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TRAGEDY
&
OEDIPUS REX
SOPHOCLES
Born in Athens, Greece,
between 500-494 BCE
Belonged to an affluent
Athenian family
Wrote at least 120 plays,
90 of them tragedies
Died 406-405 BCE
SOCIAL & POLITICAL ATHENS
5TH CENTURY BCE
Athenian government was an “exclusionary democracy,”
run by elected officials in the form of an open assembly.
Only about 10% of the population was eligible to
participate.
Women, slaves, & “non-citizens” were excluded.
Although Sophocles was a member of the ruling class, he
was aware of the social inequalities in Athenian society.
His plays include repeated attempts to warn his fellow
Greeks of the divine retribution that would come to them
as a result of their prejudices & injustice to the poor.
RELIGIOUS IDEAS
The Greek pantheon consisted of hundreds of deities
in a complex hierarchy.
The familiar “Olympian” gods - closest to humans -
were a relatively small part of the overall scheme.
While immortal & powerful, the gods were not all-
powerful in the sense of our modern concepts of God.
The gods themselves were subject to FATE and to
each other’s will.
In Oedipus Rex, the Delphic Oracle is the prophet of
Oedipus’s doomed fate, but she’s not the cause of it - nor is
Apollo.
FATE & FREE WILL
The Greeks did, to some extent, believe in FREE
WILL.
Still, FREE WILL was not more powerful than
DESTINY.
Oedipus is a perfect example of the belief that, try
as they might, people cannot avoid the destinies to
which they are born.
Nonetheless, as Oedipus’s FATE is the result of his
father’s earlier misdeed, human FREE WILL cannot
be completely dismissed either.
OEDIPUS’S BACKSTORY
Laius - Oedipus’s birth father - was raised by a
single mother who ruled Thebes as her dead
husband’s regent.
Laius’s two young cousins usurped the throne
& plotted to kill young Laius.
So, Laius was smuggled out of Thebes and
given to Pelops, King of Pisa, to raise.
Laius became the tutor of Pelops’s favorite son,
Chryssipus, whom he abducted and took back
to Thebes.
OEDIPUS’S BACKSTORY
The two cousins having died, Laius claimed his throne
& held Chryssipus captive.
Pelops raised an army & demanded the return of his
son, but it was discovered Chryssipus was already
dead.
Laius & his house were cursed because of his poor
treatment of Pelops & Chryssipus.
When Laius married Jocasta, he was warned NOT to
have children by her because his son by Jocasta would
one day kill him.
OEDIPUS’S BACKSTORY
One night, while drunk, Laius imprudently disregarded
the prophecy* - and Oedipus was conceived.
Thus, while Oedipus is, to a large extent, a pawn of
FATE, at the root of that ill destiny is an act of FREE
WILL that went against nature and angered the gods.
Oedipus came to rule Thebes by solving the riddle
posed by the Sphinx and thus saving Thebes from
chaos and destruction.
WHAT WAS THE SPHINX?
The Greek Sphinx was a demon of death and
destruction and bad luck.
It was a female creature, sometimes
depicted as a winged lion with a feminine
head, and sometimes as a female with the
breast, paws and claws of a lion, a snake tail
and bird wings.
She sat on a high rock near Thebes and
posed a riddle to all who passed.
THE SPHINX
The riddle was: "What animal is that
which in the morning goes on four feet,
at noon on two, and in the evening
upon three?”
She strangled those who could not
solve the riddle.
Finally, Oedipus came along to save the
day.
OEDIPUS & THE SPHINX
Oedipus was the only
who could answer that it
was ”man, who in
childhood creeps on
hands and knees, in
manhood walks erect,
and in old age with the
aid of a staff.”
The Sphinx was so
mortified at the solving of
her riddle that she cast
herself down from the
rock and perished.
ORIGINS OF GREEK DRAMA
Sixth Century BCE
According to legend & recorded by Aristotle, Thespis
essentially invented acting by stepping in front of the
chorus & performing a solo.
The word “thespian” has come to mean “actor.”