The Themes Of The Guilt In Sophocles's Oedipus The King

Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is a play that has confounded many scholars throughout the ages. There is debate over Sophocles’ purpose in writing this play–what message was he trying to get across? Almost as is important is the controversy over Oedipus’ guilt–was he really guilty? Two particular scholars attempt to explore these questions–P.H. Vellacott and Edwin Muir. In “The Guilt of Oedipus”, Vellacott argues that Sophocles wrote the play with a deeper intention to portray a just punishment for the deliberate crime of which Oedipus was certainly guilty, while Muir plays with images of darkness and light and the ideas of guilt and innocence in his poem “Oedipus”. Vellacott and Muir offer great insight into Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. Vellacott begins with the basic structure of Greek legends, comparing Oedipus with Agamemnon (137-138). He uses other Greek plays as evidence that Greek myths tend to have some sort of moral or message, a deeper meaning than simply entertainment. On the other hand, Muir’s poem toys with ideas of guilt and innocence within the images of light and darkness, taking on the persona of Oedipus. In contrast to …show more content…
Oedipus did not intend to kill his father “on that long vanished night”, but the fear of the fate he had been given (34, 40). Another example of innocence in darkness and ignorance is when Oedipus and Jocasta laid with each other “in that darkness, / Before the light struck /...without thought of sin” (Muir 10-12). Muir calls this act “pure” in itself, “for sin is born in the light” (63-64, 25). As Oedipus, he wonders if the two would have been innocent if their sin had never been revealed by the light (20-23). Muir calls Oedipus both “innocent / and guilty...an innocent mark of shame”