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Oedipus the King

© Jon Blackstock

Even with multiple readings, classes, and research, I gain little or no true catharsis from many of the great Western tragedies. When Hamlet dies, I find discouraging the task of blaming him for inactivity or for not trusting a ghost. When so many of the heroes fall, I still wonder "Now what?" or even "So what?" How has this character purged any of our fears or feelings of guilt?

The point of many of our tragedies seems to be that, since the character cannot escape his or her fate, that each of us, given a set of circumstances, would do the same thing. If I am right in this being at least part of the objective, then certainly there is a value in stating that each individual, being an element of the universe, is separated only by circumstance. This realization should promote tolerance and understanding, but after twenty-five-hundred years of theatre and even more years of literature-not to mention almost as many years of Buddhism and Christianity, we would be hard pressed to prove that modern society has benefited from such a realization or that we have realized and practiced such understanding at all.

I hold fast to the opinion that Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great is the greatest work of theatre since the tragic hero, realizes his hubris and overreaching in time to make a wise decision, moves toward the tragic fall but makes a humanitarian and peaceful solution in the end. Why can't we, rather than see what we might do in Julius Caesar or Brutus' situation, hope that we would do what Tamburlaine does in his situation?

Of course, a happy ending is not necessary to bring true catharsis, but something should be gained besides complete despair and desperation. To this end this week, we look to one of the only plays for which Sophocles had to settle for second place at the Polis Dionysia.

As Oedipus' early life creeps into the light, Jocasta has these words for her husband, king, etc.:

Fear?
What should a man fear? It's all chance,
chance rules our lives. Not a man on earth
can see a day ahead, groping through the dark.
Better to live at random, best we can.
...
Live, Oedipus,
as if there's no tomorrow.

What if Jocasta could have given Oedipus this advice before he left Corinth? This is obviously a play about the fatal irony of an unfortunate man who tries to escape fate and walks right into a prophecy, just as it about a hero who can save Thebes by "seeing" into the moment of the riddling Sphinx but cannot "see" the folly of his accusations against Creon or the truth of his past or present. As we will later be told in poetry, our greatest schemes fall apart, and as many world religions claim, only those who live in the moment live at all.

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