Why does Oedipus punish himself more cruelly? Return to yourself
Sigmund Freud’s term “Oedipus complex” has long entered our everyday life. With the light hand of Freud, we are accustomed to the fact that all men from early childhood should experience secret sexual love for their own mother and, conversely, carefully hide their hatred and jealousy towards their father and the latent desire to kill him in order to completely own the mother’s body. In addition, Freud, when creating his concept of the inner life of a person, based on the logic of his own thought, added to the “Oedipus complex” a “castration” complex, when a child secretly fears that his father will find out his thoughts about love for his mother and castrate him as punishment. his.
If only Sophocles could have known how Freud, and then the entire 20th century, are using his tragedy! In fact, Sophocles' tragedy is unusually far from Freud's interpretations.
Firstly, because Freud’s ideas are addressed to the deeply intimate, secret sexual life of a person. This life is hidden away from human sight, it is shameful and suppressed by the individual. Even alone with himself, a person does not always dare to be aware of such feelings and thoughts that Freud finds in the recesses of his subconscious. In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the entire action, on the contrary, takes place publicly, in front of the people of Thebes. They come to the palace of King Oedipus, observe what is happening, participate in public action, participate in the words and actions of the characters and sympathize with the unfolding tragedy, and finally express their opinion and judge King Oedipus, his wife-mother Jocasta and Creon, Jocasta’s brother, who in the final the play becomes the king of Thebes instead of Oedipus.
Secondly, the problematic that Freud drew from Sophocles or, more precisely, from the myth of Oedipus the King, is deeply alien to Sophocles, a true citizen of Athens, who professed the ideals of democracy, civil patriotism and responsibility for his own actions. Let us remember that Sophocles was elected one of the ten strategists of Athens, that is, the highest official of the state, among other strategists responsible to the citizens of Athens for war and peace, for politics and the well-being of the fatherland. Sophocles' moral and civic ideals are very far from Freud's sexual themes.
Finally, at the center of the tragedy “Oedipus the King” is a problem that Freud would probably have treated with complete indifference—the problem of knowing the truth. It was for the sake of truth that King Oedipus renounced his well-being, his almost cloudless happiness, the Theban throne and the children he and his wife-mother Jocasta conceived in sin. What is meant?
The tragedy takes place at a time when Thebes is struck by a terrible disaster: the plague is raging everywhere, taking with it countless tributes - human lives - destroying the “sprouts of luxurious pastures”, tormenting the fireworts with “torment”. The priest of Zeus, led by a delegation of residents of Thebes, tells King Oedipus about this. He asks the king to find some solution to save the city from troubles; it is not for nothing that Oedipus defeated the Sphinx twenty years ago and delivered Thebes from evil, as a reward for salvation by becoming king instead of Laius, who was killed by robbers. Note that the main plot event - the death of Oedipus's father - occurred 20 years ago. In a word, everything happened back then, in a long-past time, and the prophecy of the Delphic oracle came true long before the start of the play. The destinies of the heroes have already taken shape. There's just a little to do: they have to unfold in front of the audience.
King Oedipus, caring for the well-being and happiness of the Theban inhabitants, sends his wife’s brother Creon to Delphi, to the god Apollo, so that he would reveal, as Oedipus says, “by what prayer, by what service I will save our city from destruction.” In other words, from the first lines of the tragedy, King Oedipus is shown by Sophocles as a caring father who cares about his subjects. Public service is the root of the actions of King Oedipus.
Creon returned from Delphi first invites King Oedipus to avoid publicity and retell the oracle’s speech in private, in the palace. Oedipus categorically rejects this proposal, since he has nothing to hide in front of his citizens. After all, he solves not personal, but social problems. He, as we would say now, transparent in their actions before civil society. His words are his deeds.
Ready to speak in front of everyone - and also
And, entering the house, alone with you.
Say in front of everyone: I want to take away their misfortune
It torments more than your own sadness.
Creon says that the Delphic oracle calls for bringing the murderer of the Theban king Laius to justice: “washing away blood with blood, the blood that overwhelms our city.” Thus, only one circumstance will save the city from the plague: the death or expulsion from the city of the king’s killer. From this moment, the tragic consequences of Oedipus begin, which results in his self-blinding and the death of his wife and mother Jocasta.
The choir of Theban elders mourns and cries over the death of their fellow citizens in the “embrace of the plague” (remember Pushkin’s “Feast during the Plague”), Oedipus tries to find out the name of the murderer Laius from Corypheus. He advises Oedipus to send for the blind soothsayer Tiresias, famous for his miracles and knowledge of secrets hidden by people. Oedipus had already, on the advice of Creon, sent messengers to the elder Tiresias.
Tiresias, second after Creon, does not want to reveal the truth to Oedipus. He came, but wants to leave immediately. Oedipus again insists, demanding that Tiresias speak out and reveal the truth. A skirmish occurs between them, during which Tiresias tries with all his might to keep Oedipus from learning the truth, since this desire to know the truth, in his opinion, is only a consequence of the unreasonable stubbornness and senseless anger of King Oedipus. Moreover, the blind Tiresias hints to King Oedipus that seeking the truth is the same as becoming blind from anger or losing one’s mind. Why does a person, blinded by his own unreason, need to know what his fateful lot will lead to? Isn't it better to run away from knowledge of the future?
Oedipus stubbornly goes to meet his fate: he accuses Tiresias of indifference to the fate of Thebes, reproaches him for the lack of civic feeling, even for treason. All in order to find out the killer of Laius, that is, to come face to face with the fact of his own crime. After all, it is Oedipus himself who kills his father, fulfilling the Delphic prophecies.
O knowledge, knowledge! Heavy burden
When it is given to those who know to harm you!
Have I not experienced enough of that science?
But I forgot - and came here!
What is this? How dull is your speech!
Tell me to leave; so we can bear it easier,
I am my knowledge, and you are my lot.
No citizen should think like that,
Neither son; You were fed by this land!
It seems to me that your speech is out of place.
So, so that I don’t experience the same thing...
(He's about to leave.)
Oh, for God's sake! You know - and you leave?
We are all petitioners at your feet!
And everyone is crazy. No, I won't open it
Your misfortune, not to say yours.
What is this? You know - and you remain silent? You want
Betray me and destroy the country?
Tiresias I want to spare both of us. For what
Insist? My lips are silent.
Is it really possible that the dishonest old man is a stone?
You are capable of infuriating! - your answer
Will you hide things without bending to requests?
You blaspheme my tenacity. But closer
Yours: you didn’t notice it?
How shameful your speech is for the city!
Is it possible to listen to her without anger?
What will come true will come true.
Why remain silent? Tell me what will happen!
I said everything, and your wildest anger
Will not tear words out of my soul.
However, despite his stubborn reluctance to reveal the truth to Oedipus, Tiresias, in the course of a further passionate and angry argument, throws words of accusation at Oedipus that he is the murderer of his father and he lives “in vile communion with his own blood”, “he himself is not guilty of his own sins.” I smell it! He mercilessly predicts expulsion from Thebes and blindness to Oedipus, who did not believe in the word of truth: “And instead of light, darkness will cover you.”
The metaphor of blindness is the central metaphor of the tragedy. The truth blinds Oedipus. He is ready to unfairly and undeservedly send Creon to his death, believing that he insidiously persuaded the blind soothsayer Tiresias to express all this nonsense. That is why, according to Oedipus’ guess, Creon advises Oedipus to send for Tiresias. Creon, it seems to Oedipus, planned to overthrow him from the throne and take the Theban throne instead of him, Oedipus, the rightful king.
Creon is saved from death by his sister Jocasta. Oedipus expels Creon from Thebes. And again we see, as it were, a prediction, a prophecy about what will come true with Oedipus himself. If the first prediction - the appearance of the blind old man Tiresias - predicts the blindness of Oedipus, then the second prediction - the expulsion of Creon - again foreshadows the expulsion of Oedipus himself from the city, albeit voluntarily.
The third character who in every possible way keeps Oedipus from learning the truth is his wife Jocasta. Sophocles has a motif of fate. Jocasta tells Oedipus how at Delphi Laius, her husband, received a prophecy that he would be killed by his son. Then Laius ordered, according to commentators on the tragedy “Oedipus the King,” “to pierce the tendons of the baby’s ankles and tie his legs with a rawhide belt. The inflamed and swollen legs as a result of this barbaric operation allegedly gave the child’s rescuers a reason to call him Oedipus: the Greeks derived this name from the verb “to swell” and the noun “leg.” Oedipus - “with swollen legs.” Jocasta only knows that her three-day-old son’s father, “having bound the joints of his legs, threw the mountain into the desert with the hand of a slave!” Jocasta doubts the prediction of the Delphic oracle, because Laius was killed by robbers at the crossroads of three roads, and Apollo did not force “the little one to stain his hands with parricide.” “The fear instilled in Laius was in vain,” Jocasta laments.
Jocasta's story gives new impetus to Oedipus' investigation. “At the crossroads, where two roads meet a third” - this spatial coordinate, noted by Jocasta, almost convinces Oedipus that he is really his father’s murderer. He asks Jocasta to clarify the external portrait of her first husband (“Mighty; his head was barely silver; // And he looked like you”), and loses almost the last doubts that Tiresias was right in his accusations.
Every dramatic work, of course, has its own conventions. The tragedy of Sophocles did not escape this either. Over 20 years of family life, the couple never spoke about previous events: Jocasta had allegedly not said anything about the death of her first husband, Oedipus had not said anything about his murder of a traveler with whom they had quarreled at the crossroads of three roads. For the first time, he told Jocasta that he had left his parents from Corinth, the Corinthian king Polybus and his wife Merope, because he heard from a drunken guest that he, Oedipus, was “a fake son of his father.” Doubts consumed him so much that he went to Delphi to the Delphic oracle of Apollo and received terrible prophecies from God: he would kill his own father and live with his mother, with whom he would give birth to many children in a criminal marriage. That's why he fled from his parents in Corinth - to avoid the prophecy. It was then that he killed the traveler on the road:
When I was already close to the crossroads,
A cart is coming towards me, I see it;
A herald runs in front of her, and in the cart
The sir himself, as you described to me.
And this one and this one by the power of me
They are trying to drive you out of their way.
The driver pushed me - I’m in my heart
Hit him. Seeing that, old man,
Seizing the moment when with the cart
I caught up - in my head
He hit me with a double goad.
However, He paid more: on a grand scale
I hit him in the forehead with my staff.
He fell backwards, right on the road;
They and others had to be killed for their sake.
However, one can psychologically motivate the unexpectedness of the story of the spouses, who lived together for 20 years and remained silent, by their reluctance to reopen the wound. Jocasta lost her son as soon as she gave birth to him. Oedipus became the murderer of several people. Only one slave fled from Oedipus' staff, who just told Jocasta about the attack of the robbers on Laius. Let us note that these confessional stories of Jocasta and Oedipus occur again publicly, in the presence of a choir of Theban elders. The luminary of the chorus sympathizes with Oedipus:
And we are worried; still, as long as the witness (the same slave)
If you are not listened to, don’t lose hope!
Although Jocasta insists on disbelief in “God’s fortune-telling”, and her little one, who died himself, could not kill his father, she carries a wreath of flowers and a handful of incense as a sacrifice and offering to God in order to appease the Lycian Apollo. She prays to God to take away despondency from Oedipus, her husband and the king of Thebes.
The following evidence completely undermines Oedipus's faith in the successful resolution of the case. From the Corinthian messenger he learns that his father Polybus, the Corinthian king, or rather the one whom he considered his father, has died. The messenger many years ago was a shepherd who gave Oedipus to Polybus and Merope, receiving the baby from another shepherd who belonged to Laius. Polybus and Merope raised Oedipus as their son. This messenger many years ago personally untied the wounded legs of the infant Oedipus.
Oedipus's last hope is the shepherd. Perhaps he will say that Oedipus is innocent, that all this is a mistake, a bad dream, an obsession, and the Delphic oracles are only false fortune telling and deception.
Jocasta clearly understands: Oedipus is a criminal, but you can still stop, leave the square for the palace, stop this ridiculous investigation and continue to live as if nothing had happened, forgetting about everything that happened here. She makes a last desperate attempt to stop Oedipus, to save her husband and the father of her children, to save the people of Thebes from the unimaginable shame that is about to fall on their just and merciful king.
If life is sweet to you, stop asking questions.
I pray to the gods, I’m already suffering. (...)
Oedipus, I pray, listen to me!
Listen? Can't find the species?
But I care about your own good!
This blessing has long been a burden to me!
Oh, you would never know who you are! (...)
Oh woe, woe! O unfortunate one - this is
My last greetings to you; sorry!
(He goes into the palace.)
It turns out that Jocasta already understood everything, before Oedipus. She fought, trying to move the inexorable hand of fate away from Oedipus's head. It was all in vain. In the ending, we realize that her last hello was actually her last, as she rushed to the palace to commit suicide. After all, she herself gave her son to her husband Laius to kill, so that later this son would kill her husband and become her second husband and the father of her four children. The marriage bed became polluted with the blood of murder and incest, the sin of incest. And it's all her fault. Oedipus's inflexibility in seeking the truth deprives her of her last hope: nothing can be returned, the prophecies have come true.
The shepherd brought by Oedipus' servants is more stubborn than others, not wanting to reveal the truth to Oedipus. He begs him to back down and not search for this damned truth. The Corinthian messenger incriminates him in a confrontation:
Now remember: didn’t you give
Did I have a baby to raise in those days?
Why ask about this now?
But here's what: this baby - here he is!
Damn your tongue! Shut up!
The shepherd here lies, claiming that the messenger is lying. Oedipus threatens the shepherd with torture, forcing him to tell the truth. The very truth that everyone has long guessed about, which Oedipus himself knows. The facts are too obvious. They expose Oedipus as a murderer and incestuous man. But Oedipus is now threatening the shepherd with death, if only he would complete his story, as a result of which Oedipus’s last hopes will finally collapse, and he will lose everything he once had, but, most importantly, he will lose the happiness of living in harmony with his conscience.
Everything has been accomplished, everything has been revealed to the end!
O light! The last time I see you:
My birth was wicked,
Dishonesty is a feat and dishonesty is marriage!
V.N. Yarkho, in the article “The Tragic Theater of Sophocles,” quotes a phrase from one of Aeschylus’ heroes: “It is better to be ignorant than wise.” How wise is Oedipus, surrendering to the end in search of the final truth? In his actions, he resembles the reasoning of the “underground hero” F.M. Dostoevsky from his famous Notes from Underground. He says that even if people calculate everything to the end, put their whole lives in order, draw up logarithmic tables by which they should live, some gentleman with a malicious, skeptical face will definitely appear who will send all these tables to hell, will throw them into the abyss, just to live of his own free will, in spite of all these logarithmic tables where his benefits are sketched.
Isn't King Oedipus like that? Why is he looking for the truth? What does he get when he recognizes her? More than twenty years ago, he killed his father, married his own mother and had children with her. He needed to know that the Delphic oracles did not lie, that fate had happened a long time ago, that he had become an instrument of this fate, despite the fact that he diligently avoided it and fled from fate in order to quickly approach it and justify the fatal prophecies.
The tragedy of Oedipus continues before the eyes of the inhabitants of Thebes. A member of the household, who witnessed the tragedy along with other household members and servants, tells the choir of Theban elders about the death of Jocasta and the self-blinding of Oedipus. In other words, suicide in the ancient world was a social act, devoid of any intimacy. This act is accompanied by passionate, stormy curses of Jocasta and curses of Oedipus himself to himself and his eyes, which now do not want to see the world around them:
Household member
Do you remember how in a frenzy of grief
She sped off. From the hallway she
She rushed into her bridal chamber, with her hands
Grabbing your hair. And there
She closed the door and called out
To Laius, who died long ago,
Corrupting him: “Do you remember that night
An ancient secret? In it you are on your own
He gave birth to a murderer, and to me, my wife,
In the service of vile childbirth
The woeful one has doomed his own flesh!”
She cursed her bed: “You
From her husband - husband, and children from her son
Judged to give birth! And then - the end.
But I don’t know how she ended it.
There was a cry - Oedipus burst into the palace -
There was no time for her here. Everything is behind him
We were watching. He was rushing everywhere.
"Sword! Give me the sword! This is how he called to us.
Then again: “Where is my wife, tell me...
No! Not a wife - the ring of a mother's field,
Double sowing of the one who accepted - and me,
And from me are the embryos of my children!” (...)
And, as if driven by an unearthly force,
He came upon the closed door,
He tore them out of their deep nests and broke in
Into peace. We're behind him. And so
We see the queen hanging on a hook,
Still swinging in the fatal loop.
He stands and looks - suddenly with a wild sob
She is grabbed from the hanging noose
Removes carefully. Here on earth
She lies unhappy. Then - oh, no!
A terrible thing happened then!
Oedipus tears off the gold buckle,
That the robe was pulled down on her shoulder,
And raising a sharp needle up,
It plunges her into the apple of our eyes.
"There you are! There you are! You won't see from now on
Those horrors that I endured - and those
What he himself accomplished. From here in pitch darkness
Let you see those whose appearance is forbidden,
And don’t recognize those you need!”
Why does Oedipus blind himself? He bears an unbearable burden of responsibility, blames himself for what is not his fault and what should have come true, regardless of his will. This is the artistic, truly tragic paradox of Sophocles. No one is to blame: neither gods nor people. That's how fate decreed. And you can’t escape her. And yet King Oedipus takes responsibility. He blinds himself precisely because of his sense of civic and personal responsibility, he dooms himself to exile, saving Thebes from the plague, the cause of which is his sin, predicted by the gods. This means that this tragedy is not only and not so much about fate, which will happen long before the events of the tragedy, but about the tragedy of knowing the truth. The truth makes Oedipus free only in the sense that he must judge and punish himself in a free act of self-blinding.
At the end of the 20th century, the famous Czech writer, now living in Paris, Milan Kundera, in the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” again turns to the tragedy of Sophocles. His hero, the doctor Tomas, after the events in Prague, when the “Prague Spring” after many years of the communist regime suddenly gives people hope, writes an article about King Oedipus and about that very sense of responsibility to which Sophocles calls his fellow citizens. Because of this article, he was subsequently kicked out of work and deprived of the opportunity to practice, after the invasion of Prague by Russian tanks in 1968, essentially dooming him to oblivion and death.
Now, in the modern world, in our era, Kundera evaluates the act of King Oedipus not in the Freudian way, but in the spirit of Sophocles himself, so that the ancient tragedy still amazes with its novelty and relevance, testifying to the immortality of that tragic life collision that Sophocles opens in the ancient world, in order to extend it into eternity and thereby send a message to us, the distant descendants of Sophocles, into the 20th and 21st centuries. Let us quote Kundera’s words from the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”:
“And then Tomas again remembered the story of Oedipus: Oedipus did not know that he was cohabiting with his mother, and yet, having learned the truth, he did not feel innocent. He could not bear the sight of the grief generated by his ignorance, gouged out his eyes and left Thebes blind.
Hearing how the communists loudly defended their inner purity, Tomas thought: due to your ignorance, this country may have lost freedom for centuries, and you shout that you do not feel guilty? How can you look at the work of your hands? How is this not horrifying to you? Do you have eyes to see? If you were sighted, you should blind yourself and leave Thebes!”
The dramaturgy of Ancient Greece marked the beginning of the history of the development of this genre. Everything that we have now originated in this cradle of European culture. Therefore, in order to understand many modern theatrical trends and discoveries, it is very useful to look back and remember where dramatic art began?
The king of the city of Thebes, Laius learns from the oracle that his son, who is about to be born, will kill him and marry his mother, Queen Jocastra. To prevent this, Laius orders the shepherd to take the newborn to the mountains to die; at the last moment he feels sorry for the baby and he hands him over to a local shepherd, who gives the boy to the childless Corinthian king Polybus.
After some time, when the boy has already grown up, rumors reach him that he is adopted. Then he goes to the oracle to find out the truth, and he tells him “no matter whose son you are, you are destined to kill your father and marry your own mother.” Then, in horror, he decides not to return to Corinth and leaves. At the crossroads he met a chariot in which an old man sat and urged the horses with a whip. The hero stepped aside at the wrong time and he hit him from above, for which Oedipus hit the old man with his staff, and he fell dead to the ground.
Oedipus reached the city of Thebes, where the Sphinx sat and asked a riddle to everyone passing by; whoever did not guess was killed. Oedipus easily guessed the riddle and saved Thebes from the Sphinx. The Thebans made him king and married him to Queen Jocastra.
After some time, a plague struck the city. The oracle predicts that the city can be saved by finding the killer of King Laius. Oedipus eventually finds the murderer, that is, himself. At the end of the tragedy, his mother hangs herself, and the hero himself gouges out his eyes.
Genre of the work
Sophocles' work "Oedipus the King" belongs to the genre of ancient tragedy. Tragedy is characterized by a personal conflict, as a result of which the main character comes to the loss of personal values necessary for life. An integral part of it is catharsis. When the reader experiences the suffering of the characters through himself, it evokes in him emotions that elevate him above the ordinary world.
Ancient tragedy often shows the contrast between happiness and misfortune. A happy life is filled with crimes, retributions and punishments, thus turning into an unhappy one.
The peculiarity of Sophocles' tragedies is that not only the main character suffers cruel fates, but also the fates of everyone involved in him become tragic.
The main theme of ancient drama is evil fate. And the tragedy “Oedipus the King” is the clearest example. Fate dominates a person; he is deprived of free will. But in Sophocles' tragedy, the hero tries to change what was destined; he does not want to come to terms with predestination. He has his own position, but this is the whole tragedy: the rebellion against the system is brutally suppressed, because it is also planned in advance. Rock, which the rebel questions, plays a cruel joke on him, making him doubt that he was forced. Oedipus leaves not from his home, but from the house of his adoptive parents. His departure is tantamount to an escape from his own fate, which finds him on this trajectory as well. And when he blinds himself, then in this way he also opposes fate, but this attack is also predicted by the Oracle.
The hero's evil fate: why was Oedipus unlucky?
The king of the city of Thebes, Laius, stole and abused the student of the oracle, who conveyed to him knowledge about the world. As a result of his action, he learns of a prophecy that says that he will die at the hands of his own son, and his wife will marry him. He decides to kill the child. Reminds me of the myth of the god Kronos, who feared that children might kill him - and devoured them to prevent this from happening. However, Lai lacked divine will: he failed to eat the heir. Fate decreed this in order to punish the offender of the fortuneteller. Therefore, the whole life of Oedipus is an example of how evil fate wittily joked.
The baby falls into the hands of the childless king. Childlessness was considered the will of the gods, and if there are no children, then this is a punishment and so it is necessary. It turns out that the dignitary suffered from infertility only because he had to shelter the toy of fate.
Oedipus meets the Sphinx. The Sphinx appeared long before Kronos. All the deities that existed before Kronos combine the features of different animals and humans. She destroys the city, constantly devouring the townspeople for their lack of erudition. And when Oedipus solves her riddle, she dies, as was destined, and the hero has already attributed this to his own account.
The beginning of the plague in Thebes is also a divine punishment for the fact that, in fact, evil fate was created by walking around in the human world.
No one suffers in vain. Everyone is rewarded according to his actions or according to the actions of his ancestors. But no one can escape his lot; rebels are severely punished by the hand of fate. The most interesting thing is that this uprising is the fruit of the imagination of the gods themselves. Evil fate initially controls those who think that they are deceiving him. Oedipus is not to blame for his disobedience, it’s just that, using his example, they decided to teach people a lesson in obedience: do not contradict the will of your superiors, they are wiser and stronger than you.
The image of Oedipus: characteristics of the hero
In Sophocles' tragedy, the main character is the ruler of Thebes - King Oedipus. He is imbued with the problems of every resident of his city, sincerely worries about their fate and tries to help them in everything. He once saved the city from the Sphinx, and when the citizens suffer from the plague that has fallen on them, the people again ask for salvation from the wise ruler.
In the work, his fate turns out to be incredibly tragic, but despite this, his image does not seem pitiful, but, on the contrary, majestic and monumental.
All his life he acted according to morality. He left his home, going to an unknown place, so as not to carry out his destined crime. And in the finale, he asserts his dignity through self-punishment. Oedipus acts incredibly bravely, punishing himself for crimes that he committed unknowingly. His punishment is cruel, but symbolic. He gouges out his eyes with a brooch and sends himself into exile so as not to be near those whom he has defiled with his actions.
Thus, the hero of Sophocles is a person who complies with moral laws, striving to act according to morality. A king who admits his own mistakes and is ready to bear punishment for them. His blindness is a metaphor for the author. So he wanted to show that the character is a blind toy in the hands of fate, and each of us is just as blind, even if he considers himself sighted. We do not see the future, we are not able to recognize our fate and intervene in it, therefore all our actions are the pitiful throwings of a blind man, nothing more. This was the philosophy of that time.
However, when the hero becomes physically blind, he regains his sight spiritually. He has nothing left to lose, all the worst things have happened, and fate has taught him a lesson: trying to see the invisible, you can even lose your sight. After such trials, Oedipus is freed from lust for power, arrogance, and aspirations against God and leaves the city, sacrificing everything for the good of the townspeople, trying to save them from the plague. In exile, his virtue only strengthened, and his worldview was enriched: now he is deprived of illusions, a mirage, which was created by obliging vision under the influence of the dazzling rays of power. Exile in this case is the path to freedom provided by fate as compensation for the fact that Oedipus covered his father’s debt.
The man in the tragedy "Oedipus the King"
The author writes his work, which is based on the myth of Oedipus the King. But he permeates it with the subtlest psychology, and the meaning of the play lies not even in fate, but in a person’s confrontation with fate, in the very attempt of rebellion, doomed to failure, but no less heroic for that. This is a real drama, filled with internal conflicts and conflicts between people. Sophocles shows the deep feelings of the characters; there is a sense of psychologism in his work.
Sophocles did not base his work solely on the myth of Oedipus, so that the main theme would not become exclusively the fatal bad luck of the protagonist. Together with her, he brings to the fore problems of a socio-political nature and the inner experiences of a person. Thus, turning the mythological plot into a deep social and philosophical drama.
The main idea in Sophocles' tragedy is that a person, under any circumstances, must himself be responsible for his actions. King Oedipus, after learning the truth, does not wait for punishment from above, but punishes himself. In addition, the author teaches the reader that any attempt to deviate from the course planned from above is a mirage. People are not given free will; everything is already thought out for them.
Oedipus does not hesitate or doubt before making decisions; he acts immediately and clearly according to morality. However, this integrity is also a gift from fate, which has already calculated everything. It cannot be deceived or bypassed. We can say that she awarded the hero with virtuous qualities. This is where a certain justice of fate towards people is manifested.
The mental balance of a person in Sophocles’ tragedy fully corresponds to the genre in which the work is performed: it fluctuates at the edge of conflict and, in the end, collapses.
Oedipus and Prometheus of Aeschylus - what do they have in common?
The tragedy of Aeschylus “Prometheus Chained” tells the story of a titan who stole fire from Olympus and brought it to people, for which Zeus punishes him by chaining him to a mountain rock.
Having ascended to Olympus, the Gods were afraid of being overthrown (as they overthrew the Titans in their time), and Prometheus is a wise seer. And when he said that Zeus would be overthrown by his son, the servants of the lord of Olympus began to threaten him, asking for the secret, and Prometheus remained proudly silent. In addition, he stole fire and gave it to the people, arming them. That is, the prophecy received a visual embodiment. For this, the chief of the gods chains him to a rock in the east of the earth and sends an eagle to peck out his liver.
Prometheus, like Oedipus, knowing fate, goes against it, he is also proud and has his own position. Both of them are not destined to overcome it, but the rebellion itself looks bold and impressive. Also, both heroes sacrifice themselves for the sake of people: Prometheus steals fire, knowing about the punishment awaiting him for this, and Aeschylus gouges out his eyes and goes into exile, abandoning power and wealth for the sake of his city.
The fate of the heroes Aeschylus and Sophocles is equally tragic. However, Prometheus knows his fate and goes to meet it, and Aeschylus, on the contrary, tries to run away from it, but in the final he realizes the futility of attempts and accepts his cross, maintaining his dignity.
Structure and composition of the tragedy
Compositionally, the tragedy consists of several parts. A work of prologues opens - a pestilence hits the city, people, livestock, and crops die. Apollo orders the murderer of the previous king to be found, and the current king, Oedipus, vows to find him at all costs. The prophet Tiresias refuses to say the name of the murderer, and when Oedipus blames him for everything, the oracle is forced to reveal the truth. At this moment, the tension and anger of the ruler is felt.
The tension doesn't subside in the second episode. A dialogue follows with Creon, who is indignant: “Only time will reveal to us what is honest. A day is enough to find out the vile thing.”
The arrival of Jocastra and the story of the murder of King Laius at the hands of an unknown person bring confusion into the soul of Oedipus.
In turn, he himself tells his story before he came to power. He has not forgotten about the murder at the crossroads and now remembers it with even greater anxiety. Immediately the hero learns that he is not the natural son of the Corinthian king.
The tension reaches its highest point with the arrival of the shepherd, who says that he did not kill the baby, and then everything becomes clear.
The composition of the tragedy is concluded by three large monologues of Oedipus, in which the former man who considered himself the savior of the city is not present; he appears as an unhappy man, atonement for his guilt through severe suffering. Internally he is reborn and becomes wiser.
Issues of the play
- The main problem of the tragedy is the problem of fate and freedom of human choice. The inhabitants of ancient Greece were very concerned about the theme of fate, since they believed that they had no freedom, they were toys in the hands of the gods, their fate was predetermined. And the duration of their life depended on the Moira, who determine, measure and cut off the thread of life. Sophocles introduces polemics into his work: he gives the main character pride and disagreement with his fate. Aeschylus is not going to humbly wait for the blows of fate, he fights with it.
- The play also touches on socio-political issues. The difference between Oedipus and his father Laius is that he is a just ruler who, without hesitation, sacrifices his love, home and himself for the happiness of his citizens. However, a good king invariably bears the yoke inherited from a bad one, which in ancient tragedy took the form of a curse. His son managed to overcome the consequences of Laius’s thoughtless and cruel rule only at the cost of his own sacrifice. This is the price of balance.
- Grief falls on Oedipus from the moment the truth is revealed to him. And then the author talks about a problem of a philosophical nature - the problem of ignorance. The author contrasts the knowledge of the gods with the ignorance of the common man.
- The tragedy takes place in a society in which the murder of blood relatives and incest are accompanied by the most severe punishment and promise disaster not only to the one who committed it, but also to the city as a whole. So, the acts of Oedipus, despite the actual innocence, could not remain unpunished and therefore the city suffers from pestilence. The problem of justice in this case is quite acute: why do everyone suffer for the actions of one?
- Despite all the tragedy of Oedipus' life, in the end he is endowed with spiritual freedom, which he gains by showing courage against the blows of fate. Therefore, there is a problem of assessing life experience: is freedom worth such sacrifices? The author believed that the answer was yes.
Passive submission to the future is alien to the heroes of Sophocles, who themselves want to be the creators of their own destiny, and are full of strength and determination to defend their right. All ancient critics, starting with Aristotle, called the tragedy "Oedipus the King" the pinnacle of Sophocles' tragic mastery. The time of its production is unknown, approximately it is determined to be 428 - 425. BC Unlike previous dramas, compositionally close to a diptych, this tragedy is united and closed in itself. All its action is centered around the main character, who defines each individual scene, being its center. But, on the other hand, in Oedipus the King there are no random or episodic characters. Even the slave of King Laius, who once, on his orders, carried away a newborn baby from his house, subsequently accompanies Laius on his last fateful trip; and the shepherd, who then took pity on the child, begged for it and took him away with him, now arrives in Thebes as an ambassador from the Corinthians to persuade Oedipus to reign in Corinth.
Myths of ancient Greece. Oedipus. The one who tried to comprehend the mystery
Sophocles took the plot of his tragedy from the Theban cycle of myths, very popular among Athenian playwrights; but his image of the main character, Oedipus, pushed into the background the entire fatal history of the misfortunes of the Labdacid family. Usually the tragedy “Oedipus the King” is classified as an analytical drama, since its entire action is built on the analysis of events related to the hero’s past and directly related to his present and future.
The action of this tragedy by Sophocles opens with a prologue in which a procession of Theban citizens goes to the palace of King Oedipus with a plea for help and protection. Those who came are firmly convinced that only Oedipus can save the city from the pestilence raging in it. Oedipus calms them down and says that he has already sent his brother-in-law Creon to Delphi to find out from the god Apollo about the cause of the epidemic. Creon appears with the oracle (answer) of the god: Apollo is angry with the Thebans for harboring the unpunished murderer of the former king Laius. In front of those gathered, King Oedipus vows to find the criminal, “whoever the murderer may be.” Under threat of severe punishment, he orders all citizens:
Do not bring him under your roof or with him
Don't talk. To prayers and sacrifices
Do not allow him to participate in ablutions, -
But drive him out of the house, because he is
The culprit of the filth that has struck the city.
Athenian spectators, contemporaries of Sophocles, knew the story of King Oedipus from childhood and treated it as a historical reality. They knew well the name of the murderer Laius, and therefore Oedipus’s performance as an avenger for the murdered man acquired deep meaning for them. They understood, following the development of the tragedy, that the king, in whose hands the fate of the entire country, of all the people infinitely devoted to him, could not act otherwise. And the words of Oedipus sounded like a terrible self-curse:
And now I am a champion of God,
And an avenger for the dead king.
I curse the secret killer...
Oedipus the King calls upon the soothsayer Teiresias, whom the chorus calls the second seer of the future after Apollo. The old man feels sorry for Oedipus and does not want to name the criminal. But when the angry king throws in his face the accusation of aiding the murderer, Tiresias, also beside himself with anger, declares: “You are the godless desecrator of the country!” Oedipus, and after him the chorus, cannot believe in the truth of the prophecy.
The king has a new assumption. Sophocles narrates: after the Thebans lost their king, who was killed somewhere during a pilgrimage, his legal successor was to be the brother of the widowed queen, Creon. But then Oedipus, unknown to anyone, came and solved the riddle Sphinx and saved Thebes from a bloodthirsty monster. The grateful Thebans offered their savior the hand of the queen and proclaimed him king. Did Creon harbor a grudge, did he decide to use the oracle to overthrow Oedipus and take the throne, choosing Tiresias as the instrument of his actions?
Oedipus accuses Creon of treason, threatening him with death or lifelong exile. And he, feeling innocently suspected, is ready to rush at Oedipus with a weapon. The choir is afraid and doesn't know what to do. Then the wife of King Oedipus and Creon’s sister, Queen Jocasta, appears. Viewers knew about her only as a participant in an incestuous union. But Sophocles portrayed her as a strong-willed woman, whose authority was recognized by everyone in the house, including her brother and husband. Both look to her for support, but she rushes to reconcile those quarreling and, having learned about the cause of the quarrel, ridicules the belief in predictions. Wanting to support her words with convincing examples, Jocasta says that fruitless faith in them distorted her youth, took away her first-born, and her first husband, Laius, instead of the death predicted for him at the hands of his son, became a victim of a robber attack.
Jocasta's story, designed to calm King Oedipus, actually causes him anxiety. Oedipus recalls that the oracle, which predicted his parricide and marriage to his mother, forced him many years ago to leave his parents and Corinth and go wandering. And the circumstances of the death of Laius in Jocasta’s story remind him of one unpleasant adventure during his wanderings: at a crossroads he accidentally killed a driver and some old man, according to Jocasta’s description, similar to Laius. If the murdered man was really Laius, then he, King Oedipus, who cursed himself, is his murderer, so he must flee from Thebes, but who will accept him, an exile, if even he cannot return to his homeland without the risk of becoming a parricide and the husband of his mother .
Only one person can resolve doubts, an old slave who accompanied Lai and escaped from death. Oedipus orders the old man to be brought, but he has long since left the city. While the messengers are looking for this only witness, a new character appears in Sophocles' tragedy, who calls himself a messenger from Corinth, arriving with the news of the death of the Corinthian king and the election of Oedipus as his successor. But Oedipus is afraid to accept the Corinthian throne. He is frightened by the second part of the oracle, which predicts marriage to his mother. The messenger, naively and with all his heart, rushes to dissuade Oedipus and reveals to him the secret of his origin. The Corinthian royal couple adopted a baby, whom he, a former shepherd, found in the mountains and brought to Corinth. The sign of the child was his pierced and tied legs, which is why he received the name Oedipus, i.e. “plump-legged.”
Aristotle considered this scene of “recognition” to be the pinnacle of Sophocles’ tragic mastery and the culmination of the entire tragedy, and he especially emphasized the artistic device he called peripeteia, thanks to which the climax is achieved and the denouement is prepared. Jocasta is the first to understand the meaning of what happened and, in the name of saving Oedipus, makes a last futile attempt to keep him from further investigations:
If life is sweet to you, I pray to the gods,
Don't ask... My torment is enough.
Sophocles endowed this woman with enormous inner strength, who is ready to bear the burden of a terrible secret alone until the end of her days. But King Oedipus no longer listens to her requests and prayers; he is absorbed in the desire to reveal the secret, whatever it may be. He is still infinitely far from the truth and does not notice his wife’s strange words and her unexpected departure; and the choir, keeping him in ignorance, glorifies his native Thebes and the god Apollo. With the arrival of the old servant, it turns out that he really witnessed the death of Laius, but, in addition, he, having once received an order from Laius to kill the child, did not dare to do this and handed him over to some Corinthian shepherd, who now, to his embarrassment, he recognizes the messenger from Corinth standing before him.
So, Sophocles shows that everything secret becomes clear. A herald appears in the orchestra, who has come to announce to the choir about Jocasta’s suicide and about the terrible act of Oedipus, who stuck gold pins from Jocasta’s robe into his eyes. With the last words of the narrator, King Oedipus himself appears, blind, covered in his own blood. He himself carried out the curse with which he branded the criminal in ignorance. With touching tenderness he says goodbye to the children, entrusting them to the care of Creon. And the choir, depressed by what happened, repeats the ancient saying:
And one can call happy, without a doubt, only those
Who has reached the limits of life without experiencing misfortunes.
The opponents of King Oedipus, against whom his enormous will and immeasurable mind are given over, turn out to be gods whose power is not determined by human measure.
For many researchers, this power of the gods seemed so overwhelming in Sophocles’ tragedy that it obscured everything else. Therefore, based on it, tragedy was often defined as a tragedy of fate, even transferring this controversial explanation to all Greek tragedy as a whole. Others sought to establish the degree of moral responsibility of King Oedipus, speaking of crime and inevitable punishment, without noticing the discrepancy between the first and second, even within the framework of Sophocles’ contemporary ideas. It is interesting that, according to Sophocles, Oedipus is not a victim, passively waiting and accepting the blows of fate, but an energetic and active person who fights in the name of reason and justice. In this struggle, in his confrontation with passions and suffering, he emerges victorious, assigning punishment to himself, carrying out the punishment himself and overcoming his suffering in this. In the finale of Sophocles' younger contemporary Euripides, Creon ordered his servants to blind Oedipus and drove him out of the country.
Oedipus' daughter Antigone leads her blind father out of Thebes. Painting by Jalabert, 1842
The contradiction between the subjectively unlimited capabilities of the human mind and the objectively limited limits of human activity, reflected in Oedipus the King, is one of the characteristic contradictions of Sophocles’ time. In the images of gods opposing man, Sophocles embodied everything that could not be explained in the surrounding world, the laws of which were still almost unknown to man. The poet himself has not yet doubted the goodness of the world order and the inviolability of world harmony. Despite everything, Sophocles optimistically affirms the human right to happiness, believing that misfortunes never crush those who know how to resist them.
Sophocles is still far from the art of individual characteristics of modern drama. His heroic images are static and are not characters in our sense, since the heroes remain unchanged in all the vicissitudes of life. However, they are great in their integrity, in their freedom from everything random. The first place among the remarkable images of Sophocles rightfully belongs to King Oedipus, who became one of the greatest heroes of world drama.
“Peripeteia... is a change of events to the opposite... Thus, in Oedipus, the messenger who came to please Oedipus and free him from the fear of his mother, announcing to him who he was, achieved the opposite...” (Aristotle. Poetics, chapter 9, 1452 a).
Another article for the magazine “Knowledge is Power” owes its appearance entirely to the students of Sevmashvtuz.
This is entirely their words, from me - a retelling of the plot for starters and comments.
I read cultural studies to them. Who remembers this story: in 1992, Yeltsin banned the CPSU. Communist subjects - all these “history of the CPSU” and “scientific communism” - should have been automatically removed from university curricula. In their place, an unknown cultural studies appeared - an academic discipline without science.
No plans, no textbooks, no training manuals. Read it as you wish.
Ideal situation. Perfect!
Well, I talked to the students about what I wanted and how I wanted. About the “Axial Age”, Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism, Papernov’s “culture two”...
The theme “Culture of Ancient Greece” included an analysis of the myth of Oedipus and the tragedy of Sophocles.
Now I would, of course, prefer Antigone.
In terms of feelings
The fate of Oedipus captivates us only because it could become our fate,
Z. Freud
“Is King Oedipus guilty, and if he is not guilty, then who? The first feeling of the reader (or viewer) is indignation: God sets a trap for a person, forces him to commit a crime, although the person does not want it and is trying with all his might to avert the impending disaster. When Oedipus kills the old man and his servants at the crossroads, he does not consider himself a murderer, and, perhaps, quite reasonably. Oedipus is far from a state of mental balance. It is possible that the quarrel at the crossroads was the last straw that finally deprived Oedipus of the ability to reason logically and adequately respond to reality. In other words, at the moment of murder, Oedipus is in a state of passion, or, according to Freud, in the grip of the “death instinct,” that is, the need for external aggression.”
Most often, students begin with an analysis of Oedipus’s state of mind and the feelings overwhelming him, as if putting themselves in the place of a mythological hero, for the time being not noticing that they are cut from different cloth.
“He was angry at his fate, at himself, at all people and took out his feelings on innocent travelers.”
“Some kind of bestial rage awoke in him, forcing him to kill further.”
Murder is not a crime here, but release of internal suffering or self-defense», « thirst for revenge for the fear he experienced of being killed himself».
Between myth and everyday life
Here is the tragedy of a man, possessing the fullness of human power, faced with the fact that in the universe he rejects man.
A. Bonnard
The students had the hardest time assessing the marriage of Oedipus with his mother, adequate to mythological thinking: neither life, nor literature, nor cinema give them any clues.
You have to look for the answer in your own emotions:
« This woman could raise him, swaddle him in infancy, love and pity him. But it turned out that she was his wife. In my opinion, this is very difficult to understand morally».
« People have always killed and will kill each other, and killing parents is not that uncommon, but marrying a mother is something out of the ordinary... In general, I think that he will go to hell twice».
Students do not accept the mythological equation of guilt for both crimes. Having killed my father, " he still deprived him of his life, that is, the most precious thing a person has, but, on the other hand, it is better to be killed than to be dishonored like his mother».
But is it? "... Their children are normal, so it’s okay. And even though from the moral point of view it doesn’t look very good, it’s still easier than murder».
Many people don’t see a crime here at all: “ he did not know that it was his mother, and at that time it was not such a big crime, because even the gods committed such things».
From the point of view of the myth, everything is just the opposite: the likening of Oedipus’s actions to the acts of the gods does not mitigate, but aggravates his guilt - “what is allowed to Jupiter...” But students find confirmation of their interpretation in the material of the myth itself: “ the gods sent the plague because someone killed the former king, and not because someone married his mother».
About the wisdom and stupidity of Oedipus
Stop, wise as Oedipus,
Before the Sphinx with an eternal riddle.
A. Blok
The most unexpected thing: students actively deny the wisdom that the myth ascribes to Oedipus.
« The severity of Oedipus’s crimes, I believe, is not in the fact that he killed his father and married his mother, but in his spiritual blindness».
He is accused of rash behavior on that fateful day at the intersection of three roads:
« there was a chance to leave, turn or choose another direction - no, blood is pouring, a mountain of corpses, and as a result - the first part of the prediction was also fulfilled».
Oedipus - " he is a violent, unrestrained, spoiled, poorly educated and stupid person... he has little control over his actions... even when Tiresias clearly hints that Oedipus himself killed the king, he, due to his feeble mind, cannot accept this and drives him away in anger Teiresias...»
In part, this attitude could have been provoked by Pasolini’s film, in which, when faced with the Sphinx, the hero does not show wisdom (especially since the riddle of the Sphinx in the film is not solved at all), but courage close to thoughtless rage.
At the same time, students write “ about the extraordinary personality of Oedipus: he did not wait for the unknown, which began to weigh on him, and went to the priest(more precisely, to the oracle - A.Ch.) to find out what awaits him ahead - I think one must have a lot of courage to want to know the future».
And at the end of the tragedy, Oedipus, according to most students, behaves more than worthy:
« he voluntarily made himself an outcast so as not to harm the people close to him».
« Oedipus is innocent, since he did not know what he was doing, but, being a religious man, he punishes himself, obeying the fate predicted by the gods».
« Oedipus gouged out his eyes, and this, in my opinion, is one of the most terrible punishments. A person uses his eyes to receive about 90 percent of the information about the world around him. Suddenly a blind person has to relearn what he could previously do without thinking. But the most important thing for someone who has lost their sight is to overcome the fear of constant darkness and not give up in such a difficult situation».
Crime and Punishment
Having descended into Hades, no matter what eyes
I began to look my parent in the face,
Or maybe it was sweet for me to see
My children, alas, born of her?
Sophocles
The ending of the tragedy is shocking. Why does Oedipus punish himself in this way? This question allows you to feel the depth of the myth, in which each level reached does not mean an answer, but only the receipt of a new question.
The first level of explanation was set by Sophocles: he blinds himself out of a sense of shame, so as not to see either the citizens of Thebes (during life) or his parents (after death).
« Oedipus could not look people in the eyes after his atrocities. He wanted to deprive himself of the opportunity to contemplate and admire the beauty of the world around him, believing that he was unworthy of it».
His guilt is too heavy: " The gods may control your destiny, but commit a crime for you
They can not. Oedipus himself committed the crime by killing. The gods only showed him this by putting his own father under the sword and proving to him that he was unworthy of the title of man».
« After all, it was not the gods who came down from Olympus and killed his own father, but he himself, with his own hands, did it!»
« Putting myself in the place of Oedipus, I, too, if I defended myself, could kill another person, but this, of course, would not relieve me of guilt. I would torment myself with thoughts: how could I kill a person so easily!»
An unbearable feeling of shame is the first force that forced Oedipus to pierce his eyes with the clasp from Jocasta’s belt.
Wisdom of Blindness
Precisely because - such is the dialectic of history - Hellenic culture gravitated towards appearance, towards “eidos”, it early began to identify wisdom, that is, penetration into the mystery of being, with physical blindness.
S. Averintsev
However, the contrition tormenting Oedipus is not the only explanation for his action.
« Apparently, Oedipus believes that since he has been “blind” all this time, it is better for him to remain blind further».
« It was his eyes that brought him to Thebes: most likely, he is not punishing himself, but his eyesight».
« How blind he was before he learned the whole terrible truth!»
« Thus, Oedipus cuts himself off from all the abominations of the outside world. With his blindness, Oedipus divides the world into two: external and internal. Having blinded himself, he is left alone with his inner world».
« The blindness of Oedipus is a symbol of human ignorance: in his darkness he comprehends another light, joins another knowledge - the knowledge of the presence of an unknown world around us. And this is no longer blindness, but insight. This is a declaration that only God is sighted. He is always right and he knows better».
« Oedipus already knows everything. The prediction came true. He sees the fruits of his deeds in front of him and understands that he cannot escape fate. And as in the case of Tiresias, he blinds himself for what he saw».
« He just couldn’t forgive himself for the “blindness” in his actions». « I think he blamed himself for being blind all his life (although he had been warned), and decided to punish himself in an appropriate way - why does a blind man need eyes?»
The logic of the myth is quite clear: either physical vision, which guides a person in the external world, or internal vision, wisdom, which allows one to see the hidden essence of things. It is not for nothing that Greek culture, having forgotten everything about Homer, including his place of birth, persistently repeated his only sign: he is blind.
An indication of the correctness of this interpretation is contained in the myth itself - this is the figure of Tiresias, an oxymoronic character, a blind seer. But even this explanation does not exhaust the action of Oedipus.
God and man
God does everything, but it is given to us to experience remorse because of this, and we find ourselves guilty before him because we take on the guilt for his sake.
T. Mann
And here the next level of tragedy’s depth opens before us: Oedipus’s equality with God.
This aspect is not immediately clear. We should be grateful to Sophocles for shifting the focus from asking how it all happened to understanding what exactly happened. Oedipus, investigating a crime in which he is both a murderer, and an investigator, and an executioner, and a victim, in Sophocles’ drama is forced to see the whole situation from the inside, and, following his mental search, we reveal the mechanism of action from the inside.
Behind the external appearance of events, their inner—true—content is suddenly revealed. The external chain of events is natural and humanly understandable: Laius’s desire to get rid of the troublesome baby is understandable, and the human pity of the servant who saved the child’s life is quite natural.
Oedipus’s intention to leave his parents is understandable and worthy of respect, so that in no way - neither consciously nor unconsciously, neither by his own will nor against it - would he accomplish what was predicted by the oracle.
Meanwhile, moving away from fate, Oedipus goes straight to it. It is his free will that ultimately leads him to accomplish what he fled from, rightly horrified and rejected from himself. Oedipus (like Laius, for that matter) takes upon himself the courage to resist the will of fate in order to escape his own doom. But even contradicting the gods (as it seems to him), and following their will (against his own intentions, but thanks to his own actions), Oedipus still turns out to be a criminal.
The victim and the culprit of what happened, Oedipus finds himself face to face with a question of incredible gravity: should man obey the gods or act independently?
To obey - and ultimately violate the most extreme of the prohibitions set for a person - the ban on killing the only one who cannot be killed - the father, and the ban on marrying the only one with whom marriage is impossible - the mother?
Oppose and, as a result of your own opposition, become the murderer of your father and the husband of your mother?
Man in a trap. Both paths end in a crime, for which the gods inevitably and fairly punish, enjoying their own omnipotence.
Thrown into the abyss of despair, Oedipus, however, it is here that he seizes the initiative of divine action: the gods made him a criminal - well, then he will make himself a victim. Oedipus punishes himself, logically continuing the divine scenario of his fate. The gods raised his hand against his father, and he raises the hand of retribution against himself.
Forced to commit a crime, he is free to punish. Oedipus blinds himself, and it is doubly important that this is how he punishes himself, and that he punishes himself.
The gesture, seemingly explained by passion, despair, in any case, by feeling, but not by reason (what kind of sober reason is there - over the corpse of one’s own mother-wife), in the depths of its essence turns out to be brilliantly wise, rationally necessary, the only expedient. Oedipus puts an end to the game of the gods; he, who until now served as a wordless pawn in their aimless game, completes it himself.
He robs the gods of the opportunity to punish him, just as they robbed him of the opportunity to avoid crime.
Thus, he achieved freedom unknown among people: having fulfilled both the crime and the punishment, he no longer owes anything to anyone - neither gods nor people...
How do students understand this situation?
« I understand this in such a way that a person appears in this world already “burdened with evil,” but not in a religious sense, but in the fact that, becoming part of an imperfect world, an ordinary person is doomed to commit crimes in the absence of true knowledge of himself, his fate and the environment peace».
« On the one hand, the fate of anyone, be it a simple person, a hero or a god, is predetermined in advance; it is not for nothing that oracles have the ability to predict it. But, on the other hand, there is always a key moment in any fate of any hero of Greek mythology when he can change his fate, prevent his death or tragedy. And in the myth of Oedipus, the conversation with Tiresias is precisely that key moment: if he listens to Tiresias and stops looking for the killer of Laius, then his wife-mother, and his daughter, and eyes remain with him. But he cannot do this (a duty of honor), so he suffers troubles. That is, there is a duality: on the one hand, there is a choice - either-or; on the other hand, fate is already predetermined. How so? After all, one excludes the other. But the fact is that an alternative to what was predicted is almost impossible to implement - either due to social reasons (for Oedipus it is the duty of a ruler), or due to character traits (most often it is ambition or a thirst for adventure, like Achilles)...
either go left or right, but you are ashamed to go left, therefore, as a man of honor, you will still go right...»
Thus, a mythological story, rooted in ancient times, turns out to be in tune with the fate of any person, as soon as he thinks about his life and the extent of his own responsibility.
Basically, students “humanize” the myth, humanize it, ignoring those aspects of it that do not fit into the framework of modern experience. “Gods”, “fate”, “fate” - these concepts are devoid of life content for them; belief in prophecy is equivalent to superstition.
King Laius's attempt to get rid of the dangerous baby is regarded as the only cause of all subsequent troubles.
« Reflecting on this myth, for some reason I keep coming back to its beginning: why did Lai decide to get rid of the child? Maybe this was the first step on the way to making the prediction come true...." If Laius and Jocasta " raised him themselves, then he would know his real
parents, would not have killed his father and would not have married his mother, and nothing like this would have happened».
« If King Laius had not been so arrogant, a simple request to give way would have saved his life: after all, Oedipus is not angry, he is humane, and his pride sleeps, like all his feelings. He has no time for the surrounding reality, he is heartbroken, because he had to part with the people closest to him».
So the question of who is to blame for the Oedipal crimes - Oedipus himself or the Rock leading him - is translated into a purely human, everyday plane. The verdict “guilty” is pronounced against Oedipus’s father: “ You don’t have to believe all sorts of prophets and miscarry your own child!»
« The father, who sent his son to death in infancy, himself predetermined his fate, thereby not Oedipus, but the father killed, and himself».
This interpretation, of course, does not correspond to ancient Greek ideas about the structure of the world.
In their reasoning, students, as a rule, are guided by humanity, sympathy, and pity for Oedipus, who has fallen into the millstone of fate:
« In my opinion, King Oedipus is the only positive hero of this whole story, the only person in the tragedy on whom nothing depended, but who considered himself guilty of everything».
« Studying such works of world culture, you think about the questions: who are we? what is our mission? What motivates us all, why do we live and what is the ultimate goal of civilization?»
« The myth of Oedipus is an expression of truth, honed over centuries, about the power and inevitability of fate».
« I am not a judge or an investigator, so it is not for me to decide who is guilty and who is not. And it's not within my control
the question “why?” What thoughts I had about the questions - I wrote them down».
(The article uses fragments of written works by students of Sevmashvtuz (branch of St. Petersburg State Medical University, Severodvinsk), 1997-1999)
“Knowledge is power”, 2005, No. 9
Oedipus the King (Edipo re) Pier Paolo Pasolini 1967
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1. Parricide and incest
The king of Thebes, Cadmus, had a grandson, Laius, who was the direct heir to the royal throne. The young man had a disgusting character and disposition. He was distinguished by his instability, cruelty, insidiousness and unpredictability of his actions. One day, the neighboring king Pelops invited young Laius to visit. Laius accepted the invitation and spent a very long time with Pelops, enjoying his hospitality. He indulged in unbridled pleasures with young people of both sexes, which was commonplace for those times (this is not modern St. Petersburg!). Oedipus organized such noisy and noble orgies that the god Mercury himself flew to them.
When the time came to leave the hospitable home of Pelops, Laius committed a disgusting, vile act. He kidnapped Pelops' son Chrysippus, his lover, and took him to Thebes. Pelops was terribly angry and thought for a long time about how he could take revenge on Laius. Either go to war against Thebes, or impose a terrible curse on Laius? He did not want to fight with the king of Thebes, and therefore turned to the gods with a request to punish Laius. Pelops presented great gifts to the gods, and the gods heard his requests. And the gods destined the fate of Laius: he was to die at the hand of his future son.
Meanwhile, Laius was serenely having fun in Thebes with his young lover, not knowing that a curse had been placed on him. The young, underage boy captivated Laius so much that he spent days and nights with him, relegating all other earthly joys to the background. But soon Laius became fed up with Chrysippas, and with orgies too, and decided to get married. Laius took as his wife the young beauty Jocasta, with whom he lived for a long time and calmly in Thebes. The marriage turned out to be strong, but they had no children. Then Laius turned to the god Apollo with a simple everyday question - why doesn’t he have children? The god’s answer plunged Laius into horror: “You will have a son, and by his hand you will die!”
Soon, Jocasta actually gave birth to a son. But Laius valued his own life more than the life of his son, and he decided to kill his newborn son. Laius took the baby from his wife, tied him hand and foot, pierced his feet with a knife, and ordered the slave to take the baby into the forest and throw him there to be devoured by wild animals. But the slave disobeyed this cruel order and secretly handed the baby over to his friend, the slave of King Polybus. Being childless, King Polybus decided to raise the baby as his heir. He gave him the name Oedipus, which meant “plump-legged,” “with swollen legs.”
Oedipus grew up happily and serenely in the house of Polybus and his wife Merope, considering them his parents. Years have passed. Oedipus grew up and matured. Once, during a feast, one of the drunken guests called Oedipus his adopted son. Oedipus was terribly surprised and demanded an explanation from his parents. But they were unable to reveal to Oedipus the secret of his birth. Then, in search of truth, Oedipus went to Delphi. On the way, he met a woman into whose mouth the god Apollo put the truth that Oedipus so wanted to know. The woman said to Oedipus: “You will kill your father. Marry your mother. From this marriage children will be born who will be cursed by gods and people.” Oedipus was horrified. He didn't know who his real parents were. So how can he avoid parricide and incest with his mother? What to do? What if his real parents are Polybus and Merope? Then he cannot return home, so as not to accidentally commit these terrible sins.
And Oedipus decided to become an eternal wanderer. He didn't know where to go and chose a random road. This road led him to Thebes. It was fate. The command of evil fate. When Oedipus approached Thebes, a rich chariot rolled out towards him, accompanied by numerous servants. The warrior driving the chariot hit Oedipus with a whip to drive him off the road. Oedipus responded with a blow from his staff, and was about to get off the road when the gray-haired old man, the owner of the chariot, hit Oedipus on the head with his staff. Then Oedipus lost his composure and gave the old man such a blow to the head with his staff that he fell dead to the ground. The old man's servants rushed at Oedipus, but Oedipus killed them all. Only one slave managed to escape. This is how, without knowing it, Oedipus killed his father Laius. But, unaware of this, Oedipus did not feel any guilt for killing the old man and his slaves. After all, they were the first to attack him.
When Oedipus came to Thebes, he immediately heard two news that were on the lips of the city's residents. The first news was the murder of King Laius by some wanderer. The second news was about the terrible Sphinx, who settled near Thebes. The Sphinx demanded human sacrifices, and for disobedience threatened to destroy the city and all its inhabitants. It is unknown why, but the Sphinx was sent down to the city by the gods. The gods commanded the Sphinx to remain at Thebes until someone solved its riddle. Many residents of Thebes tried to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, but could not, and died. Then Oedipus decided to try his luck. He came to the Sphinx and declared that he was ready to solve its riddle. The Sphinx grinned, confident that his riddle could not be solved, and said:
- Okay, wanderer, I'll tell you a riddle. If you guess it, I'll leave the city. If you don't guess, I'll eat you.
“Make a wish,” answered Oedipus.
- Who walks on four legs in the morning, on two in the afternoon, and on three in the evening?
- So simple? - Oedipus was surprised. And I thought that your riddle would be really very difficult.
- Well, then answer! - demanded the Sphinx.
- This is a man. In the morning, that is, in infancy, he crawls on all fours. During the day, that is, in adulthood, he walks on two legs. And in the evening, that is, in old age, he often needs a crutch. Here's your third leg!
The Sphinx flapped her wings and threw herself off the cliff into the sea. The gods decided so. And Oedipus returned victorious to Thebes. The enthusiastic people of Thebes proclaimed Oedipus their new king. Having become king, Oedipus had to marry the widow of Laius Jocasta, that is, his mother, which he did not know about. Oedipus married Jocasta and she gave birth to two daughters and two sons. Thus the will of the gods, who decided to punish Laius, was fulfilled. Laia was severely punished by the gods. But why did they punish Oedipus so cruelly? There is no answer to this question. The gods are bashfully silent, and mythology does not know.
2. Expulsion from Thebes and death
We ended the first story about Oedipus with a rhetorical question: why did the gods punish Oedipus so cruelly? Since the gods did not deign us, mere mortals, to answer a question so unworthy of their status, we will try to put forward some version ourselves. As a matter of fact, only one assumption suggests itself: the gods punished Oedipus for the intention of his father Laius to kill his infant son. But should children be held accountable for the misdeeds of their parents? Again - a rhetorical question. And who will answer it?
The ancient Greek gods were “famous” for their cruelty, often excessive. (Although, can Cruelty be “dosed”?). I do not exclude the possibility that the cruelty of the gods served as an example to follow for many dictators who lived and are living on earth. Among the Greek gods, the god Apollo was particularly cruel. It was Apollo who cruelly punished Oedipus for his father’s act, making him a parricide and the husband of his own mother. But such punishment seemed not enough to Apollo, and he turned Oedipus’ life into cruel suffering.
Oedipus did not rule Thebes for long in peace and prosperity. The god Apollo sent a terrible disease to Thebes, which was later called the plague. The plague spared neither people nor animals. The city of Thebes turned into a huge cemetery. The streets and squares of the city were littered with corpses of people and animals. The Black Death rushed through the city, mercilessly mowing down all living things. The once rich herds of livestock died out, the once rich fields stopped producing crops. Death and hunger came to the city. In vain the inhabitants of the city made sacrifices to the gods and prayed to them for salvation. The gods were blind and deaf to the pleas of the people of Thebes. Then the townspeople turned their prayers to their king Oedipus. After all, he once saved the city from the Sphinx! Then Oedipus sent Creon, the brother of his wife Jocasta, to Delphi to ask Apollo for deliverance from these terrible troubles. If Oedipus had known whom he was asking for mercy, he would probably have turned to another god. When Creon returned to Thebes, he conveyed to the inhabitants the words of Apollo: “Disasters will end when the townspeople expel from the city the one who, by his crime, the murder of Laius, brought these disasters on Thebes.” Oedipus publicly swore an oath that he would find the murderer of King Laius and punish him. Of course, Oedipus did not know that he had vowed to find and punish himself. This is the kind of intrigue that Apollo spun! (When I write my next detective story, I will use such an intrigue as the basis of the plot!) Since Oedipus did not have the skills of a detective, he turned to the residents of Thebes with the question of how to organize a search for the villain? The people advised to ask the blind soothsayer Tiresias about this. Tiresias was brought to Oedipus, and the king asked the soothsayer to name the name of the murderer Laius.
But Tiresias refused to name the killer. Oedipus forced him to do this by threatening him with violence. As they say, I asked for it! Tiresias publicly accused Oedipus of murdering his father Laius and committing incest with his own mother. Hearing this, Oedipus fell into a terrible anger and threatened to execute the soothsayer for false accusations. Apparently Oedipus forgot what the woman he met many years ago on his way to Thebes told him. Remember? Through the lips of this woman, Apollo himself spoke: “You will kill your father and marry your mother.” But the inhabitants of Thebes did not give offense to the soothsayer. They knew that the mouth of a blind man had never been defiled by a lie. Here Oedipus’s wife Jocasta said her word. She told Oedipus about how Laius was killed and how his only son was abandoned in the forest. This is where the first doubts begin to creep into Oedipus’s soul. And he exclaims, turning not to Apollo, but to Zeus himself: “Oh, Zeus! What have you decided to doom me to?” The rhetorical question was asked again. But it seems that Oedipus already foresaw what fate had in store for him. However, he found the courage to find out the whole truth to the end. Oedipus ordered to find a slave who, by order of Laius, was to carry the baby into the forest. The old slave was found and brought to the king. And from the lips of this old man the terrible truth sounded. Finally, Oedipus “got to the bottom” of the truth. He learned that he was the son of Laius and Jocasta, that he killed his father and married his own mother. And his four children from Jocasta are his brothers and sisters on his mother's side.
When Jocasta found out the whole truth, she could not survive the horror and hanged herself. Oedipus went mad with grief and gouged out his eyes with his wife’s buckle, and then for a long time could not part with Jocasta, holding her on his lap.
The inhabitants of Thebes, fearing that the sins of Oedipus would bring upon them even greater wrath of the gods, demanded his expulsion from Thebes. And blind, decrepit Oedipus left Thebes, going into exile in a foreign land. His children turned away from him, except Antigone, who followed her father. Led by Antigone, the unfortunate Oedipus traveled through many countries until he found his final peace in Athens. When Oedipus realized that his last hour had come, he decided to die alone. Without a groan or pain, he went to the kingdom of Hades, and no mortal knows how he died and where his grave is.
Author's reading of mythology by Alex Gore, 01/19/2013
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