Themes Of Dr:Oedipus ( Drama)

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Themes Of 
Dr:Oedipus ( Drama)
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THE POWER OF #UNWRITTEN LAW
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After defeating Polynices and taking the
throne of Thebes, Creon commands that
Polynices be left to rot unburied, his flesh
eaten by dogs and birds, creating an
“obscenity” for everyone to see ( Antigone ,
231). Creon thinks that he is justified in
his treatment of Polynices because the
latter was a traitor, an enemy of the state,
and the security of the state makes all of
human life—including family life and
religion—possible. Therefore, to Creon’s
way of thinking, the good of the state
comes before all other duties and values.
However, the subsequent events of the
play demonstrate that some duties are
more fundamental than the state and its
laws. The duty to bury the dead is part of
what it means to be human, not part of
what it means to be a citizen. That is why
Polynices’ rotting body is an “obscenity”
rather than a crime. Moral duties—such
as the duties owed to the dead—make up
the body of unwritten law and tradition,
the law to which Antigone appeals.
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THE WILLINGNESS TO IGNORE THE
TRUTH
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When Oedipus and Jocasta begin to get
close to the truth about Laius’s murder, in
Oedipus the King, Oedipus fastens onto a
detail in the hope of exonerating himself.
Jocasta says that she was told that Laius
was killed by “strangers,” whereas
Oedipus knows that he acted alone when
he killed a man in similar circumstances.
This is an extraordinary moment because
it calls into question the entire truth-
seeking process Oedipus believes himself
to be undertaking. Both Oedipus and
Jocasta act as though the servant’s story,
once spoken, is irrefutable history. Neither
can face the possibility of what it would
mean if the servant were wrong. This is
perhaps why Jocasta feels she can tell
Oedipus of the prophecy that her son
would kill his father, and Oedipus can tell
her about the similar prophecy given him
by an oracle and neither feels
compelled to remark on the coincidence;
or why Oedipus can hear the story of
Jocasta binding her child’s ankles and not think of his own swollen
feet. While the information in these
speeches is largely intended to make the
audience painfully aware of the tragic
irony, it also emphasizes just how
desperately Oedipus and Jocasta do not
want to speak the obvious truth: they look
at the circumstances and details of
everyday life and pretend not to see them.
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THE LIMITS OF #FREE WILL
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Prophecy is a central part of Oedipus the
King. The play begins with Creon’s return
from the oracle at Delphi, where he has
learned that the plague will be lifted if
Thebes banishes the man who killed
Laius. Tiresias prophesies the capture of
one who is both father and brother to his
own children. Oedipus tells Jocasta of a
prophecy he heard as a youth, that he
would kill his father and sleep with his
mother, and Jocasta tells Oedipus of a
similar prophecy given to Laius, that her
son would grow up to kill his father.
Oedipus and Jocasta debate the extent to
which prophecies should be trusted at all,
and when all of the prophecies come true,
it appears that one of Sophocles’ aims is
to justify the powers of the gods and
prophets, which had recently come under
attack in fifth-century B.C . Athens.
Sophocles’ audience would, of course,
have known the story of Oedipus, which
only increases the sense of complete
inevitability about how the play would
end. It is difficult to say how justly one
can accuse Oedipus of being “blind” or
foolish when he seems to have no choice
about fulfilling the prophecy: he is sent
away from Thebes as a baby and by a
remarkable coincidence saved and raised
as a prince in Corinth. Hearing that he is
fated to kill his father, he flees Corinth
and, by a still more remarkable
coincidence, ends up back in Thebes, now
king and husband in his actual father’s
place. Oedipus seems only to desire to
flee his fate, but his fate continually
catches up with him. Many people have
tried to argue that Oedipus brings about
his catastrophe because of a “tragic flaw,”
but nobody has managed to create a
consensus about what Oedipus’s flaw
actually is. Perhaps his story is meant to
show that error and disaster can happen
to anyone, that human beings are
relatively powerless before fate or the
gods, and that a cautious humility is the
best attitude toward life.
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#SIGHT AND #BLINDNESS
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References to eyesight and vision, both
literal and metaphorical, are very frequent
in all three of the Theban plays. Quite
often, the image of clear vision is used as
a metaphor for knowledge and insight. In
fact, this metaphor is so much a part of
the Greek way of thinking that it is almost
not a metaphor at all, just as in modern
English: to say “I see the truth” or “I see
the way things are” is a perfectly ordinary
use of language. However, the references
to eyesight and insight in these plays form
a meaningful pattern in combination with
the references to literal and metaphorical
blindness. Oedipus is famed for his clear-
sightedness and quick comprehension, but
he discovers that he has been blind to the
truth for many years, and then he blinds
himself so as not to have to look on his
own children/siblings. Creon is prone to a
similar blindness to the truth in Antigone.
Though blind, the aging Oedipus finally
acquires a limited prophetic vision.
Tiresias is blind, yet he sees farther than
others. Overall, the plays seem to say that
human beings can demonstrate
remarkable powers of intellectual
penetration and insight, and that they have
a great capacity for knowledge, but that
even the smartest human being is liable to
error, that the human capability for
knowledge is ultimately quite limited and
unreliable.