Literary Criticism: Oedipus Rex

Who is to blame?

Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” is a play about the tragedy of a man—Oedipus—who is prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother. Throughout the play, Sophocles seems to structure the story through key themes that are also binary oppositions: old/young, sight/sightless, men/women, fatalism/existentialism, powerful/powerless, etc; but I am going to focus on fatalism/existentialism and powerful/powerless binaries only. Of these binaries, there is actually one overarching and controlling binary that functions as an umbrella that structures this drama i.e. the opposition between God/human. In this essay, I am going to demystify the theme of God/human that is manifested by the binary opposition of fatalism/existentialism and powerful/powerless to find out whom is to blame in the commission of the greatest sin in the play.

The first theme of the play rooted from fatalism/existentialism binary that centers on the figure of God vs. Oedipus. Fatalism—according to Baron d’Holbach (1868)—is a philosophical belief stating that all events that occur in the universe are caused by the antecedent event. In short, all events in the natural universe are caused by determinate process so that human’s actions are never absolutely free for there is always divine force that drives them. Conversely, existentialism—according to Jean Paul Sartre (1965)—is a philosophical belief stating that existence comes before essence; a human is the one who define him/ herself; and human is what he/she wants to be. Thus, one is responsible for what one does and what one opts because he/she is the creator of his/her own destiny. In this play, Sophocles seems to opt existentialism philosophical belief for Oedipus seems to have many options in his life, but—consciously or unconsciously— he actually privileges the philosophy of fatalism over existentialism. There have been actually ubiquitous notions with respect to the idea of fatalism in this play that centered on how the prophecy unfolds as time goes by; I—however—will only talk about small detail in the play which I think has a broader meaning than its literal one which is the three highways where Oedipus met and killed his father. That is supposedly the symbol of the existentialism because ‘ways’ or ‘roads’ in literary works often symbolize option; for instance in Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”, as in the last three lines in the poem: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference” (Frost, 1916, lines 18-20). Those lines prove that the two roads signify the choices. The traveler (I) is the one who chooses which road to go for what makes one different to another is the choice he/she made. Thus, the road in literary works is the symbol of choice that automatically is the epitome of existentialism philosophical belief. Nevertheless, In “Oedipus Rex”, the road—that is seemed to be a choice—is depicted as a fate which is also the symbol of fatalism. Oedipus who finds out that he is prophesied to kill his father, fears that terrible fate and then decides to leave his— unknowingly foster—parents and walk out for his self-alienation; however, exactly at the three highways he met and killed his father. It is showed in scene two when he confides to Iocaste about his past and why he is restless:

I heard all this and fled…as I wandered farther and farther on my way to a land where I should never see the evil sung by the oracle…there were three highway coming together at a place I passed…a chariot with a man such as you describe seated in it… the groom force me off the roads…I struck him on my rage… I killed him. I killed them all. (Sophocles, 430B.C. lines 270-290)

From this excerpt Oedipus met and killed his father right at the three highways, before he even has the chance choose which way out of the three ways he will take. It signifies that he does not have a control in his life for everything has been fated by the God. Furthermore after he killed his father Laïos, Oedipus—out of the three highways—chose to take the one that took him straight to Iocaste. Statistically speaking, the probability is only 33 percent for him to fulfill all the prophecy; so it is either fate or coincidence. From the recurring and overall theme in this play, it is quite hard to state that it is a coincidence. Even if we are insistently compelling that it is not a fate by stating another reason which might be coincidence or his choice, it is indeed the ‘coincidence’ or ‘his choice’ that lead into his fate; so it is all about fate. The existentialist may opposed my argument in this paper by stating that Oedipus has a free will that is depicted in the scene four when he deliberately blinded his eyes:

Apollo. Apollo. Dear
Children, the god was Apollo.
He brought my sick, sick fate upon me.
But the blinding hand was my own!
How could I bear to see
When all my sight was horror everywhere? (Sophocles, 430B.C. lines 110-115)

This excerpt seems to depict the existential philosophical belief that the event when Oedipus blinds his eyes is purely his own choice, yet, it is still debatable whether he does it in his own free will or it is out of his control, this idea is most likely to be objected by d’Holbech’s (1868) argument about fatalism; he explains about whether a man is the master of throwing himself out of the window or not; he argues that when a man jump from the window, it cannot justify that his desire can become a motive sufficiently powerful to state that he acted freely; “the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to this folly. Madness is a state that depends upon the heat of the blood, not upon the will.” (p. 106).

By bringing the context into Oedipus’ action to blind his eyes, it cannot be said that he does it as his free will for his motive uncontrollably comes from precipitate action that is derived from his feeling and temperament which he has no control over. For that reason, Oedipus’ action of blinding his eyes is a determined action that is the result of prior causes and also his depression due to the overwhelming state of the unbearably glaring truth he had just known that leads to his distressed psychological state.

The second major theme in the play stems from the powerful/powerless binary which centers on the figure of god vs. Oedipus and Iocaste. Sophocles—again—seems to state that human are nothing before god. The theme of the powerfulness of god and the powerlessness of human predominates this play for all human’s effort to elude them from the tragic fate from the god will be futile. After knowing the prophecy, Iocaste’s effort to elude her family from the tragic fate by asking a shepherd to abandon Oedipus when he was a baby makes things worse instead of getting better for she loses the control to educate her baby—both morally and spiritually—not to kill his father and marry his mother. Furthermore, Oedipus’ effort to escape the prophecy by leaving his foster parents brings him closer to fulfilling it instead. It is obvious that every conscious decision that they made in their life is made wrong by the powerful forces of divination.

In summation, the theme of this play is structured by the overarching theme God/Human that is manifested by the two major binaries fatalism/existentialism and powerful/powerless. In this play, the human seem to have choices in their life which—based on the analysis—actually are not more than merely pseudo-choices because human are nothing but the puppet played by the unseen hands of the god. Finally, to find out who is to blame in the commission of this greatest sin in this play—whether it is the human or the god—based on the analysis, it can be said that the human have attempted to do their best to evade the tragic prophecy but they are not powerful enough to escape the fate. In short, a quote from Thomas A. Kempis (1418) will answer this question “Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit” which in English means “Man proposes, God disposes”.

References:

D’Holbach, Baron. (1868). The System of Nature. (Robinson, D.,H., Trans.). Kitchener; Batoche Book.

Kempis, Thomas, A. (1418). Imitation of Christ. Ed. William Benham. Retrieved on November 22, 2014, from: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1653

Robert, Frost. (1920). “The Road Not Taken”. In Mountain Interval. Charlestone: CreateSpace.

Sartre, Jean, Paul. (1965). Essay in Existentialist. New Jersey: The Citadel Press.

Sophocles. (430B.C). Oedipus Rex. (Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, Trans.). Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Robert Di Yanni. (6th ed.) Boston: McGraw-Hill.