Oedipus Scholarship Flashcards
Wyle’s view on Oedipus’ hamartia
Oedipus’ hamartia is his arrogance, leading to hubristic behavior and his awful temper. Wyle’s sees his hamartia as a fatal flaw.
Wyle’s giving negative characteristics
Oedipus’ character caused the events before the play to occur: he tried to escape his fate – arrogant but understandable – resulting in it being fulfilled; his hot temper led to his killing Laius; he is proud of being a riddle solver but this was what led him to fulfil his fate/marry his mother
Wyle’s view on fate and responsibility
Oedipus’ own quest and character which motivates the action and leads to his realisation of the truth and suffering.
Rutherford on fate and suffering
“This is not a play of crime and punishment” (Oedipus does not suffer because he did something wrong, but because of fate)
Rutherford on fate and responsibility
Fate is not entirely fixed. Jocasta chooses to commit suicide; Oedipus chooses to blind himself, fulfilling Tiresias’ prediction.
Rutherford on double determination
The divine power and the human agent are working together, hardly separable.
Knox on Oedipus’ Character
the “Sophoclean hero” – inability to hear/understand is a key characteristic e.g. Oedipus won’t listen to Jocasta.
Knox on Hamartia
Aristotle does not mean us to think of hamartia as a “moral flaw”. A hamartia is a mistake. Oedipus does have moral flaws (he is human) but his hamartia is his offence (killing his father, marrying his mother) committed in ignorance.
Know on fate and free will
Oedipus is not a puppet. In Greek eyes, fate is predictable and inescapable but within it there is choice and freedom of action
Knox on character and free will
Oedipus’ own character leads to him discovering the truth: “what causes his ruin is his own strength and courage, his loyalty to Thebes, and his loyalty to the truth. In all this we are to see him as a free agent. And his self-mutilation and self-banishment are equally free acts.” [Knox gives positive characteristics her
Knox on religion
In Sophocles, the gods are not “just” but they are “real” and must be worshipped. This reflects contemporary worries during the War/plague.
“The play is a tremendous reassertion of the traditional religious view that man is ignorant, that knowledge belongs to the gods”.
Finglass on the downfall of Oedipus
The reversal in the play is that Oedipus goes from being the one who shows pity to being the one who is pitied [Note that most scholars, from Aristotle onwards, see the key reversal as going from being most successful ruler to being a powerless and most deeply suffering subject; Finglass gives a different emphasis]
Finglass on Oedipus’ motivation
Oedipus is enraged by Tiresias not because of his horrible temper but because of his passion to help his people.
Garvie on detective story
Much of the play’s “appeal for modern readers may derive from its resemblance in some respects to a detective-novel”. (It is not about his crimes but about his discovery of them and reaction to that discovery
Garvie on Oedipus character and downfall
“In one sense Oedipus does not fall at all….He never says ‘I wish I had not found out’; for he has gained what he values most – knowledge no matter what it costs.” We admire him for that.
Garvie on motivation
The search for the killer of Laius turns into “the search for his own identity. Laius is forgotten, as is his earlier determination to save the city from the plague” [Compare this with Finglass’ emphasis on pity as Oedipus’ motivation]. The shepherd is never questioned about the killing of Laius for which he was originally summoned.
Athenian audiences attitude to religion
i) gods are not just or fair but are real and need to be worshipped and respected
ii) oracles, especially the one at Delphi, are a fact of life. States and individuals consult them routinely on every matter.
iii) at the time, some people were becoming more skeptical and questioning aspects of traditional religion, such as oracles.
Athenian attitudes to democracy
i) the original audience would approve of Oedipus for being dedicated to the good of the city, for speaking out in public (when Creon suggests talking in private) and for following the wishes of the Chorus/people (in not banishing Creon despite his belief that Creon is guilty). Knox sees Oedipus as an ideal Athenian.
ii) the original audience would not like his increasingly tyrannical behaviour and refusal /inability to listen, or his hubristic behaviour in how he expects others to look up to him
Faber on Oedipus’ destructive behavior
When Oedipus stabs at his eyes, he is expressing not only his patricidal guilt, his unconscious need for castration, his regressive anger at the mother for having betrayed him, and his rage at himself for “ blindly “ undoing and destroying the mother; he is also ex
pressing his fear of reunion.
Faber on Self Destruction in Oedipus, why he blinds instead of suicide
Death is the consummation and the punishment; incest and death are inseparable. This means that to Oedipus the possibility of death and reunion with Jocasta is an anxiety-provoking possibility and that his self-mutilation is a regressive, unconsciously” realistic “ method of coping with this anxiety.
Faber summarized
- Oedipus’ psychological trauma from never knowing the truth about his family leads to matricidal behavior because of the sense of abandonment he feels.
- Oedipus’ relationship with Jocasta shifts from a sexual relationship to a maternal one when she dies. Murderous impulse arises because of the lack of primal trust, which was violated when he was an infant
Fingarette on fate and psychology
“decisive forces . . . transcend the conscious and voluntary; they surge out of the depths (or heights) which activate man but which are not controlled by him” Our psychology is our fate
