets: kills King Laios and his band of men there (all but one, actually). Ambiguous whether it was murder or manslaughter (self-defense). In the very act of running from the prophecy, Oedipus has made part of it come true.

A Chronology of Oedipus’ life • Oedipus runs to Thebes; • Years pass: Oedipus confronts the Sphinx, and Jokasta have solves her riddle children, including Ismene and Antigone. • Oedipus takes Jokasta as Oedipus is a good king his queen and becomes and is seen as a savior the new King of Thebes. by the people of Thebes. • Everyone in Thebes thinks that Oedipus has • Narrative action of the play begins. a good fate: “a god was with you, so they say. ”

Sigmund Freud and the Oedipal Complex • Freud was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and is generally recognized as the father of psychoanalysis • The young child develops an interest in its sexual organs as a site of pleasure (the 'phallic' stage), and develops a deep sexual attraction for the parent of the opposite sex, • and a hatred of the parent of the same sex (the 'Oedipus complex'). This, however, gives rise to (socially derived) feelings of guilt in the child, who recognizes that it can never supplant the stronger parent.

Oedipal Complex Continued • Both the attraction for the mother and the hatred are usually repressed, and the child usually resolves the conflict of the Oedipus complex by coming to identify with the parent of the same sex.