Oedipus And Sophocles

When the question was asked by E.R. Dodds saying, “In what sense, if any, does the Oedipus Rex attempt to justify the ways of God to man?” The candidates’ answers fell into three groups. The first group said how you get what you deserve, saying how Oedipus was not a good man and deserved his punishment. The second group said that the play was a “tragedy of destiny” because the play proves that no man has free will because they are just puppets in the gods show. The third group said that Sophocles was an artist and was not trying to justify the gods but was using the story to create an exciting play. According to Dodds, while yes these ideas were supported in the past, all of these ideas are false. These ideas were suppose to be dead and buried but these ideas are still around. This is why Dodds has decided to clear up the confusion. …show more content…
Aristotle’s view is that a highly esteemed hero falls due to a hamartia, or a fatal flaw. When people look at the play with the mindset of trying to find Oedipus’s fatal flaw, they see someone who is over-confident, proud, and quick to judge. How Oedipus speaks to Teiresias and Creon is what people use to determine these qualities. The issue is the crime committed happened years before this and Oedipus is already an “incestuous parricide”. That would mean the punishment was inflicted well before the crime, which is not how justice