Book #5 Oedipus Rex

          After a gap of 3 months, I have finally run out of excuses to put off updating this blog, although not many people read it. I guess the practice of thinking and then formulating them into structured sentences is still a helpful exercise to keep one’s mind alert and organised – otherwise my brain becomes a jumbled nexus of ideas with no beginning or end.

          In light of this needing one’s mind to be clear and able to process and organise information, I thought that I could write about a recent book I read and studied for my exams – Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (ISBN: 9780140444254). The play is based on the mythic tradition of Oedipus, who is prophesied to kill his father and commit incest with his mother. The play seems a straightforward process of self-revelation whereby Oedipus gradually finds out his origins, thus confirming that he has indeed fulfilled the prophecy of the Oracle at Delphi. I have to say that in writing this, I am assuming a basic understanding of the Oedipus myth.

          However, some scholars have suggested that in Sophocles’ treatment of the myth, we cannot take it for granted that he is merely adhering to the established facts of the myth, after all, there are other contemporary playwrights who change certain details of the story. An example would be Frederick Ahl’s thesis (ISBN: 9780801425585). He suggests that in fact, Oedipus is misled into believing that he has indeed fulfilled the prophecy when there is a glaring lack of substantial evidence to support his self-accusation. The warrant for such an unconventional reading is that these scholars have the mythic tradition in mind, but do not let that tradition override the actual play. Thus, in Ahl’s analysis, he considers the original Greek and shows that Sophocles has expertly used wordplays and ambiguities of speech to dramatise a story of Oedipus’ self-deception. I cannot go into further details about Ahl’s thesis, but it is quite convincing, at least for me. What I want to consider are some thoughts that reading Ahl’s argument and rereading the play have struck me.

  

          Firstly, speech is power. The ability to manipulate language and people’s emotions with the words we say give an individual so much power and authority over others who are less articulate. If we consider Oedipus as a play of language where characters are engaged in a contest of speech, then we begin to grasp the significance of Oedipus’ fall from greatness. But why do we say speech is power? It is because characters in the play have successfully (whether intentionally or otherwise) given Oedipus wrong information or vague information; and it is Oedipus’ inability to distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy sources that leads him to misinterpret facts.

          This leads to the issue of asking questions. I know it might seem trivial but I have begun to see how asking the right questions is crucial if we want to make right judgments. An example within the play is the question of the number of King Laius’ murderers (King Laius’ is the supposed father of Oedipus). Reports say that a gang of people killed the king and his entourage. But Oedipus insists that he killed an old man and all of the members of his party, and Oedipus acknowledges that this is probably the most crucial information that will confirm either his innocence or his guilt. However, when he meets with the supposed survivor of that incident, he fails to ask this most important question. He was distracted by the question of his birth and origins that he has forgotten the real issues at stake. This is another reason why we can affirm that Oedipus is wholly responsible for his tragedy – his inability to keep his head in a time of crisis.

          Thirdly and finally, be careful when speaking to masters of rhetoric. In our modern society, they would be the lawyers, the politicians and maybe the salesman. If speech is power and that the ability to ask right questions is a sign of discernment, then we must be careful when encountering people who derive their power and authority from the words they say, or more importantly, words they do not say. Silence and the lack of reliable information led to Oedipus’ misrepresentation of reality, let us not follow in his footsteps.

          The tragedy of Oedipus is then his blindness – his inability to distinguish truth from half-truth. The catharsis of the play is not Freud’s suggestion that he has fulfilled the Oedipal complex all of us dream about, but that we need to see what Oedipus fails to see. If we are unable to see past the web of lies Oedipus surrounds himself with, his tragedy becomes ours.

          Nevertheless, thankfully, God has revealed Himself to us in the form of His Son and He has spoken definitively that we are not left with half-truths about reality (Hebrews 1:1-3). Let us then be people who ask the right questions and be not swayed by false rhetoric.