Catharsis Of Fear In Oedipus

A Catharsis of pity and fear is a common thing to feel in while watching or reading a play, for both Ancient Greek and modern day peoples. The Oedipus play causes a great catharsis of pity and fear when Oedipus’s tragic fate is discovered, ‘ O,O,O, they will come out clearly! Light of sun, let me look upon you no more after today!’ (Sophocles 1296). According to Aristotle, this means the play is a “good” tragedy, and Freud’s Oedipus complex adds to this. In the play, Oidipos Tyrannos, Sophocles demonstrates a tragedy that causes catharsis of pity and fear to affect both modern and ancient Greek people. In order to understand how the Oedipus play caused a great deal of catharsis of pity and fear, one needs to foremost understand it. Catharisis is an out purging of emotion all at once in order to feel relived later. Cathsrisis of pity and fear makes the audience pity what has happened to the character, and fear that the characters’ fate will become our own. In the Oedipus play the audience pitted Oedipus’s tragic fate of marrying his mother and killing his father, and also feared …show more content…
Because modern readers do not have the same lifestyle its harder to fear what happened to Oedipus considering our modern technology and record keeping. Although, there is a chance that even today someone could unknowingly marry their mother and kill their father. That being said, there is a sense of fear a modern reader could take away, but more so in a lesser quantity. As for pity, I feel as though both the ancient Greeks and the modern day reader can feel the same amount of pity for Oedipus. When his tragic fate happened to him both groups of readers pity him because he was a good king and it is tragic that something so bad had to happen to such a great king. I believe modern readers, as well, try to relate with him more than the Greek audience