Facts:
Oedipus Rex is the second play in a chronological series of three plays written by Sophocles: Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus. For the most part, all three of these plays are considered tragic (Oedipus at Colonus is the exception, and is difficult to determine). Oedipus Rex is said to have been written circa 430 B.C. in Athens, Greece. The name "Oedipus" actually means "swollen foot" (significance explained further in discussion questions). Oedipus Rex was performed at several annual Greek festivals, during the season of Dionysus (early-Spring), with an approximate audience of 15,000 members. Majority (if not all) of these audience members knew the story of Oedipus by heart and were well aware of the ending of the play, yet they were still anxious to see it performed over and over again.
Questions:
1.) Do you believe that Jocasta was unaware that Oedipus was her son, or do you believe that she was aware who Oedipus was as soon as he arrived in Thebes?
2.) Consider this: the name "Oedipus" literally translates as "swollen foot," used to symbolize that Oedipus' feet were swollen because his ankles were bounded as a child. Do you believe this name was given to Oedipus as a coincidence or as a result of his true destiny?
3.) Do you consider Oedipus to be a protagonist or an antagonist in the play? Why/why not? Who do you consider to be the protagonist/antagonist?
4.) Do you see a significance in the "three cross roads" where Oedipus unknowingly murdered his father?
5.) Do you think the plague ended once Creon became king and Oedipus was exiled? (Consider the Chorus' speech at the end of the play says that all men are destined to be miserable).
6.) Do you think Jocasta committed suicide out of guilt (for sending her baby son to be killed because of a prophecy) or shame/embarrassment (out of knowing that she has slept with her son and birthed his children)?
7.) Why, in your opinion, does Tiresius (prophet) withhold the truth (that Oedipus is the murdered of Laius) when Oedipus first asks him? Do you think he is trying to save Oedipus from knowing the truth, or save the citizens of Thebes from knowing their beloved king is a murderer?
6. I don't think Jocasta committed suicide because she felt guilty about exposing Oedipus as a baby. Exposing babies, or leaving them outside the city walls/boundaries, was a normal concept for ancient civilizations. According to Greek mythology, Hecuba (wife of the Trojan king Priam), had a dream in which she gave birth to a burning torch that burnt down Troy. When she gave birth to Paris, they exposed him in the woods outside of the city. A bear found him and nursed him, until shepherds found him and raised him, and eventually he returned to Troy to confront his royal parents... and in the end he's the reason Troy was destroyed.
ReplyDeleteAnywho, I think Jocasta killed herself because she dishonored her family. She did an unforgivable thing by marrying and procreating with her son. Bringing honor to ones city and family was extremely important to the Greeks. If you mess that up by sleeping with your son then the only reasonable thing, for the Greeks, is to either go into exile or kill yourself. No one would want to help an exiled woman, so death was her only option.
2. Ancient people were pretty good at keeping things simple as far as naming goes. For example, the Romans named their children after either themselves or their ancestors. If your father was Cornelius, and you were a girl, your name would more than likely be Cornelia. Back to the Greeks, take the word "barbarian". They named foreigners who couldn't speak a civilized language (i.e. Greek) "barbarians" because when they spoke all that the Greeks heard was "bar bar bar" babble. The thought process with naming Oedipus probably went down like this: "What are we going to call him? Well... he has swollen feet. That's what we'll call him! Swollen foot! Problem solved."
3. I don't think Oedipus was the antagonist. I believe there was nothing more he could do if the Gods had already declared that he was going to kill him parents. So Oedipus trying to run or kill himself would've proved anything. But I do believe that maybe Jocasta could've been the antagonist due to hiding the secret of Oedipus being her son!!
ReplyDelete1.) Do you believe that Jocasta was unaware that Oedipus was her son, or do you believe that she was aware who Oedipus was as soon as he arrived in Thebes?
ReplyDeleteI believe that Jocasta was unaware that Oedipus was her son because this all could’ve been avoided if she knew. She tried to kill Oedipus once and although she failed miserably, I’m pretty sure she would have tried again if she knew from the start. I know it was destiny and faith and the Gods probably would’ve intervened, but that more than likely wouldn’t have stopped her from trying again; she didn’t care about the Gods or the consequences then, so why now. If you ask me, I think she had a hunch, I mean she wasn’t completely in the dark, she had a flashlight. I think she may have suspected something was up, but it never became serious enough for her to actually question anything or to deal with the eventual truth. In other words, she wasn’t saying yes, but she wasn’t saying no either. In fact, when Oedipus began to wonder and interrogate, she didn’t like it and tried to put a stop to it. Of course, she failed…again, but that’s beside the point; at that moment she realized what she had suspected was true and had to cope with it. There was no mistake; the details were specific, everything made sense and the truth was exposed. Obviously, she didn’t take it too well….I don’t blame her.
2.) Consider this: the name "Oedipus" literally translates as "swollen foot," used to symbolize that Oedipus' feet were swollen because his ankles were bounded as a child. Do you believe this name was given to Oedipus as a coincidence or as a result of his true destiny?
I think his name was more than just a coincidence. First of all, if it was just a coincidence, that blows and takes a lot of “invisible” info out of the story. Second, the name’s meaning stinks, figuratively and literally. Why would you give an innocent, sweet baby such an awful name like that (I thought it was cool at first until I saw what it meant). I could go on and on, mainly about how the name sucks, but it had to be destiny because it makes sense. It’s obvious, clever and lame at the same time, now that’s a tragedy.
7.) Why, in your opinion, does Tiresius (prophet) withhold the truth (that Oedipus is the murdered of Laius) when Oedipus first asks him? Do you think he is trying to save Oedipus from knowing the truth, or save the citizens of Thebes from knowing their beloved king is a murderer?
I suppose Tiresius didn’t tell Oedipus the truth because he wanted to save him from himself. Whether you believe in them or not, Tiresius was a prophet so he saw this day coming waaaayyyy before it happened. He knew it was going to happen; it was just a matter of when. I think he knew that Oedipus and the others wouldn’t be able to handle the truth too, because as we all know, they kind of went berserk and even though he was disrespected, he couldn’t be the one to set it all off. In fact, if Oedipus wouldn’t have pissed T off, he may have even helped him change at least the aftermath of his destiny. He may have had a better outcome with the blind man (who saw all) on his side, but instead he lost his people, mother/wife, kids and eyes. They should have named him something else because swollen feet were the least of his problems when everything went down.
P.S. Creon gangsta
7. I think the prophet was trying to do both. I mean come on who in real life wants to tell a friend or someone you care about something bizarre like that. But any who either way it went Oedipus would've figured out he was the one who killed him. And as far as the people of Themes finding out...forget them its not about them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I meant Oedipus is not the antagonist.
ReplyDelete3.) Do you consider Oedipus to be a protagonist or an antagonist in the play? Why/why not? Who do you consider to be the protagonist/antagonist?
ReplyDeleteI consider Oedipus to be the protagonist. One definition for protagonist is the first actor in ancient Greek drama, who played not only the main role, but also other roles when the main character was offstage. The play focuses mainly on Oedipus and his terrible prophecy and the realization of the truth.
3.) Do you consider Oedipus to be a protagonist or an antagonist in the play? Why/why not? Who do you consider to be the protagonist/antagonist?
ReplyDeleteHere's something that's worth considering: when dealing with ancient drama (or really any drama that isn't contemporary) we have to be careful we don't "think" it anachronistically: looking at Oedipus and wondering where the capitalist criticism is in the text is a fundamental misreading, just as asking who the tragic hero is in Killer Joe would be problematic.
Note that I don't think the above question is bad by any stretch of the imagination; people are answering that question and talking about it, and that's a good thing!
But I think the question is a good opportunity for us to remember that reading an ancient play is almost like an act of translation; just as the person responsible for turning Attic Greek into English has to render the text readable, we have to remain mindful that the things modern audiences look for in plays might say more about us than they do about the plays themselves.
I think the "protagonist" / "antagonist" question is a good example of that: both words have Greek derivations ("protagonistes" and "antagonistes" are pretty good Romanizations of the Attic words in question).
But the uses of the words in the ancient language doesn't map out neatly onto the drama of the time - the words began being used in the sense that Sydney brings up around the 19th century (that's the advent of Scrieb's "Well-Made Play" style of playwriting in melodrama).
"Protagonistes" in the Attic refers to the lead actor of a production; but the other (one or two) actors were dubbed the "deuteragonist" (second actor) and "tritagonist" (third actor), respectively. Although the Protagonistes played the lead role (and in some plays only the lead role), all of the other roles were played by the remaining actors; all actors wore stylized masks onstage, and would swap masks as the character(s) required so that all in the audience could see who they were playing.
Antagonistes literally translates to something like "enemy" or "rival" - and like "nemesis" was frequently used when describing literal enemies. Its dramatic application came later in theatre history.
Again, it's not a bad thing to thematize Oedipus through the relationships between a main character and an adversary - it's actually fairly useful. But it's also a great opportunity to demonstrate the sorts of things theatre historians and translators have to take into consideration when we do our work.
As a modern reader, its impossible to remove the frames through which we view theatre and drama; but its also a challenge to us to remember that these frames affect our readings of the plays. Sometimes, even reading an ancient play is an intervention that does "violence" to a script insofar as we're importing meanings onto it that the play might not have had in its time period.