Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex

In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus, the precocious child raised by the royalty of Corinth, is torn by the intense desire of the past. Ironically by searching in this direction, the forsaken king of Thebes accelerates into what some may call his "predetermined" fate. When the gods chose for Laius' son to be damned, they did so by twisting Oedipus' otherwise noble heart into eventual inglorious evil doom. This is what makes our protagonist, a powerful leader, both one to despise and one to pity intensely.

In the beginning of this play, Oedipus is ingenuous and vows to do whatever necessary it is to be done to the culprit of the murder of old king Laius. Like the futile attempts a dog makes chase for his own tail, Oedipus is determined. In his own hubris, Oedipus not only takes little heed for listening to the valuable information evoked from the respectable prophet Tiresias; he is as rash as to conspire the thought of treason from his old friend and brother-in-law (uncle). Having the prerequisite of the knowledge of the story of Oedipus, the audience is driven mad by our protagonist's ostentatious actions toward himself. If parricide were not enough, one may argue Oedipus as the epitome of great evil and catastrophe. Through proud actions, Oedipus nearly leads to the death of the noble Creon. The critic that believes in the evil that Oedipus represents would probably suggest that it was himself who chose his path; that he, through his actions, controlled his dark and bleak future.

The more obvious perspective falls into the belief of the hopelessness of Oedipus. If true, one may rightly deduce that no matter what deeds he may have achieved, he was destined for negative feedback. Oedipus' fate is much like the mathematical expression e^ipi: no matter what is done to it, the answer will ultimately be a negative one. Moreover, it is strictly near impossible for Oedipus, through his eyes, to have discovered his faults. Young "swollen foot" vowed to punish the killer of Laius in the name of justice. In the end, Oedipus succeeds in doing so. Greater than the respect for himself, he honors the code of a promise more than anything else. In the end, Oedipus stabs out his eyes with his mother's brooches (as if being punished by her) and leads himself into exodus. By this, a critic may feel a deep sympathy for him.

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