The Tragedy of Oedipus: When the Connections Are Made
Oedipus the King, a Greek play written by Sophocles, tells the tragic life story of King Oedipus. What make the play tragic is not the literal series of events that occurred, but the story and the narration behind the events. Several elements contribute to the difference between Oedipus’s own autobiographical accounts and what others know of him. It is only when that gap is closed that the reality of the situation is revealed.
However, Oedipus is a protagonist who encounters many obstacles during his search for the truth. One of them is that he cannot step back and see himself from an outside perspective. The other is the fact that he has no memory of his birth and where he came from. Therefore, he cannot, by himself, close the gap and bring the events of his life into unity.
In the beginning of the play, Oedipus ‘the Great’ is completely blind to the offenses he had committed. Indeed, he never thought the culprit who killed King Laius was himself. He feels that righteousness needed to be served and he would be the one to serve it, proclaiming,
And justly you will see in me an ally,
A champion of my county and the God
For when I drive pollution from the land
I will not serve a distant friend’s advantage,
But act in my own interest.[1]
Here we can see the extent of his pride and ignorance when he uses words such as “a champion”. He regards himself as a forceful and indomitable presence. To him, the fact that he killed someone and married someone else’s wife did not relate in any way with the death of King Laius or what the oracle had said about him and his mother. Ironically, it is the blind prophet, Teiresias, who not only sees the truth of Oedipus’s circumstances but he also recognizes Oedipus’s obliviousness to his situation.
To the king, Teiresias says, “You have eyes but see not where you are / in sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with. / Do you know who your parents are?” (Sophocles 28) Here sight is being associated with knowledge hence Oedipus’s limited sight equals limited knowledge. Oedipus might be able to literally see the present, but it is Teiresias who, perhaps in exchange for his current lack of sight, can see beyond the present.
Teiresias is the one who is able to foretell the past and the future, for example, “A deadly footed, double striking curse / from father and mother both, shall drive you forth / out of this land, with darkness in your eyesâÂ?¦(28)” What Oedipus believes about the past, or the story that he has told himself about himself, consists solely of what he remembers. Thus one can say that there is a strong link between how he perceives the present and what he recalls from the past.
This is where the fault of memory enters the equation. It is impossible for Oedipus to remember the details of every event in his life; such that he can recall immediately recall any memory. Therefore, it is only understandable that he fails to make certain connections such as the murder of a king and his killing a stranger on the road. However, later as Oedipus comes to a realization he says,
O dear Jocasta,
As I hear this from you, there comes upon me
A wandering of the soul-I could run mad�
I thought I heard you say
That Laius was killed at a crossroads�
What have you designed, O Zeus, to do with me?
O God, I think I have
Called curses upon myself in ignorance (Sophocles 42).
The truth is unveiled to him and it confuses him, to the point of “madness”. The mention of crossroads at this point also symbolizes how the memories can diverge. This natural flaw of his memory of his nature cannot be helped; neither can he be held responsible for being unable to remember his birth, as he justified later in the story,
In me myself you could not find such evil
As would have made me sin against my own.
And tell me this: if there were prophecies
Repeated by the oracles of the gods,
That father’s death should come through his own son,
How could you justify blame it upon me?
On me, who was yet unborn, yet unconceived,
Not yet existent for my father and mother? (Sophocles 133)
When he acknowledges the gaps of his own autobiography, the importance of the biography becomes evident to both the play and Oedipus.
For each memory Oedipus retrospectively unearthed, it was someone else that had to give him the hints. Indeed, with the example of Oedipus not knowing his parentage, the accounts of Teiresias, herdsman, the messenger, and Jocasta were there to provide the answer. They, in a sense, tell their version of his story. From that one can see the importance of the biography in providing the whole picture of Oedipus’s life and the resulting unity. Teiresias reveals, “I say you are the murderer of the king / whose murderer you see (Sophocles 26),” and, “He [the murderer] shall prove to be father and brother both to his own children in his house (Sophocles 30).” The herdsman in his final revelation says,
O master ,
I pitied it, and thought I could sent it
Off to another country and this man
Was from another country. But he saved it
For the most terrible of troubles. If you are
The man he says you are, you’re bred to misery (Sophocles 63).
The narration of the other characters slowly shines light in the dark corners of Oedipus’s mind, thereby completing his story. It becomes that the fact and the act of a murder and a marriage essentially does not matter until Oedipus is told of how and why these events happened. The actual events as Oedipus remembered them are quite universal but the story being told to Oedipus is unique. Thus a murder turns into a patricide and a marriage into an act of incest. A biography is, therefore, sometimes more concise with respect to the past, the present, and the future because it results from an outside point of view. That statement is supported by Oedipus himself as he said, “Drive me from here with all the speed you can / to where I may not hear a human voice (Sophocles 72).” For a human voice only tell him again the painful reality of his story.
The play involves another outside point of view, the audience, in making the play all that more tragic. The literary device used in this case to draw the viewer into the play is dramatic irony. By using this device, Sophocles assumes the audience already knows who King Oedipus is and how the story ends. In a sense, they are actively contributing to his biography just like the other characters in the play. Together, they can better feel the anticipation and turmoil as Oedipus discovers who he truly is and the meaning behind his actions. The audience themselves remember their own events and how sometimes things aren’t exactly what they seem to be. So the audience not only knows the role of the biographer, but also of the autobiographer. The comparison of actual events and the tragic narrative of the story is thus more effective.
Oedipus’s uniqueness made him a tragic hero in Oedipus the King. His uniqueness came not from himself but from the stories people tell about him. Unfortunately, in the beginning, he does not entirely remember where he came from and he doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle of his life. It is when others begin to tell him whom he really is that the disaster occurs. By closing the gap of his autobiographical accounts and other people’s biographical accounts, the essence of who Oedipus is exposed. He sees all there is to see,
Crossroads,
And hidden glade, oak and narrow way
At the crossroads, that drank my father’s blood
Offered you by my hands, do you remember
Still what I did as you looked on, and what
I did when I came here? (Sophocles 70)
In the end, he recognizes the significance of these ‘crossroads’ and how truths can be ‘hidden’. His memory is complete and yet it is what makes all the misfortunes come to light. The disjunction between the events of Oedipus’s life and the biographical narratives of those events show how Oedipus was unable to see the consequence of his actions as he lived them. That becomes the source of the tragedy.
[1] Sophocles, Oedipus the King, translated by David Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991) p.16
