Oedipus Rex

1.      Give significant background information about the author or the literary piece

Answer:

Sophocles was born at Colonus in Attica, c. 496 B.C., about a mile from the city of Athens. He was born the son of a wealthy weaponry and armory merchant named Sophillus. As such, he was very privileged and grew up with many of the conveniences and advances of a thriving Greek Empire. He was well educated in all of the arts including poetry, dance, philosophy, music, mathematics, astronomy, law, athletics and military tactics and was chosen at age sixteen to lead a boys  choir at a war victory celebration. At age twenty-eight, he began competing in the City Dionysia, an annual festival held at the Theatre of Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, which presented new plays of the time.

His first appearance yielded great results, and he won first place, beating the legendary Aeschylus while doing so. This would be the first of an astounding eighteen victories won at the City Dionysia, more than Aeschylus and the distinguished Euripides combined. Sophocles was the only playwright of his time that did not perform in all of his own plays, owing to his weak voice.

When Sophocles gave up acting, he took to new areas of interest. He became part of the Board of Generals, which dealt with civil and military affairs in Athens. He would also later become a city director of the Treasury, helping to control funds of the Delian Confederacy. Sophocles also took part in actual combat he witnessed the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, and served as a general alongside Pericles in the war on Samos.

While he did undertake other jobs, Sophocles continued his writing until the end of his life. He wrote over 120 plays, many of them great tragedies. He introduced the third actor, and did away with Aeschylus trilogy-based writing style. That is to say, he made each of his tragedies its own story, unlike Aeschylus and other writers of the time, who used three tragedies to tell one story.

One account of history states that, towards the end of his life, Sophocles sons wanted him to be declared mentally incompetent, and brought the case to court. Accounts from Cicero and Plutarch say that Sophocles responded in his own defense by reading a passage from the then unpublished Oedipus at Colonus, so impressing the jury that they enthusiastically acquitted him surely no incompetent person could write such beautiful words. Shortly after this final addition to his trilogy of Oedipus was published in 405 B.C., Sophocles joined Aeschylus and Euripides in the underworld, ending a great age of tragedy. He left behind him a wife, Nicostrate, and her son Iophon, also a writer of tragedy. Also, his son with his mistress Theoris of Sicyon, Agathon, fathered Sophocles the Younger, another writer.

2.      Write the synopsis or summary of the literary text

Answer:

Oedipus Tyrannus opens with the people of Thebes praying for King Oedipus to save their dying city. Creon, the brother of Oedipus's wife, Jocasta, returns from a visit to the oracle of Apollo. He reports the oracle's message: the plague on Thebes is the result of the unpunished murder of the previous king, Laius. Oedipus vows to discover the murderer's identity and avenge Laius's death. He calls for Tiresias, an old blind seer, to reveal what he knows. The seer refuses and Oedipus is enraged at his disobedience. Tiresias, also angered, then tells the King that it is Oedipus himself who, as the murderer, has defiled the city, and further, that he is unknowingly living with his closest kin in a shameful manner. Oedipus accuses the seer of conspiring with Creon to overthrow him. Tiresias replies that Oedipus will soon be horrified when he learns the truth of his parentage and of his marriage. Oedipus considers executing Creon but Jocasta intercedes, and Creon is exiled instead. Jocasta tries to reassure her husband by insisting that no one, not even oracles, can divine the future. As an example, she tells him that she and Laius were once told that their son would kill his father, and that this did not happen since their son died on a mountain, where he was abandoned as an infant, and Laius was killed by thieves—there was a witness to the murder. This information does anything but calm Oedipus. He tells his wife that he had believed his parents to be Polybus of Corinth and Merope, a Dorian, until a drunken reveler at a banquet announced that Oedipus was someone else's son. Polybus and Merope, when questioned, were angry and upset, but neither confirmed nor denied the charge. Oedipus further recalls that he traveled to Delphi, to ask the oracle of Apollo the truth about his parentage. He was not given the answer he sought, but was instead told that he would slay his father and have children with his mother. In horror, he fled in the opposite direction of Corinth, until he came to a place where three roads intersected. He met a small party of men who rudely tried to shove him out of their way. Oedipus struck the driver and in return was struck by the man being drawn in the wagon; in the fight that followed, Oedipus slew them all—or so he thought. After Oedipus finishes his story, a messenger brings news that Polybus has died and Oedipus must return to rule Corinth as their king. He refuses, fearing that Apollo's oracle of fathering children by his mother might come true. The messenger tells Oedipus not to worry, that he was not really Polybus's son nor was Merope his mother. In reality a herdsman who worked for Laius gave Oedipus to the messenger, who in turn gave him to Polybus to raise as his own. Jocasta begs Oedipus to stop his search for the truth, but to no avail. The herdsman, who was also the witness to Laius's death, arrives. He admits that Laius had instructed him to kill the infant Oedipus but that he had given the child to the messenger instead. At last Oedipus realizes that he indeed has killed his father and sired four children with his mother. He rushes to find Jocasta and learns that she has locked herself in her room. He breaks the bolts of the doors and finds her hanged by her own hair. He rips out the brooches from the shoulders of her dress and gouges his eyes with them. Creon returns, now king, and Oedipus begs that he be exiled. Creon answers that the matter must be decided by the gods.

3.      List down three questions that come to mind while reading the text, then choose one explore it more fully

Answer:

      what does the priest's speech at the beginning of the play tell us about the kind of ruler Oedipus has been?

           What is Creon's position and what does he say about himself?

    what information does tiresias give us about himself and Oedipus?

I would like to answer the 1^st question. The play opens in front of Oedipus' palace at Thebes. A plague besets the city, and Oedipus enters to find a priest and crowd of children praying to the gods to free them from the curse. A blight, the priest tells Oedipus, has destroyed their crops and livestock - and even rendered their women sterile, unable to have children. The priest implores Oedipus to save the city: “Raise up our city, save it and raise it up” (51). Oedipus tells the collected crowd that even though he knows they are sick, none is as sick and devastated as he: thus clearly identifying himself with Thebes.

4.      Explain the emotion that literary text awoke in you or which you felt while or after reading the piece.

Answer:

The story seems has a strong sense of conflict of The One and the Many (also Doubles/Twos).  Oedipus is searching for Laius’ murderer: he is the detective seeking the criminal. Yet in the end, these two roles merge into one person – Oedipus himself. The Oedipus we are left with at the end of the play is similarly both father and brother. Sophocles’ play, in fact, abounds with twos and doubles: there are two herdsmen, two daughters and two sons, two opposed pairs of king and queen (Laius and Jocasta, and Polybus and Merope), and two cities (Thebes and Corinth). In so many of these cases, Oedipus’ realization is that he is either between – or, more confusingly, some combination of – two things.

5.      Copy a part of literary text (sentence, paragraph, dialogue) which is striking, puzzling, most beautiful, enlightening and discuss why

People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance, he rose to power, a man beyond all power. Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.  (Page  1678–1684)

These words, spoken by the Chorus, form the conclusion of Oedipus the King. That Oedipus “solved the famous riddle [of the Sphinx] with his brilliance” is an indisputable fact, as is the claim that he “rose to power,” to an enviable greatness. In underscoring these facts, the Chorus seems to suggest a causal link between Oedipus’s rise and his fall—that is, Oedipus fell because he rose too high, because in his pride he inspired others to “envy.” But the causal relationship is never actually established, and ultimately all the Chorus demonstrates is a progression of time: “he rose to power, a man beyond all power. / . . . / Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him.” These lines have a ring of hollow and terrifying truth to them, because the comfort an audience expects in a moral is absent (in essence, they say “Oedipus fell for this reason; now you know how not to fall”).

6.      Identify the theme of literary piece.

Answer:

Sophocles includes several themes in his play: he explores the potential dangers of pursuing self-knowledge, the question of guilt and innocence, and the nature of fate. Perhaps no play has better demonstrated the maxim that a man's character is his fate, for it is in fulfilling his personal characteristics—his relentless pursuit of knowledge, his absolute confidence in himself, and his quickness to anger—that Oedipus meets his destiny, and the prophecies are realized.

 7.      Write the critique of the works using an appropriate literary approach or theory (Example: Feminism, Marxism, formalism, behaviorism, etc)

Answer:

The story is a perfect model for a great tragedy because it emphasizes on human weakness, human suffering and man’s inability to change his destiny.  A human weakness that is evident throughout the play is pride.  Oedipus was a very proud, arrogant and confident man.  He had such a high regard for himself that he confidently challenged the Sphinx oblivious of the possibility that the Sphinx may kill him.  He knew that he had the intelligence to answer the riddles of the Sphinx no matter how difficult it was.  He was successful and became the King of Thebes and married the Queen.  As the King, he became more proud and the people exalted and praised him for his courage and intelligence.  He considered the people of Thebes as his children who needed his guidance and protection.