In Oedipus Rex, the eponymous character attempts to thwart an oracle and in doing so unleashes tragedies far worse than he could have imagined. The suffering that King Oedipus unleashes upon the city of Thebes, Jocasta, and ultimately himself helps establish the play’s tragic vision about the inevitability of fate as well as the negative consequences that arise when one tries to outwit the gods and their oracles.
When applied to Oedipus, Northrop Frye’s statement, “tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape,” has both literal and symbolic significance. As king, Oedipus is the highest point in Theban social hierarchy. Because of this, the citizens of Thebes trust him and often beseech him in times of trouble. In the …show more content…
“She passed inside the hall in passion’s grip,/tearing her hair with all her fingers’ might,/and went directly toward her marriage bed./Arriving there, she slammed the bedroom doors/and called on Laius, dead for years, a corpse./She recollected times he ‘planted seeds by which he perished,’ leaving her ‘to bear his offspring misbegotten progeny.’/She cursed her bed: she bore ‘a husband by her husband there and children by her child’ (1239-1250). In an instant, Jocasta went from the blessed wife of King Oedipus to the disgraced woman who wed her son and fostered his children. Before her death, Jocasta often verbalized her skepticism about oracles saying, “Listen to me and learn a basic truth./No human possesses mantic skill./I’ve brief but cogent evidence of that.../That’s why I haven’t given any kind/of prophecy a moment’s thought since then” (707-710; 857-858); her evidence was refuted as the oracle that visited her prophesied that a child created by her and Laius would commit patricide. Her life and ultimately her death serve as examples of what happens when someone tries to outwit the gods. Initially, the oracle that visited her and Laius claimed that their child would kill his father. In an attempt to prevent the prophecy from happening, they “yoked his feet and had a man/abandon him on pathless hills to die” (718-719). The child survived and the prophecy he received …show more content…
Let him spend/his evil life in squalid solitude./And if my hearth is ever shared by him/and I have guilty knowledge it is, I call these curses down on myself”- Oedipus sentences himself to a life of wandering and demands to be made an outcast. Upon finding Jocasta’s dead body, Oedipus blinded himself with the gold brooches she wore before her death, because he believed he had no use for his sight as it only brought him misery: “I can’t conceive what brazen eyes I’d need/to greet my father there in Hades’ realm/or view my mother’s grief...Would I enjoy my children’s faces then and yearn to watch such blossoms blossoming?/That’s not a sight my eyes would ever seek,/nor are the city’s walls and battlements/or sacred statues, all of which I’m banned/from seeing...While sporting such a filthy stain, how could I meet another’s eyes with steady looks”
When applied to Oedipus, Northrop Frye’s statement, “tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape,” has both literal and symbolic significance. As king, Oedipus is the highest point in Theban social hierarchy. Because of this, the citizens of Thebes trust him and often beseech him in times of trouble. In the …show more content…
“She passed inside the hall in passion’s grip,/tearing her hair with all her fingers’ might,/and went directly toward her marriage bed./Arriving there, she slammed the bedroom doors/and called on Laius, dead for years, a corpse./She recollected times he ‘planted seeds by which he perished,’ leaving her ‘to bear his offspring misbegotten progeny.’/She cursed her bed: she bore ‘a husband by her husband there and children by her child’ (1239-1250). In an instant, Jocasta went from the blessed wife of King Oedipus to the disgraced woman who wed her son and fostered his children. Before her death, Jocasta often verbalized her skepticism about oracles saying, “Listen to me and learn a basic truth./No human possesses mantic skill./I’ve brief but cogent evidence of that.../That’s why I haven’t given any kind/of prophecy a moment’s thought since then” (707-710; 857-858); her evidence was refuted as the oracle that visited her prophesied that a child created by her and Laius would commit patricide. Her life and ultimately her death serve as examples of what happens when someone tries to outwit the gods. Initially, the oracle that visited her and Laius claimed that their child would kill his father. In an attempt to prevent the prophecy from happening, they “yoked his feet and had a man/abandon him on pathless hills to die” (718-719). The child survived and the prophecy he received …show more content…
Let him spend/his evil life in squalid solitude./And if my hearth is ever shared by him/and I have guilty knowledge it is, I call these curses down on myself”- Oedipus sentences himself to a life of wandering and demands to be made an outcast. Upon finding Jocasta’s dead body, Oedipus blinded himself with the gold brooches she wore before her death, because he believed he had no use for his sight as it only brought him misery: “I can’t conceive what brazen eyes I’d need/to greet my father there in Hades’ realm/or view my mother’s grief...Would I enjoy my children’s faces then and yearn to watch such blossoms blossoming?/That’s not a sight my eyes would ever seek,/nor are the city’s walls and battlements/or sacred statues, all of which I’m banned/from seeing...While sporting such a filthy stain, how could I meet another’s eyes with steady looks”