Novel Guide: Oedipus the King , Sophocles

Name: _____________________

Classic TRAGEDY is a form of drama based on human suffering in which the main character, the tragic hero, brings about his own misfortune. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is:

● A man of noble stature

● Good—but not perfect (hamartia)

● Vulnerable—often has an excess of virtue

● His downfall is his own fault

● He learns a lesson from his tragic flaw/hamartia

● His downfall arouses the pity of the audience/reader

The elements of a classical tragedy include a tragic hero who, though not perfect, is nearly always upper class, and also exhibits:

● HAMARTIA: the tragic flaw (literally, it translates as “error of judgment”) which is often HUBRIS

● HUBRIS, the sin of pride, that causes the hero to believe he can outwit fate or violate a moral law, which leads in turn to some kind of catastrophe,

● which results in PERIPEDY

● PERIPEDY or a complete reversal of fortune from happiness to disaster

● STICHOMYTHIA (stik-uh-mith-ee-uh) is defined as dramatic dialogue, characterized by brief exchanges between two characters, each of whom

● usually speaks in one line of verse during a scene of intense emotion or strong argumentation.

● ELISION means “to omit or leave out.” At the end of the play, consider what takes place on stage vs. what occurs out of view of the audience.

While reading, please pay particular attention to the following:

● Hubris: the sin of pride—Oedipus is so prideful that he brings about his own downfall.

● The paradox of blindness—Oedipus can not see the truth, even when it is right in front of him; Tiresias, on the other hand, can not physically see yet he knows the truth.

● The oracle—and the Greek idea of prophecy. The oracle at Delphi is a sorceress who meditates to the god Apollo (the god of truth and light); the answer of the oracle is always true.

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● The theme of fate as an inescapable force—the play illustrates that you can not escape your fate.

● Dramatic irony—this type of irony occurs when the audience is aware of facts the characters do not know.

A bit of background:Sophocles (496-406 B.C.), Aescylus and Euripedes were the three great Greek tragic dramatists; by 450 B.C. Sophocles had written at least twenty-four plays and had initiated significant changes in the form of tragedy. Although Sophocles wrote more than one hundred dramas, only seven complete plays survive.

Oedipus the King is associated with two other plays by Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. The story of Oedipus is simple and well-known. Oedipus arrives at Thebes a stranger, and finds the town under the curse of the Sphinx, who will not free the city unless her riddle is answered correctly. Oedipus solves the riddle and, since the king of Thebes has recently been killed, becomes king and marries the queen. All of this occurs before the play begins—it begins in medias res, in the middle of the action.

Greek Theater: Performances of Greek plays were held in open-air arenas, like the theater of Dionysus, which was built into a hillside, giving the seating area a natural rise so thousands of spectators had a clear view of the action. At the foot of the seating area was a large, circular orchestra where the chorus sang or chanted and danced in slow, stately movements.

Greek Actors: Because of the immensity of Greek theaters, the actors—exclusively men—increased their height and impressiveness artificially. Each actor wore a mask painted with a single, exaggerated expression: a sad face for a troubled king, a haggard face for a weary soldier. Each mask had a funnel-shaped mouth opening, like a megaphone, to help project the voice. Elevated boots, padded clothing, and a high headdress could make a six-foot actor appear over seven feet tall. These masks also allowed actors to play more than one role. The acting style for Greek drama differed from the realistic style of modern drama. The Greek actor could not change facial expressions while on stage, and any gestures had to be noticeable from a distance; as a result, the Greek acting style was broader and more formal than contemporary acting.

Greek Audiences: Unlike most modern audiences, who put a premium on originality, Greek audiences were familiar with the plots and characters of the dramas presented since most plots were derived from myths, legends, or other traditional stories. This familiarity enabled them to focus on the irony of the situations and the poetry of the words.

The Greek Concept of Tragedy: A tragedy shows how a character’s proud or willful choice lead to inescapable disaster—peripedy. Yet a tragedy is more than a story in which a wrong is punished. Tragedies are complex studies of human beings in conflict with themselves, with society, and with the gods.

Oedipus: The Legacy Continues: The story of Oedipus has continued for centuries—it has even expanded over the years to include human psychological development. The term “Oedipus complex” is used to express a child's unconscious desire for the exclusive love of the parent of the opposite sex. This desire includes jealousy toward the parent of the same sex and the unconscious wish for that parent's death. The

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term was first used by Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Freud used the term to describe the unconscious feelings of children of both sexes toward their parents. However, later researchers used the term “Electra complex” for the complex in girls. According to Greek legend, a woman named Electra helped plan the murder of her mother. Freud believed that the Oedipus complex is a normal part of human psychological growth. The Oedipal phase of development is commonly considered to last from the age of 2 ½ to 6. During this period, children experience intense feelings--love and hate, yearning and jealousy, fear and anger--that produce emotional conflicts. Most people outgrow the Oedipal phase, but some mentally ill individuals have a strong Oedipus complex as adults. According to Freud, the principal reason for the weakening of the complex in boys is the fear of punishment from the father. Freud thought that all peoples experience the Oedipus complex. But many anthropologists and researchers in psychoanalysis doubt that the complex exists in certain non-Western societies. They believe it develops as a result of a person's social environment and does not occur in everyone.

12 Greek Gods and Goddesses(this section was written by Richard Pallardy for EncyclopediaBritannica.com)

Cruel and fickle, passionate and vindictive, jealous and insecure… the inhabitants of Mount Olympus represent an attempt by the ancient Greeks to explain the chaos of the universe through human nature. Here is a selection of some of the A-list names of the Greek pantheon.

● Aphrodite: Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. ● Athena: Athena was the goddess of reason, wisdom, and war. She famously sprung fully formed from

the forehead of Zeus. Her Roman equivalent was Minerva.● Artemis: Artemis was the fleet-footed goddess of the hunt. Often depicted in painting and sculpture

with a deer or a hunting dog, she was both huntress and protectress of the living world. Her Roman equivalent was Diana.

● Ares: Ares was the god of bloodlust. (His half-sister Athena represented the more "noble" aspects of combat and civil conduct during war.) His Roman equivalent was Mars.

● Apollo: The twin brother of Artemis, Apollo was among the most important (read: feared) of the gods. Son of Zeus, he disseminated the will of his divine compatriots through various means, notably oracles. The Oracle at Delphi was his mouthpiece.

● Demeter: Demeter, an agricultural goddess, was mother to Persephone, who was abducted by the underworld god Hades to be his bride. Her Roman equivalent was Ceres.

● Dionysus: Dionysus was a son of Zeus born to a mortal mother…The cult of Dionysus revolved around intoxication, sex, and savage ritual sacrifice. He was often symbolized by a bull due to his association with the sacrificial animal. Elements of his character are seen in the Roman god of wine, Bacchus.

● Hades: Hades ruled the world of the dead, with which he was sometimes synonymous. The chilly lord of the underworld was among the few Greek gods to come across as dispassionate. He was not the ultimate judge of the souls that wandered his domain nor did he mete out their punishments for sins committed during their mortal lives.

● Hera: The queen goddess of Olympus, Hera was both sister and wife to Zeus. Though she is often depicted as reserved and austere, she was mercilessly vindictive when it came to her husband’s many extramarital adventures. Her Roman equivalent was Juno.

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● Hermes: Like many gods in the Greek pantheon, Hermes presided over multiple spheres. He was a pastoral figure, responsible for protecting livestock, and was also associated with fertility, music, luck, and deception. His Roman equivalent was Mercury.

● Poseidon: Poseidon is best known as the Greek sea god, but he was also the god of horses and of earthquakes. His Roman equivalent was Neptune.

● Zeus: With the assistance of Hades and Poseidon, Zeus overthrew his father, Cronus, king of the Titans, and became the chief deity in a new pantheon comprising mostly his siblings and children. In addition to controlling the weather, Zeus was noted for his chronic infidelity to his sister-wife, Hera. His Roman equivalent was Jupiter.

Oedipus the KingPrevious to the beginning of the play, Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes, hear a terrible prophecy—they will bear a son who will grow up to kill his father. They are horrified to discover that Jocasta is pregnant. When the child is born, they give it to a shepherd, who is to leave the baby bolted to Mount Cithaeron to die (they have put an iron bolt through his ankles; the name Oedipus actually means “swollen foot”).

Yet the shepherd is unable to commit this terrible crime; instead, he gives the child to another shepherd, who gives the child to King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth to raise. When Oedipus is a teenager, he attends a party where a drunk man tells him he is not the true son of King Polybus and Queen Merope. Upset, Oedipus goes to the oracle at Delphi to find out the truth; the oracle tells him that he is destined to kill his father and sleep with his mother. He vows never to return to Corinth to insure the prophecy will not come true. At Phocis (where the three roads meet) he meets a group of travelers who hit him with a stick—Oedipus is so angered that he kills all the travelers but one.

Since he has vowed never to return to Corinth, he finds himself at Thebes, a city under the power of the terrible Sphinx, a creature shaped like a winged lion, with the breast and face of a woman (part woman, part lion, part bird). The sphinx will not leave the city until someone answers the riddle “what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at mid-day, and three legs at night?” Oedipus answers the riddle and becomes king when he marries Queen Jocasta.

Years pass—and here is where the play begins—in MEDIAS RES (in the middle of the action). There is another plague upon Thebes. Oedipus has sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the oracle to find out what to do. What will happen when Oedipus finds out the terrible truth?

Vocabulary: along with the dramatic terms on page one, please pay careful attention to the following ideas when reading the play:

CATHARSIS: a purging of emotions; the purification or “draining off” of repressed/dangerous feelings.CHORUS: a group of 12-15 men who represent either the ideas/feelings of the townspeople or one of the major characters. The role of the chorus differed from play to play; each chorus was used to recall/interpret past events, to initiate/comment on the action, or to foretell the future.DENOUEMENT: literally means “unraveling,” the end of the story illustrates the result of the characters’ actions.

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IRONY: a term used to describe a contrast between what is expected, or what appears to be, and what really is. There are three main types of irony:

● VERBAL IRONY: in verbal irony, the actual meaning of a statement is different from (often the opposite of) what the statement literally says. (Verbal irony is the simplest and the most common type of irony.)

● SITUATIONAL IRONY: situational irony refers to an occurrence that is contrary to what is expected.

● DRAMATIC IRONY: in dramatic irony, the audience or reader knows events or facts not known to a character. To get really picky, there are two types of dramatic irony: in the first, the irony depends more on the structure of the drama than the words of the characters, for example, when Oedipus seeks throughout the play for the murderer of Laius, the former king of Thebes, when he is actually the guilty one. The second type occurs when a character speaks lines understood in a double sense by the audience.MEDIAS RES: to begin in the middle of the action.ORACLE: literally means “a message” in Greek; the oracle was a high priestess who would mediate to ask the god Apollo questions—when she received his response, there was no debate—the oracle’s predictions always came true.LAUREATE: one honored by a crown of laurel; hence, one especially singled out because of distinctive achievement. The term has come to be most frequently used in the British post of “Poet Laureate.” It is also applied to the recipient of other major honors, as a Nobel Laureate.PARADOX: a figure of speech indicating a seeming contradiction that may nonetheless be true; a situation or action exhibiting inexplicable or contradictory aspects.SPHINX: a creature shaped like a winged lion, with the breast and face of a woman (part woman, part lion, part bird).TRAGIC HERO: a person of stature who is neither villainous nor exceptionally virtuous who moves from happiness to misery (this sudden reversal of fortune is called PERIPEDY).

Questions to consider while reading1. Why do the priests come to speak to Oedipus?

2. What are our first thoughts about Oedipus—what does he reveal about himself in the exposition?

3. Creon returns from the oracle—what does he say?

4. What does Oedipus curse the murderer with?

5. What does Oedipus seem to fear when he discusses the murder of the former king?

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6. Blind Tiresias is sent for by Oedipus; the prophet is later called “the only man in whom truth is inborn.” What is the paradox of blindness that Tiresias represents?

7. What does Tiresias tell Oedipus?

8. What is Oedipus’s reaction?

9. Oedipus accuses Creon of a conspiracy—why?

10. What is Creon’s reaction to Oedipus’s conspiracy claim?

11. STICHOMYTHIA (stik-uh-mith-ee-uh) is defined as dramatic dialogue, characterized by brief exchanges between two characters, each of whom usually speaks in one line of verse during a scene of intense emotion or strong argumentation. Describe where stichomythia occurs and what this rapid exchange reveals about these characters.

12. Oedipus tells Jocasta he is angry about what Tiresias the prophet says—what does Jocasta say about prophecy?

13. The Corinthian Messenger arrives to tell Jocasta and Oedipus that Polybus is dead. To Jocasta this is further proof that the prophecies hold no truth (because Oedipus didn’t kill his father, Polybus, as was predicted). The messenger tells Oedipus that he wasn’t the son of Polybus, that the messenger had been the second shepherd (who took Oedipus to Corinth). Why does this makes Jocasta beg Oedipus to give up the search?

14. Oedipus summons the original shepherd, the man King Laius and Queen Jocasta gave their baby to so long ago. Why doesn’t he want to tell the truth to Oedipus?

15. What has happened to Queen Jocasta?

16. Why does Oedipus blind himself?

17. The literary term ELISION means to omit or leave out—why did Sophocles decide to use ELISION in terms of Jocasta’s death and Oedipus’s decision to blind himself?

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18. Why does Oedipus appear to feel more badly about his two daughters than his two sons?

19. Based upon what we know, will Creon be a good ruler? Support your choice with text evidence.

Post-Reading Questions:● What are the themes of this Greek tragedy?● In what ways is Oedipus a tragic hero?● Try though he might, Oedipus cannot escape his fate—can anyone? Or do you not

believe in fate/destiny?● Does his fate seem fair—why or why not?

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