Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Study Guide

The Oedipus myth goes back as far as Homer and beyond, with sources varying about plot
details. The play that Sophocles presents is merely the end of a dramatically long story, and some
plot background must be provided to make the story understandable for modern audiences
(please see the section on ‘Oedipus and Myth’ for this full backstory). The real myth begins a
few generations before Oedipus was born. The city of Thebes was founded by a man named
Cadmus, who slew a dragon and was instructed to sow the dragon's teeth in order to give birth to
a city. From these teeth sprang a race of giants who were fully armed and angry; they fought
each other until only five were left, and these five became the fathers of Thebes.
Ancient Greek audiences would already know the background, and in fact the entirety, of the
Oedipus story. Therefore what makes this particular play so great is its ability to present this
material in an evocative and powerful manner, in order to nullify the reality that most of the
audience already knew its contents. Modern audiences might recognize the name Oedipus from
Sigmund Freud's famous "Oedipus Complex" - particularly his theory that young boys lust after
their mothers and see their fathers as competition for their mothers' favors. This theory springs
from Jocasta's comment that killing your father and marrying your mother are the kinds of things
men often dream of (981). Freud's theory has been hotly debated and, indeed, is currently
dismissed by most classical scholars – though the fact that the issue remains the subject of much
psychological debate is proof that the Oedipus story continues to be powerful even thousands of
years after the advent of Sophocles' play.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Character List

Oedipus
Oedipus is the king of Thebes, married to Jocasta. He is unaware, at the start of the play, that he
has murdered his father and slept with his mother. Soon he learns that it was he that put his
kingdom at such terrible risk, and blinds himself using a brooch. He has a 'tell-tale limp', a
piercing wound in his ankles, made as a child by the father who exposed him. This echoes his
name, which roughly translates as 'swollen-feet'. In line with most tragic 'heroes,' Oedipus has a
clear hamartia - or tragic flaw - which precipitates his woeful fate. in this case, it's his pride,
which allows him to disbelieve the Gods and hunt the source of a plague instead of looking
inside himself. That said, Oedipus' hamartia is not always so clear - since it appears that his
prideful sins occurred long before the start of the play. Indeed, Oedipus' greatest sin appears to
take place when he kills a man at a roadside in a fit of temper, suggesting that no deed goes
unpunished. Ultimately, however, Oedipus must pay the price for dismissing Teiresias' judgment
and the Oracle's prophecy, as yet another reminder that the Gods are infinitely more powerful
than men.
Jocasta
Jocasta is the wife and mother of Oedipus and queen of Thebes. Before marrying Oedipus, she
was married to Laius. She commits suicide at the end of the play, perhaps in guilt that she left
Oedipus to die as a baby, thus precipitating his course towards a tragic end for their whole
family.
Teiresias
Teiresias is the blind prophet, led by a small boy, who knows the truth about Oedipus's
parentage. Oedipus calls on him to find Laius's killer but becomes furious when Teiresias claims
that Oedipus himself is the killer. Teiresias's words, however, prove true ultimately, suggesting
that he is a mouthpiece for the Gods and an oracle to be trusted far more than the convictions and
hopes of man. Teiresias is often represented as being part-male, part-female in classical
literature.
Creon
Creon is Jocasta's brother, who shares one third of Thebes's riches with Oedipus and Jocasta. He
is a devout follower of the oracle of Apollo, and as the play opens, he is returning from the
oracle with the news that Laius's killer must be found. He is a loyal friend to Oedipus, and
ultimately remains forgiving and kind to Oedipus even when Oedipus turns on him and suggests
he is conspiring against him. He is to take over Thebes after Oedipus' exile. (Creon also takes
center stage in Sophocles' play, Antigone, which adds another chapter to Oedipus' doomed
lineage.)
Messenger from Corinth
The Messenger from Corinth arrives to tell Oedipus that his father, Polybus, is dead, and that the
people of Corinth wish Oedipus to be their new king. He also reveals to Oedipus, however, that
Polybus and Meropé are not his real parents. He says that long ago a stranger from Thebes gave
him a baby as a gift to the king and queen of Corinth. This baby was, of course, Oedipus who
would grow up to be king himself. The Messenger, then, provides the audience with the first real
clue of dramatic irony that suggests that Teiresias' words (and those of the Oracle) are true - long
before Oedipus discovers their veracity.
Herdsman
The Herdsman gives Laius' and Jocasta's baby to the messenger upon their orders - and is also
the same man who witnessed Laius's death. When he returns to Thebes and sees that the man
who killed Laius is the new king, he asks leave to flee from the city. Oedipus sends for him when
the messenger alludes to his intimate knowledge of the crime, in the hopes of discovering the
identity of his true parents. He then reveals that the baby he gave to the messenger was Laius and
Jocasta's son, adding one of the last pieces to the puzzle that will implicate Oedipus as the source
of the kingdom's plague.
Priest
The Priest's followers make sacrifices to the gods at the beginning of the play, hoping that the
gods will lift the plague that has struck the city. At this point, the followers believe that the Gods
have punished the city for some sin that must be rooted out. Oedipus, then, takes it upon himself
to visit the Oracle to determine whose sin it is and for how it might be atoned.
Second Messenger
The Second Messenger is a servant of Oedipus and Jocasta who tells Oedipus and the Chorus of
Jocasta's suicide.
Ismene and Antigone
Ismene and Antigone are Oedipus's young daughters who are led out at the end of the play.
Oedipus laments the fact that they will never find husbands with such a cursed lineage and begs
Creon to take care of them. Antigone, in the Oedipus at Colonus, will become her father's guide.
Chorus of Theban Elders
The Chorus of Theban Elders is a group of men who serve as an emotional sounding board and
expositional device in the play, reflecting on the plot developments while asking important
philosophical questions. The Chorus speaks as one person, but occasionally, single Chorus
members would have delivered lines. They might be considered somewhat meta-theatrical -
operating within the confines of the play while also having the power to step outside the
boundaries of the mundane plot.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Summary

When the play opens, Thebes is suffering a plague which leaves its fields and women
barren. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, has sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the house of Apollo to
ask the oracle how to end the plague. Creon returns, bearing good news: once the killer of the
previous king, Laius, is found, Thebes will be cured of the plague (Laius was Jocasta's husband
before she married Oedipus). Hearing this, Oedipus swears he will find the murderer and banish
him. The Chorus (representing the people of Thebes) suggests that Oedipus consult Teiresias, the
blind prophet. Oedipus tells them that he has already sent for Teiresias.
When Teiresias arrives, he seems reluctant to answer Oedipus's questions, warning him that he
does not want to know the answers. Oedipus threatens him with death, and finally Teiresias tells
him that Oedipus himself is the killer, and that his marriage is a sinful union. Oedipus takes this
as an insult and jumps to the conclusion that Creon paid Teiresias to say these things. Furious,
Oedipus dismisses him, and Teiresias goes, repeating as he does, that Laius's killer is right here
before him - a man who is his father's killer and his mother's husband, a man who came seeing
but will leave in blindness.

Creon enters, asking the people around him if it is true that Oedipus slanderously accused him.
The Chorus tries to mediate, but Oedipus appears and charges Creon with treason. Jocasta and
the Chorus beg Oedipus to be open-minded: Oedipus unwillingly relents and allows Creon to go.
Jocasta asks Oedipus why he is so upset and he tells her what Teiresias prophesied. Jocasta
comforts him by telling him that there is no truth in oracles or prophets, and she has proof. Long
ago an oracle told Laius that his own son would kill him, and as a result he and Jocasta gave their
infant son to a shepherd to leave out on a hillside to die with a pin through its ankles. Yet Laius
was killed by robbers, not by his own son, proof that the oracle was wrong. But something about
her story troubles Oedipus; she said that Laius was killed at a place where three roads meet, and
this reminds Oedipus of an incident from his past, when he killed a stranger at a place where
three roads met. He asks her to describe Laius, and her description matches his memory. Yet
Jocasta tells him that the only eyewitness to Laius's death, a herdsman, swore that five robbers
killed him. Oedipus summons this witness.

While they wait for the man to arrive, Jocasta asks Oedipus why he seems so troubled. Oedipus
tells her the story of his past. Once when he was young, a man he met told him that he was not
his father's son. He asked his parents about it, and they denied it. Still it troubled him, and he
eventually went to an oracle to determine his true lineage. The oracle then told him that he would
kill his father and marry his mother. This prophecy so frightened Oedipus that he left his
hometown and never returned. On his journey, he encountered a haughty man at a crossroads -
and killed the man after suffering an insult. Oedipus is afraid that the stranger he killed might
have been Laius. If this is the case, Oedipus will be forever banished both from Thebes (the
punishment he swore for the killer of Laius) and from Corinth, his hometown. If this eyewitness
will swear that robbers killed Laius, then Oedipus is exonerated. He prays for the witness to
deliver him from guilt and from banishment. Oedipus and Jocasta enter the palace to wait for
him.

Jocasta comes back out of the palace, on her way to the holy temples to pray for Oedipus. A
messenger arrives from Corinth with the news that Oedipus's father Polybus is dead. Overjoyed,
Jocasta sends for Oedipus, glad that she has even more proof in the uselessness of oracles.
Oedipus rejoices, but then states that he is still afraid of the rest of the oracle's prophecy: that he
will marry his mother. The messenger assures him that he need not fear approaching Corinth -
since Merope, his mother, is not really his mother, and moreover, Polybus wasn't his father
either. Stunned, Oedipus asks him how he came to know this. The messenger replies that years
ago a man gave a baby to him and he delivered this baby to the king and queen of Corinth - a
baby that would grow up to be Oedipus the King. The injury to Oedipus's ankles is a testament to
the truth of his tale, because the baby's feet had been pierced through the ankles. Oedipus asks
the messenger who gave the baby to him, and he replies that it was one of Laius's servants.
Oedipus sends his men out to find this servant. The messenger suggests that Jocasta should be
able to help identify the servant and help unveil the true story of Oedipus's birth. Suddenly
understanding the terrible truth, Jocasta begs Oedipus not to carry through with his investigation.
Oedipus replies that he swore to unravel this mystery, and he will follow through on his word.
Jocasta exits into the palace.

Oedipus again swears that he will figure out this secret, no matter how vile the answer is. The
Chorus senses that something bad is about to happen and join Jocasta's cry in begging the
mystery to be left unresolved. Oedipus's men lead in an old shepherd, who is afraid to answer
Oedipus's questions. But finally he tells Oedipus the truth. He did in fact give the messenger a
baby boy, and that baby boy was Laius's son - the same son that Jocasta and Laius left on a
hillside to die because of the oracle's prophecy.
Finally the truth is clear - devastated, Oedipus exits into the palace. A messenger reveals that he
grabbed a sword and searched for Jocasta with the intent to kill her. Upon entering her chamber,
however, he finds that she has hanged herself. He takes the gold brooches from her dress and
gouges his eyes out. He appears onstage again, blood streaming from his now blind eyes. He
cries out that he, who has seen and done such vile things, shall never see again. He begs the
Chorus to kill him. Creon enters, having heard the entire story, and begs Oedipus to come inside,
where he will not be seen. Oedipus begs him to let him leave the city, and Creon tells him that he
must consult Apollo first. Oedipus tells him that banishment was the punishment he declared for
Laius's killer, and Creon agrees with him. Before he leaves forever, however, Oedipus asks to
see his daughters and begs Creon to take care of them. Oedipus is then led away, while Creon
and the girls go back in the palace. The Chorus, alone, laments Oedipus' tragic fate and his
doomed lineage.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Glossary

agon
Agon is the Greek word for 'conflict.'
City Dionysia
Dionysia is a festival held in Athens, which includes a tragedy competition. (See 'About Greek
Theater' for more information).
dramatic irony
Dramatic irony is a situation in which the characters on stage do not know something (or some of
them do not know something) which the audience does know. Dramatic irony recurs throughout
Oedipus - for instance, when the Messenger suggests that he never killed the young baby that
Jocasta had given him, signifying that he clearly had grown up to become Oedipus the King.
Oedipus, however, does not realize this until much later.
oikos
Oikos is the greek word for 'household' or 'house' - often used to mean 'bloodline' or 'family'. It is
the opposite to 'polis'.
polis
Polis is usually translated to 'city-state', but as well as literally referring to the city, it can also be
the Greek word for 'citizenship', or 'body of citizens'.
satyr play
The satyr play is the fourth, probably comic, play that would have been performed after a trilogy
and written by the same author. The only surviving satyr play is Euripides' Cyclops.
skene
A skene is the permanent stone building at the back of the stage in which costumes and props
could be stored, and which served variously as the internal locations that the play might require
(houses, tents, etc.).
Thebes
Thebes is city in which the play is set and is often set up in classical literature as the 'other' or
'opposite' to Athens, where the City Dionysia took place.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Themes

Light and darkness
Darkness and light are tightly wound up with the theme of sight and blindness in Sophocles'
play. Oedipus - and all the other characters, save for Teiresias - is 'in the dark' about his own
origins and the murder of Laius. Teiresias, of course, is literally 'in the dark' with his own
blindness - and yet manages to have sight over everything that is to follow. After Oedipus finds
out what has happened, he bemoans the way everything has indeed "come to light".
Sight and blindness
Teiresias holds the key to the link between sight and blindness - for even though he is blind, he
can still see and predict the future (if not the present). At the end of the play, moreover, Oedipus
blinds himself, because what he has metaphorically seen (i.e. realized) leaves him unable to face
his family or his parents in the afterlife). As with the previous theme, sight/blindness operate
both literally and metaphorically within the play. Indeed, literal sight is juxtaposed with 'insight'
or 'foresight'.
Origins and children
Oedipus embarks upon a search for his own origins, and - though he does not realize it - for his
real parents. As the child of his own wife, and thus father and brother to his children, Sophocles
explores various interrelationships between where things began and who fathered who.
Similarly, the play itself works backwards towards a revelatory start: the story has, in effect,
already happened - and Oedipus is forced to discover his own history.
The One and the Many (also Doubles/Twos)
Throughout the play, a central inconsistency dominates - namely the herdsman and Jocasta both
believe Laius to have been killed by several people at the crossroads. The story, however, reveals
that Oedipus himself alone killed Laius. How can Laius have been supposedly killed by one
person – and also by many people?
Oedipus is searching for Laius’ murderer: he is the detective seeking the criminal. Yet in the end,
these two roles merge into one person – Oedipus himself. The Oedipus we are left with at the
end of the play is similarly both father and brother. Sophocles’ play, in fact, abounds with twos
and doubles: there are two herdsmen, two daughters and two sons, two opposed pairs of king and
queen (Laius and Jocasta, and Polybus and Merope), and two cities (Thebes and Corinth). In so
many of these cases, Oedipus’ realization is that he is either between – or, more confusingly,
some combination of – two things. Thus the conflict between “the one and the many” is central
to Sophocles’ play. “What is this news of double meaning?” Jocasta asks (939). Throughout
Oedipus, then, it remains a pertinent question.
Plague and health
Thebes at the start of the play is suffering from terrible blight which renders the fields and the
women barren. The oracle tells Oedipus at the start of the play that the source of this plague is
Laius' murderer (Oedipus himself). Health then, only comes with the end of the play and
Oedipus' blindness. Again, 'plague' is both literal and metaphorical. There is a genuine plague,
but also, to quote Hamlet, there might be "something rotten" in the moral state of Thebes.
Prophecy, oracles, and predestination
The origins of this play in the Oedipus myth (see 'Oedipus and Myth') create an compelling
question about foreknowledge and expectation. The audience who knew the myth would know
from the start far more than Oedipus himself - hence a strong example of dramatic irony.
Moreover, one of the themes the play considers as a corollary is whether or not you can escape
your fate. In trying to murder her son, Jocasta finds him reborn as her husband. Running from
Corinth, from his parents, Oedipus murders his father on the way. It seems that running away
from one's fate ultimately ensures that one is only running towards it.
Youth and age
'Man' is the answer to the Sphinx's question, and the aging of man is given key significance in
the course of the play. Oedipus himself goes from childlike innocence to a blinded man who
needs to be led by his children. Oedipus, it might be said, ages with the discovery of his own
shortcomings as a man. In learning of his own weaknesses and frailties, he loses his innocence
immediately.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King The Oedipus Myth

You will often come across myth discussed alongside any of the Greek tragedies you study. This
is simply because the Greeks tended to refer to myths for the source of plots for their plays,
rather than to invent plots of their own or to dramatize real-life events (in fact, Phrynichus'
play, The Sack of Miletus, got him a fine of 1000 drachmas for doing exactly that).
This is, perhaps, where the inevitability so often associated with Greek Tragedy stems from:
many or most of the Athenian audience who first watched these plays at the City Dionysia and
other dramatic festivals would be familiar with the story of Oedipus - and know what to expect
as soon as they heard his name.
The story that they would have known is the same as that of Sophocles’ play. What is
compelling, however, is the way Sophocles chooses to dramatize it – the precise way he
packages the well-known story into a play. The story of Oedipus itself is by no means
Sophocles’ invention, but he reorganizes the way the information is given so as to provide
maximum tension.
The story of the myth is as follows – in chronological order:

The King of Thebes was Laius, a descendant of Cadmus, and an oracle predicted, before the
birth of his son, that this son would one day be his father’s murderer. When born, Laius (and, in
some versions of the myth, Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother and Laius’ wife) gives the child to a
herdsman and orders him to take him out beyond the city and kill him. Out of pity for the child,
the herdsman gave the baby to another herdsman, tying his feet together and wounding them (in
some versions, Laius pierces Oedipus’ feet and exposes him to die, where the herdsman finds
him by chance). This herdsman took the baby to Polybus, King of Corinth, who adopted him as
his own son.
Oedipus, now fully grown, is told that he is not the son of Polybus, and seeks help from an
oracle, who tells him he is destined to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Oedipus –
presumably still thinking that Polybus is his father – flees from Corinth to Thebes in an attempt
to escape the fate the oracle has predicted for him. As he is travelling, he gets involved in a
dispute at a crossroads with a man in a chariot (Laius, his birth father) – and kills him.

As he approaches Thebes, Oedipus is approached by the Sphinx, who proposes her famous
riddle: ‘What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?’ – the
answer is man, who crawls, walks upright, and in his age, walks with a stick. The Sphinx, who
has been plaguing Thebes, is defeated – Oedipus has solved the riddle that no Athenian could
solve. In gratitude, the Thebans appoint Oedipus the king of Thebes (in Laius’ place) and reward
him with the dead king’s wife, Jocasta, his birth mother. Oedipus and Jocasta have four children:
two daughters (Electra and Ismene) and two sons (Polyneices and Eteocles).

At this point, Sophocles' play begins. Years later, a plague strikes Thebes, and Oedipus as King
promises to end it. He sends Creon, Jocasta’s brother, to the Delphic Oracle to seek guidance and
is told that the murderer of Laius must be found and either killed or exiled (depending, again, on
which version you read). As he begins to search for the killer, he encounters (or sends for)
Tiresias, who tells him that he is the killer of Laius and warns him that he will only be seeking
out himself. Oedipus ignores this advice.
A messenger arrives from Corinth giving Oedipus the news that Polybus is dead, and it seems
the oracle’s prophecy for Oedipus has failed to come true. The herdsman who delivered him to
Corinth then appears and informs Oedipus that he is an adopted baby. Jocasta, hearing this,
realizes what has happened and kills herself. Oedipus seeks out the herdsman initially ordered to
murder him as a baby, and learns that the infant raised by Polybus and Merope (his wife) was in
fact the son of Laius and Jocasta. He finally realizes that, at the crossroads, he killed his father,
and is married to his own mother. Notably in Sophocles' play, the Corinthian Messenger is also
the first herdsman: a small, but concise tweak.

Oedipus finds Jocasta dead, and blinds himself. He then (in Sophocles) leaves the city, and with
his daughter Antigone as his guide, wanders blindly through the country, dying finally at
Colonos. Some versions of the story have Oedipus commit suicide in Thebes, rather than leave
or be exiled.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Oedipus and Aristotle

In his Poetics, Aristotle outlined the ingredients necessary for a good tragedy, and based his
formula on what he considered to be the perfect tragedy, Sophocles's Oedipus the
King. According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story
that is complete in itself; in other words, the story must be realistic and narrow in focus.
A good tragedy will evoke pity and fear in its viewers, causing the viewers to experience a
feeling of catharsis. Catharsis, in Greek, means "purgation" or "purification"; running through
the gamut of these strong emotions will leave viewers feeling elated, in the same way we often
claim that crying might ultimately make you feel better.

Aristotle also outlined the characteristics of an ideal tragic hero. He must be "better than we are,"
a man who is superior to the average man in some way. In Oedipus's case, he is superior not only
because of social standing, but also because he is smart: he is the only person who could solve
the Sphinx's riddle. At the same time, a tragic hero must evoke both pity and fear, and Aristotle
claims that the best way to do this is if he is imperfect. A character with a mixture of good and
evil is more compelling that a character who is merely good. And Oedipus is far from perfect;
although a clever man, he is blind to the truth and stubbornly refuses to believe Teiresias's
warnings. Although he is a good father, he unwittingly fathered children in incest. A tragic hero
suffers because of his hamartia, a Greek word that is often mistakenly translated as "tragic flaw"
but really means "mistake". Oedipus' mistake - killing his father at the crossroads - is made
unknowingly. Indeed, for him, there is no way of escaping his fate.
The focus on fate reveals another aspect of a tragedy as outlined by Aristotle: dramatic irony.
Good tragedies are crammed with irony. The audience knows the outcome of the story already,
but the hero does not, making his actions seem painfully ignorant in the face of what is to come.
Whenever a character attempts to change fate, this is ironic to an audience who knows that the
tragic outcome of the story - as they know it in the myth - cannot be avoided.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King Useful Comparison Points

If you are writing an essay about Oedipus Rex, it is worth referring to the huge influence
that Sophocles' play has had upon later literature. Many, many plays, films and books have
drawn upon the story of Oedipus, and some of them might make excellent comparison. A short,
and by no means exhaustive, list of such works is below.
Aeschylus, The Oresteia (458 BC).
Seneca, Oedipus (first century CE).
Shakespeare, King Lear (c.1605).
Shakespeare, Hamlet (c.1600).
Shakespeare, Macbeth (c.1605).
Jean Cocteau, The Infernal Machine (1934).
Arthur Miller, All My Sons (1947).
Steven Berkoff, Greek (1980).
Edward Albee, The Goat (2002).
You should also read Sophocles' sequel to Oedipus Rex, composed at the very end of his
life, Oedipus at Colonos.
You might also, for a more humorous perspective, look at Tom Lehrer's song Oedipus
Rex (1959).

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King About Greek Theater

For the Greeks, the word 'tragedy' was used much as we use the word 'play' - but it does not carry
the same implications of our modern word 'tragedy'.

In Athens, the performance of tragedies took place as part of festivals - the most famous being
the City Dionysia, a festival which worshipped the god Dionysos. Dionysos is the god of wine,
of revelry, of theatre, of frenzy and of ambiguity - a reading of Euripides Bacchae goes much of
the way to explain some of the logic behind his association with the Greek theatre.
The price of a ticket to the festival was distributed by the deme (the local town council) to each
citizen whose record was good, and the audience sat in the open-air theatre below the Akropolis,
divided into the same ten wedge-shaped sections that they sat in for public meetings. It is
extremely clear, therefore, that, in the words of Froma Zeitlin "theater attendance was thus
closely linked to citizenship". The Athenian festivals, as well as celebrating Dionysos, were
designed to celebrate Athenian democracy and the power of the polis.

The festivals sometimes lasted several days, and involved sacrifices, choral singing, the
performances of comedies and religious rites as well as the tragedy competition; and one of the
key things to understand about the importance of agon in Greek drama is that these tragedies
were written to compete against other tragedies. Budding playwrights submitted three tragedies
together (though not always – and, in most instances, rarely – thematically linked together) and a
satyr play, and three playwrights were chosen to have their trilogies and satyr play performed in
a competition. Ten judges, chosen by lots, would then vote for, respectively, the first, second and
third prizes.
The Greek theatre itself was famously built with a fan-shaped auditorium, in what is now called
an ‘amphitheatre’ layout. Modern examples of this layout include the Royal National Theater’s
Olivier auditorium, and a Greek theatre of this kind survives at Epidaurous (pictured). The stage
was likely circular, and the back wall of the stage was probably a permanent stone building, the
‘skene’, in which costumes and props could be stored, and which served variously as the internal
locations the play might require (houses, tents, etc.). The performances themselves would have
included little or no props, and probably very minimal costumes. The actors probably doubled
several roles between them (Sophocles famously used three actors for his plays) and
differentiated between them by switching masks.

Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King The Oedipus Complex

The Oedipus Complex is a psychoanalytical theory created by Sigmund Freud (pictured) and
derived heavily from Sophocles’ play. Influenced by Freud, many later critics (and forward to
this day) find elements of the Oedipus Complex in the relationship between Hamlet and
Gertrude.
The theory dictates that all children feel sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex and the
death of the parent of the same sex, and is today believed to be manifest only in very young
children. In terms of the play, the Oedipus Complex is extremely unhelpful: firstly, because
Oedipus is not a child when Sophocles’ play takes place, but secondly (and more importantly)
because the play rests on the fact that he is unaware of the identity of his parents when he
respectively murders and sleeps with them.

Biography of Sophocles

As with all ancient writers, we can know little for certain about Sophocles' life: sources are few
and far between, and much of the information scholars have reached is the result of probability
and good guesswork rather than any biographical fact. Some of the sources directly contradict
each other.

Sophocles, usually considered the most accessible of the central triangle of Greek tragedians (the
other two being Euripides and Aeschylus), was probably born in or around 496 BC at Colonus,
near Athens, the setting of his Oedipus at Colonos (see, particularly, the Ode to Colonus in that
play at 668ff).
Sources tells us that Sophocles wrote 123 plays in his lifetime, of which we know the titles of
118. Of this huge output of plays (Shakespeare, in comparison, wrote somewhere between 36-39
plays in his lifetime) only seven survive: Antigone, Oedipus Rex (sometimes also called Oedipus
Tyrannos, Oedipus at Colonos, Ajax, Electra, The Women of Trachis, and Philoctetes. The tiny
size of this sample (around 6% of Sophocles’ total output) should be enough to discourage us
from making generalizations about Sophocles’ style or development as a writer.
All we know about Sophocles’ personality is from Aristophanes’ later play Frogs, which seems
to suggest that Sophocles was extremely good-natured and well-liked. Dionysus, in that play,
thinks Euripides a ‘scoundrel,’ likely to try and escape from hell, but Sophocles, because he was
good-natured on earth, is assumed to be good-natured in Hades.
His father, Sophillus, was not an aristocrat but rather a wealthy man, which meant that Sophocles
was given an excellent education. The first real glimpse of him in the sources reveal that he was
chosen after the defeat of the Persians to lead a boys’ choir in singing a paean around the trophy
of victory, and further accompany the proceedings on the harp.

Nothing more is known about Sophocles until he first appears as a tragic poet at one of the
Athenian Festivals (see About Greek Theatre) in 468 BC (indeed, we have clearer records for
these festivals than we do for Sophocles’ life story). He would then have been about twenty-eight
years of age, and was entering his first trilogy against the extremely well-renowned Aeschylus.
Supposedly, the excitement at this festival was so high that the ten generals, rather than a jury
drawn by lots, were asked to decide the winner. They chose Sophocles.
From that point forward, Sophocles seems to have entered tragedies in the competitions
something like once every two years, generally winning first prize. He won either eighteen or
twenty-four first places at the City Dionysia, and never placed lower than second – and won
several other prizes at the Lenaea. Oedipus Tyrannus, incidently, did not place first: the poet
Philocles, on this occasion, won the prize (though it is possible that Philocles was entering using
the tragedies of his uncle, Aeschylus, rather than ones he had himself written!). No full trilogy of
Sophocles’ survives: the so-called ‘Theban Plays’, of which Oedipus Tyrannus is one, is not
actually a full trilogy, and were not written in the order of their story, across Sophocles’ lifetime
(Antigone comes first, Oedipus Tyrannus in his old age, and Oedipus at Colonos is only
produced after Sophocles’ death).

Sophocles is famously supposed by Aristotle in the Poetics to have added the third speaking
actor to the Greek stage (probably sometime around 460: Aeschylus’ Oresteia [which requires
three actors] follows two years later in 458 BC. Sophocles also supposedly increased the chorus
size, even writing a treatise on the use of the chorus within the plays (which has not survived).
The bond between Greek theatre and Greek society is also evident in Sophocles’ career. He was
a senior administrator in the Athenian Empire, and elected to become one of the ten generals in
charge of the military. He is also credited with introducing the cult of the healing god Asclepius
into Athens: a result, perhaps, of the great plague that struck in the early years of the
Peloponnesian War.

For many years, a long tradition of criticism held Sophocles above both Aeschylus and
Euripides, hailing his work as the apex of Greek tragedy. This conclusion, it might be said, has
undergone considerable revision, and any such value judgment would today be shot down by
classical scholars. That said, Aristotle praised him above all other playwrights, using Oedipus the
King as a model for the perfect tragedy in his highly influential Poetics.
Sophocles continued to write and serve in government well into his eighties. He died in c.406
BC. And yet, despite leaving us only a small sample of seven complete plays, Sophocles still left
a legacy powerful enough to make him one of the founding fathers of Western drama.

Themes
Main Ideas Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Power of Unwritten Law

After defeating Polynices and taking the throne of Thebes, Creon commands that Polynices be
left to rot unburied, his flesh eaten by dogs and birds, creating an “obscenity” for everyone to see
(Antigone, 231). Creon thinks that he is justified in his treatment of Polynices because the latter
was a traitor, an enemy of the state, and the security of the state makes all of human life—
including family life and religion—possible. Therefore, to Creon’s way of thinking, the good of
the state comes before all other duties and values. However, the subsequent events of the play
demonstrate that some duties are more fundamental than the state and its laws. The duty to bury
the dead is part of what it means to be human, not part of what it means to be a citizen. That is
why Polynices’ rotting body is an “obscenity” rather than a crime. Moral duties—such as the
duties owed to the dead—make up the body of unwritten law and tradition, the law to which
Antigone appeals.
The Willingness to Ignore the Truth
When Oedipus and Jocasta begin to get close to the truth about Laius’s murder, in Oedipus the
King, Oedipus fastens onto a detail in the hope of exonerating himself. Jocasta says that she was
told that Laius was killed by “strangers,” whereas Oedipus knows that he acted alone when he
killed a man in similar circumstances. This is an extraordinary moment because it calls into
question the entire truth-seeking process Oedipus believes himself to be undertaking. Both
Oedipus and Jocasta act as though the servant’s story, once spoken, is irrefutable history. Neither
can face the possibility of what it would mean if the servant were wrong. This is perhaps why
Jocasta feels she can tell Oedipus of the prophecy that her son would kill his father, and Oedipus
can tell her about the similar prophecy given him by an oracle (867–875), and neither feels
compelled to remark on the coincidence; or why Oedipus can hear the story of Jocasta binding
her child’s ankles (780–781) and not think of his own swollen feet. While the information in
these speeches is largely intended to make the audience painfully aware of the tragic irony, it
also emphasizes just how desperately Oedipus and Jocasta do not want to speak the obvious
truth: they look at the circumstances and details of everyday life and pretend not to see them.

X
Video SparkNotes: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World summary

Video SparkNotes: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World summary

The Limits of Free Will

Prophecy is a central part of Oedipus the King. The play begins with Creon’s return from the
oracle at Delphi, where he has learned that the plague will be lifted if Thebes banishes the man
who killed Laius. Tiresias prophesies the capture of one who is both father and brother to his
own children. Oedipus tells Jocasta of a prophecy he heard as a youth, that he would kill his
father and sleep with his mother, and Jocasta tells Oedipus of a similar prophecy given to Laius,
that her son would grow up to kill his father. Oedipus and Jocasta debate the extent to which
prophecies should be trusted at all, and when all of the prophecies come true, it appears that one
of Sophocles’ aims is to justify the powers of the gods and prophets, which had recently come
under attack in fifth-century b.c. Athens.
Sophocles’ audience would, of course, have known the story of Oedipus, which only increases
the sense of complete inevitability about how the play would end. It is difficult to say how justly
one can accuse Oedipus of being “blind” or foolish when he seems to have no choice about
fulfilling the prophecy: he is sent away from Thebes as a baby and by a remarkable coincidence
saved and raised as a prince in Corinth. Hearing that he is fated to kill his father, he flees Corinth
and, by a still more remarkable coincidence, ends up back in Thebes, now king and husband in
his actual father’s place. Oedipus seems only to desire to flee his fate, but his fate continually
catches up with him. Many people have tried to argue that Oedipus brings about his catastrophe
because of a “tragic flaw,” but nobody has managed to create a consensus about what Oedipus’s
flaw actually is. Perhaps his story is meant to show that error and disaster can happen to anyone,
that human beings are relatively powerless before fate or the gods, and that a cautious humility is
the best attitude toward life.

Motifs
Main Ideas Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes.

Suicide
Almost every character who dies in the three Theban plays does so at his or her own hand (or
own will, as is the case in Oedipus at Colonus). Jocasta hangs herself in Oedipus the King and
Antigone hangs herself in Antigone. Eurydice and Haemon stab themselves at the end
of Antigone. Oedipus inflicts horrible violence on himself at the end of his first play, and
willingly goes to his own mysterious death at the end of his second. Polynices and Eteocles die
in battle with one another, and it could be argued that Polynices’ death at least is self-inflicted in
that he has heard his father’s curse and knows that his cause is doomed. Incest motivates or
indirectly brings about all of the deaths in these plays.
Sight and Blindness
References to eyesight and vision, both literal and metaphorical, are very frequent in all three of
the Theban plays. Quite often, the image of clear vision is used as a metaphor for knowledge and
insight. In fact, this metaphor is so much a part of the Greek way of thinking that it is almost not
a metaphor at all, just as in modern English: to say “I see the truth” or “I see the way things are”
is a perfectly ordinary use of language. However, the references to eyesight and insight in these
plays form a meaningful pattern in combination with the references to literal and metaphorical
blindness. Oedipus is famed for his clear-sightedness and quick comprehension, but he discovers
that he has been blind to the truth for many years, and then he blinds himself so as not to have to
look on his own children/siblings. Creon is prone to a similar blindness to the truth
in Antigone. Though blind, the aging Oedipus finally acquires a limited prophetic vision. Tiresias
is blind, yet he sees farther than others. Overall, the plays seem to say that human beings can
demonstrate remarkable powers of intellectual penetration and insight, and that they have a great
capacity for knowledge, but that even the smartest human being is liable to error, that the human
capability for knowledge is ultimately quite limited and unreliable.

7 "Romantic" Gestures in Literature That Aren't Actually Romantic | The SparkNotes Blog

7 "Romantic" Gestures in Literature That Aren't Actually Romantic | The SparkNotes Blog

Graves and Tombs

The plots of Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus both revolve around burials, and beliefs about
burial are important in Oedipus the King as well. Polynices is kept above ground after his death,
denied a grave, and his rotting body offends the gods, his relatives, and ancient traditions.
Antigone is entombed alive, to the horror of everyone who watches. At the end of Oedipus the
King, Oedipus cannot remain in Thebes or be buried within its territory, because his very person
is polluted and offensive to the sight of gods and men. Nevertheless, his choice, in Oedipus at
Colonus, to be buried at Colonus confers a great and mystical gift on all of Athens, promising
that nation victory over future attackers. In Ancient Greece, traitors and people who murder their
own relatives could not be buried within their city’s territory, but their relatives still had an
obligation to bury them. As one of the basic, inescapable duties that people owe their relatives,
burials represent the obligations that come from kinship, as well as the conflicts that can arise
between one’s duty to family and to the city-state.
Symbols
Main Ideas Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Oedipus’s Swollen Foot

Oedipus gets his name, as the Corinthian messenger tells us in Oedipus the King, from the fact
that he was left in the mountains with his ankles pinned together. Jocasta explains that Laius
abandoned him in this state on a barren mountain shortly after he was born. The injury leaves
Oedipus with a vivid scar for the rest of his life. Oedipus’s injury symbolizes the way in which
fate has marked him and set him apart. It also symbolizes the way his movements have been
confined and constrained since birth, by Apollo’s prophecy to Laius.
The Three-way Crossroads
In Oedipus the King, Jocasta says that Laius was slain at a place where three roads meet. This
crossroads is referred to a number of times during the play, and it symbolizes the crucial
moment, long before the events of the play, when Oedipus began to fulfill the dreadful prophecy
that he would murder his father and marry his mother. A crossroads is a place where a choice has
to be made, so crossroads usually symbolize moments where decisions will have important
consequences but where different choices are still possible. In Oedipus the King, the crossroads
is part of the distant past, dimly remembered, and Oedipus was not aware at the time that he was
making a fateful decision. In this play, the crossroads symbolizes fate and the awesome power of
prophecy rather than freedom and choice.
Antigone’s Entombment
Creon condemns Antigone to a horrifying fate: being walled alive inside a tomb. He intends to
leave her with just enough food so that neither he nor the citizens of Thebes will have her blood
on their hands when she finally dies. Her imprisonment in a tomb symbolizes the fact that her
loyalties and feelings lie with the dead—her brothers and her father—rather than with the living,
such as Haemon or Ismene. But her imprisonment is also a symbol of Creon’s lack of judgment
and his affronts to the gods. Tiresias points out that Creon commits a horrible sin by lodging a
living human being inside a grave, as he keeps a rotting body in daylight. Creon’s actions against
Antigone and against Polynices’ body show him attempting to invert the order of nature, defying
the gods by asserting his own control over their territories.

Main Ideas

Key Facts
Main Ideas Key Facts

Full Title Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus

Author Sophocles
Type Of Work Play
Genre Antigone and Oedipus the King are tragedies; Oedipus at Colonus is difficult to classify.
Language Ancient Greek
Time And Place Written Antigone is believed to have been written around 441 b.c., Oedipus
the King around 430 b.c., and Oedipus at Colonus sometime near the end of Sophocles’ life
in 406–405 b.c. The plays were all written and produced in Athens, Greece.
Date Of First Publication The plays probably circulated in manuscript in fifth-
century b.c. Athens and have come down to modern editors through the scribal and editorial
efforts of scholars in ancient Greece, ancient Alexandria, and medieval Europe.
Publisher There is no known publisher of original or early editions. The most important modern
edition of the Greek texts, prepared by A. C. Pearson, was published by Oxford University Press
in 1924 and reprinted with corrections in 1928.
Tone Tragic
Tense Present
Setting (Time) All three plays are set in the mythical past of ancient Greece.
Setting (Place) Antigone and Oedipus the King are set in Thebes, Oedipus at Colonus in
Colonus (near Athens).
Protagonist Oedipus is the protagonist of both Oedipus the King and Oedipus at
Colonus. Antigone is the protagonist of Antigone.
Major Conflict Antigone’s major conflict is between Creon and Antigone. Creon has declared
that the body of Polynices may not be given a proper burial because he led the forces that
invaded Thebes, but Antigone wishes to give her brother a proper burial nevertheless. The major
conflict of Oedipus the King arises when Tiresias tells Oedipus that Oedipus is responsible for
the plague, and Oedipus refuses to believe him. The major conflict of Oedipus at Colonus is
between Oedipus and Creon. Creon has been told by the oracle that only Oedipus’s return can
bring an end to the civil strife in Thebes—Oedipus’s two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, are at war
over the throne. Oedipus, furious at Thebes for exiling him, has no desire to return.
Rising Action The rising action of Oedipus the King occurs when Creon returns from the oracle
with the news that the plague in Thebes will end when the murderer of Laius, the king before
Oedipus, is discovered and driven out. The rising action of Oedipus at Colonus occurs when
Creon demands that Oedipus return to Thebes and tries to force him to do so. The rising action
of Antigone is Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s orders and bury her brother.
Climax The climax of Oedipus the King occurs when Oedipus learns, quite contrary to his
expectations, that he is the man responsible for the plague that has stricken Thebes—he is the
man who killed his father and slept with his mother. The climax of Oedipus at Colonus happens
when we hear of Oedipus’s death. The climax of Antigone is when Creon, too late to avert
tragedy, decides to pardon Antigone for defying his orders and burying her brother.
Falling Action In Oedipus the King, the consequences of Oedipus’s learning of his identity as
the man who killed his father and slept with his mother are the falling action. This discovery
drives Jocasta to hang herself, Oedipus to poke out his own eyes, and Creon to banish Oedipus
from Thebes. The falling action of Oedipus at Colonus is Oedipus’s curse of Polynices. The
curse is followed by the onset of a storm, which Oedipus recognizes as a signal of his imminent
death. The falling action of Antigone occurs after Creon decides to free Antigone from her
tomblike prison. Creon arrives too late and finds that Antigone has hanged herself. Haemon,
Antigone’s fiancé, attempts to kill Creon but ends up killing himself. Creon’s wife, Eurydice,
stabs herself.
Themes The power of unwritten law, the willingness to ignore the truth, the limits of free will
Motifs Suicide, sight and blindness, graves and tombs
Symbols Oedipus’s swollen foot, the three-way crossroads, Antigone’s entombment
Foreshadowing Oedipus’s name, which literally means “swollen foot,” foreshadows his
discovery of his own identity. Tiresias, the blind prophet, appears in both Oedipus the
King and Antigone and announces what will happen to Oedipus and to Creon—only to be
completely ignored by both. The truth that comes from Tiresias’s blindness foreshadows the
revelation that inspires Oedipus to blind himself. Oedipus’s command in Oedipus at Colonus that
no one, not even his own daughters, know where he has been buried foreshadows the problems
surrounding burial in Antigone.

Context
Further Study Context

Greek Theater
Greek theater was very different from what we call theater today. It was, first of all, part of a
religious festival. To attend a performance of one of these plays was an act of worship, not
entertainment or intellectual pastime. But it is difficult for us to even begin to understand this
aspect of the Greek theater, because the religion in question was very different from modern
religions. The god celebrated by the performances of these plays was Dionysus, a deity who
lived in the wild and was known for his subversive revelry. The worship of Dionysus was
associated with an ecstasy that bordered on madness. Dionysus, whose cult was that of
drunkenness and sexuality, little resembles modern images of God.

A second way in which Greek theater was different from modern theater is in its cultural
centrality: every citizen attended these plays. Greek plays were put on at annual festivals (at the
beginning of spring, the season of Dionysus), often for as many as 15,000 spectators at once.
They dazzled viewers with their special effects, singing, and dancing, as well as with their
beautiful language. At the end of each year’s festivals, judges would vote to decide which
playwright’s play was the best.

In these competitions, Sophocles was king. It is thought that he won the first prize at the
Athenian festival eighteen times. Far from being a tortured artist working at the fringes of
society, Sophocles was among the most popular and well-respected men of his day. Like most
good Athenians, Sophocles was involved with the political and military affairs of Athenian
democracy. He did stints as a city treasurer and as a naval officer, and throughout his life he was
a close friend of the foremost statesman of the day, Pericles. At the same time, Sophocles wrote
prolifically. He is believed to have authored 123 plays, only seven of which have survived.

Sophocles lived a long life, but not long enough to witness the downfall of his Athens. Toward
the end of his life, Athens became entangled in a war with other city-states jealous of its
prosperity and power, a war that would end the glorious century during which Sophocles lived.
This political fall also marked an artistic fall, for the unique art of Greek theater began to fade
and eventually died. Since then, we have had nothing like it. Nonetheless, we still try to read it,
and we often misunderstand it by thinking of it in terms of the categories and assumptions of our
own arts. Greek theater still needs to be read, but we must not forget that, because it is so alien to
us, reading these plays calls not only for analysis, but also for imagination.

Antigone
Antigone was probably the first of the three Theban plays that Sophocles wrote, although the
events dramatized in it happen last. Antigone is one of the first heroines in literature, a woman
who fights against a male power structure, exhibiting greater bravery than any of the men who
scorn her. Antigone is not only a feminist play but a radical one as well, making rebellion against
authority appear splendid and noble. If we think of Antigone as something merely ancient, we
make the same error as the Nazi censors who allowed Jean Anouilh’s adaptation of Antigone to
be performed, mistaking one of the most powerful texts of the French Resistance for something
harmlessly academic.
Oedipus the King
The story of Oedipus was well known to Sophocles’ audience. 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. Oedipus solves the riddle and, since the king has recently been murdered,
becomes the king and marries the queen. In time, he comes to learn that he is actually a Theban,
the king’s son, cast out of Thebes as a baby. He has killed his father and married his mother.
Horrified, he blinds himself and leaves Thebes forever.

The story was not invented by Sophocles. Quite the opposite: the play’s most powerful effects
often depend on the fact that the audience already knows the story. Since the first performance
of Oedipus Rex, the story has fascinated critics just as it fascinated Sophocles. Aristotle used this
play and its plot as the supreme example of tragedy. Sigmund Freud famously based his theory
of the “Oedipal Complex” on this story, claiming that every boy has a latent desire to kill his
father and sleep with his mother. The story of Oedipus has given birth to innumerable fascinating
variations, but we should not forget that this play is one of the variations, not the original story
itself.
Oedipus at Colonus
Beginning with the arrival of Oedipus in Colonus after years of wandering, Oedipus at
Colonus ends with Antigone setting off toward her own fate in Thebes. In and of itself, Oedipus
at Colonus is not a tragedy; it hardly even has a plot in the normal sense of the word. Thought to
have been written toward the end of Sophocles’ life and the conclusion of the Golden Age of
Athens, Oedipus at Colonus, the last of the Oedipus plays, is a quiet and religious play, one that
does not attempt the dramatic fireworks of the others. Written after Antigone, the play for which
it might be seen as a kind of prequel, Oedipus at Colonus seems not to look forward to the
suffering that envelops that play but back upon it, as though it has already been surmounted.

Critical Essays The Power of Fate in the Oedipus Trilogy

Are people truly responsible for their actions? This question has puzzled humanity throughout
history. Over the centuries, people have pondered the influence of divine or diabolical power,
environment, genetics, even entertainment, as determining how free any individual is in making
moral choices.

The ancient Greeks acknowledged the role of Fate as a reality outside the individual that shaped
and determined human life. In modern times, the concept of Fate has developed the misty halo of
romantic destiny, but for the ancient Greeks, Fate represented a terrifying, unstoppable force.

Fate was the will of the gods — an unopposable reality ritually revealed by the oracle at Delphi,
who spoke for Apollo himself in mysterious pronouncements. The promise of prophecy drew
many, but these messages usually offered the questioner incomplete, maddenly evasive answers
that both illuminated and darkened life's path. One famous revelation at Delphi offered a general
the tantalizing prophesy that a great victory would be won if he advanced on his enemy. The
oracle, however, did not specify to whom the victory would go.

By the fifth century, B.C., Athenians frankly questioned the power of the oracle to convey the
will of the gods. Philosophers such as Socrates opened rational debate on the nature of moral
choices and the role of the gods in human affairs. Slowly, the belief in a human being's ability to
reason and to choose gained greater acceptance in a culture long devoted to the rituals of augury
and prophecy. Socrates helped to create the Golden Age with his philosophical questioning, but
Athens still insisted on the proprieties of tradition surrounding the gods and Fate, and the city
condemned the philosopher to death for impiety.

Judging from his plays, Sophocles took a conservative view on augury and prophecy; the oracles
in the Oedipus Trilogy speak truly — although obliquely — as an unassailable authority. Indeed,
this voice of the gods — the expression of their divine will — represents a powerful, unseen
force throughout the Oedipus Trilogy.

Yet this power of Fate raises a question about the drama itself. If everything is determined
beforehand, and no human effort can change the course of life, then what point is there in
watching — or writing — a tragedy?
According to Aristotle, theater offers its audience the experience of pity and terror produced by
the story of the hero brought low by a power greater than himself. In consequence, this catharsis
— a purging of high emotion — brings the spectator closer to a sympathetic understanding of
life in all its complexity. As the chorus at the conclusion of Antigone attests, the blows of Fate
can gain us wisdom.

In Greek tragedy, the concept of character — the portrayal of those assailed by the blows of Fate
— differs specifically from modern expectations. Audiences today expect character exploration
and development as an essential part of a play or a film. But Aristotle declared that there could
be tragedy without character — although not without action.

The masks worn by actors in Greek drama give evidence of this distinction. In Oedipus the King,
the actor playing Oedipus wore a mask showing him simply as a king, while in Oedipus at
Colonus, Oedipus appears in the mask of an old man. As Sophocles saw him — and as actors
portrayed him — Oedipus displayed no personality or individuality beyond his role in the
legend. The point of the drama, then, was not to uncover Oedipus' personal motivations but to
describe the arc of his fall, so as to witness the power of Fate.

In his plays, Shakespeare also created tragedy that revolved around a heroic character who falls
from greatness. But Shakespeare's heroes appear fully characterized and their tragedies develop
as much from their own conscious intentions as from Fate. Macbeth, for example, pursues his
goal of the throne ruthlessly, with murderous ambition. When the witches' prophecies, upon
which he has based his hopes, turn out to be just as misleading as any oracle's pronouncement at
Delphi, the audience is more likely to blame Macbeth for his heartless ambition than to bemoan
his fate with him.

In contrast, Sophocles' hero — even with his tragic flaw (as Aristotle terms it) — maintains the
audience's sympathy throughout the drama. The flaw of his character represents less a vicious
fault and more a vulnerability, or a blind spot. Oedipus' brilliance, then, is matched by his
overconfidence and rashness — a habit of mind that makes him prey to the very fate he wishes to
avoid.

Significantly, Oedipus' desperate attempt to escape Fate arises not from ambition or pride, but
from an understandable and pious desire to live without committing heinous offenses. Prudently,
he decides never to return to the kingdom where the people he believes to be his parents rule. But
when an overbearing man on the road nearly runs him down and then cuffs him savagely,
Oedipus rashly kills his attacker, who turns out be his father. So, just as he thinks himself free of
his fate, Oedipus runs right into it — literally, at a crossroads.

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus displays his characteristic brilliance and overconfidence in what he
regards as his heroic search for the murderer of Laius. He pursues the mystery relentlessly,
confident that its solution will yield him the same glory he enjoyed when he answered the riddle
of the Sphinx. Oedipus' self-assurance that he has taken care of his fate blinds him to it and
begins the fall that will end in his literal blindness. Thus he becomes the victim — rather than the
conquerer — of Fate.

In Antigone, Creon also displays a blind spot. Wrapped up in the trappings of power, Creon puts
his responsibility for Thebes above the laws of the gods and has to be reminded of the gods' will
by Tiresias. Creon's last-minute attempt to conform to the gods' wishes only reveals to him his
own inescapable fate — the destruction of his family and the end of his rule.

Antigone herself is painfully aware of the power of Fate, attributing all the tragedy in her family
to the will of Zeus. When she acts decisively, choosing to obey the laws of the gods rather than
the laws of the state, she seems almost like a modern heroine — a model of individual courage
and responsibility. Yet, before her death, Antigone shrinks in horror, acknowledging that she has
acted only within the rigid constraints of Fate; indeed, in that moment, her earnestness and
conviction fade as she feels the approach of her own doom. Antigone, like the rest of her family,
must yield to Fate — the curse that hangs over the house of Oedipus.

Oedipus at Colonus features prolonged debate and protestations over Fate, before granting a
unique blessing to the suffering hero. By the time of the story, a sullen Oedipus has grown used
to his role as the pariah, the greatest sinner in the world. Still, he argues to the chorus that he did
not consciously or willfully commit any crimes. At this point — the end of his life — Oedipus
concedes the power of Fate as the reason for his destruction; at the same time, he embraces Fate
in his death and fights vigorously to meet his end as the gods promised — at peace and as a
benefit to the city where he is buried. Ironically, then, the victim of Fate becomes part of the
force that has tortured him; his will to reward and to punish becomes as powerful as the will of
the gods themselves.

In Oedipus at Colonus — Sophocles' last play — the dramatist seems intent on making a peace
between the power of Fate and his willful, all too human hero. The chants of the chorus, as well
as the formal, poetic speeches of the characters, suggest that Oedipus' heroic suffering results in
a profound transformation into godlike glory. As tragic and terrible as the story of the Oedipus
Trilogy is, then, Sophocles grants his audience the hope that the blows of Fate lead not only to
wisdom, but to transcendence.

Critical Essays Ritual and Transcendence in the Oedipus Trilogy

In the great amphitheater of Athens, curious tourists can see an inscription on each of the marble
seats of honor near the stage: Reserved for the priest of Dionysus. The carved letters, still
readable after 2,500 years, attest to the religious significance of the theater in the culture of
ancient Greece.
For the Greeks of the fifth century B.C., the theater represented a sacramental place, where the
actors and audience joined together to worship. The drama — whatever its subject — was an
offering to the gods, a ritual that might bring blessing to the city.

The stage itself, actually a dancing area in the style of a threshing floor, recalled the most ancient
forms of communal worship. At harvest, people traditionally celebrated the culmination of the
growing season by worshipping the god of vegetation in wild, frenzied dances. At the Festival of
Dionysus, the stage became a more sophisticated platform for a similar experience — the
masked actors' loss of self in music and art for the creation of an emotional closeness with divine
power. And the chorus, while chanting their poetry, maintained the simplicity of the older
tradition in their obligatory dancing.

Sophocles underscores the connections between drama and the traditions of the fertility god
in Oedipus the King. Evidence of the trouble in Thebes emerges as a plague, a blight on the land
that ruins crops and causes women to miscarry. The close association of human and vegetative
fertility — and the connection of both to the capability of the king — represents one of the
earliest forms of religious belief. In Sophocles' time, the mysterious but vital union of humans
and nature still informed the culture. Accordingly, Oedipus' immorality — however unconscious
— pollutes the land, and only his removal and punishment will bring back life to Thebes. In this
context, Sophocles offers a ritual of death and rebirth, as well as a formal tragedy in Oedipus the
King.

In Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, Sophocles refers to a particular ritual that inspired and
uplifted many of his contemporaries, the Eleusian Mysteries, a rite that offered its initiates the
assurance of eternal life. In Antigone, when Creon decides to honor the gods' laws by burying
Polynices and freeing Antigone, the chorus rejoices with a triumphal paean (joyful song) to
Dionysus, calling him "King of the Mysteries!" (1243). The evocation of the god and the
mention of the rites at Eleusis underscore Antigone's premature burial and the expected joy of
her return to life, the promise offered to the initiates of the Mysteries themselves.

The references to the Mysteries in Oedipus at Colonus that extend throughout the drama in the
chanted odes of the chorus prepare for the conclusion of the play and the end of Oedipus' life.
The poetic allusions to the narcissus, the sacred flower associated with the Mysteries, and the
mention of the "awesome rites" (1199) of Eleusis keep before the audience the hope of life after
death. At the end of the tragedy, when Theseus witnesses the passing of Oedipus, a messenger
delivers a description of the hero's last moments that seems more a mystical transcendence than
the death of an old man. The promise of Eleusis, the audience can infer, has been made real in
the passing of Oedipus into eternal life.

Of the Eleusian Mysteries itself, modern readers know very little since those who celebrated
were sworn to secrecy. But the ritual represented a powerful, transforming experience for many,
including the great Roman orator and philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cicero (104-43 B.C.), who
praised the Eleusian Mysteries as the source of civilization itself.

The Mysteries recreated in imagination the search of the goddess Demeter for her daughter
Persephone (also called Kore), and so demanded a form of personal identification with a divine
figure, culminating in an intense religious (and dramatic) experience. The rite began with a
procession from Athens to Eleusis, where initiates fasted, sacrificed offerings, and drank a
special potion made from barley. At some later time, the initiates were blindfolded and led in
darkness to an underground cave where — in some unknown manner — they experienced a kind
of death, terrifying beyond words.

Afterwards, standing together in the darkness of an underground chamber, the initiates saw a
vision of Kore herself, rising glorious from the depths of the underworld. As fires illuminated the
chamber, the ritual celebrant held up a single stalk of wheat, proof of the gods' blessings and the
regeneration of life. The initiates rejoiced ecstatically, purged of fear, and confident, as they
attested, that eternal life was theirs.

Sophocles himself, in a fragment from Triptolemus, wrote of the blessings of life after death
granted to those who had experienced the transforming dread and glory of the Eleusian
Mysteries. And in his plays, as Aristotle explains, Sophocles proved to be a master in evoking
the pity and terror and producing the emotional catharsis that defines tragedy. Like the Eleusian
Mysteries, Sophocles' tragedies create a powerful emotional — even religious — experience:
The terror of a heroic self crumbling under the blows of Fate, followed by the purging of fear
and the coming of wisdom.

Sophocles' continued references to the Eleusian Mysteries indicate his high regard for their
power. It may be that in his drama, Sophocles was striving to capture a comparable intense
experience of dread relieved by hope and wisdom in an open, public context. For the original
audience and centuries of readers, the experience of the tragedies of the Oedipus Trilogy, like a
mystical ritual, gives a new birth to the human spirit and, perhaps, makes possible civilization
itself.