Oedipus Scholarship

Question 1

Wyle’s view on Oedipus’ hamartia

Answer 1

Oedipus’ hamartia is his arrogance, leading to hubristic behavior and his awful temper. Wyle’s sees his hamartia as a fatal flaw.

Question 2

Wyle’s giving negative characteristics

Answer 2

Oedipus’ character caused the events before the play to occur: he tried to escape his fate – arrogant but understandable – resulting in it being fulfilled; his hot temper led to his killing Laius; he is proud of being a riddle solver but this was what led him to fulfil his fate/marry his mother

Question 3

Wyle’s view on fate and responsibility

Answer 3

Oedipus’ own quest and character which motivates the action and leads to his realisation of the truth and suffering.

Question 4

Rutherford on fate and suffering

Answer 4

“This is not a play of crime and punishment” (Oedipus does not suffer because he did something wrong, but because of fate)

Question 5

Rutherford on fate and responsibility

Answer 5

Fate is not entirely fixed. Jocasta chooses to commit suicide; Oedipus chooses to blind himself, fulfilling Tiresias’ prediction.

Question 6

Rutherford on double determination

Answer 6

The divine power and the human agent are working together, hardly separable.

Question 7

Knox on Oedipus’ Character

Answer 7

the “Sophoclean hero” – inability to hear/understand is a key characteristic e.g. Oedipus won’t listen to Jocasta.

Question 8

Knox on Hamartia

Answer 8

Aristotle does not mean us to think of hamartia as a “moral flaw”. A hamartia is a mistake. Oedipus does have moral flaws (he is human) but his hamartia is his offence (killing his father, marrying his mother) committed in ignorance.

Question 9

Know on fate and free will

Answer 9

Oedipus is not a puppet. In Greek eyes, fate is predictable and inescapable but within it there is choice and freedom of action

Question 10

Knox on character and free will

Answer 10

Oedipus’ own character leads to him discovering the truth: “what causes his ruin is his own strength and courage, his loyalty to Thebes, and his loyalty to the truth. In all this we are to see him as a free agent. And his self-mutilation and self-banishment are equally free acts.” [Knox gives positive characteristics her

Question 11

Knox on religion

Answer 11

In Sophocles, the gods are not “just” but they are “real” and must be worshipped. This reflects contemporary worries during the War/plague.
“The play is a tremendous reassertion of the traditional religious view that man is ignorant, that knowledge belongs to the gods”.

Question 12

Finglass on the downfall of Oedipus

Answer 12

The reversal in the play is that Oedipus goes from being the one who shows pity to being the one who is pitied [Note that most scholars, from Aristotle onwards, see the key reversal as going from being most successful ruler to being a powerless and most deeply suffering subject; Finglass gives a different emphasis]

Question 13

Finglass on Oedipus’ motivation

Answer 13

Oedipus is enraged by Tiresias not because of his horrible temper but because of his passion to help his people.

Question 14

Garvie on detective story

Answer 14

Much of the play’s “appeal for modern readers may derive from its resemblance in some respects to a detective-novel”. (It is not about his crimes but about his discovery of them and reaction to that discovery

Question 15

Garvie on Oedipus character and downfall

Answer 15

“In one sense Oedipus does not fall at all….He never says ‘I wish I had not found out’; for he has gained what he values most – knowledge no matter what it costs.” We admire him for that.

Question 16

Garvie on motivation

Answer 16

The search for the killer of Laius turns into “the search for his own identity. Laius is forgotten, as is his earlier determination to save the city from the plague” [Compare this with Finglass’ emphasis on pity as Oedipus’ motivation]. The shepherd is never questioned about the killing of Laius for which he was originally summoned.

Question 17

Athenian audiences attitude to religion

Answer 17

i) gods are not just or fair but are real and need to be worshipped and respected
ii) oracles, especially the one at Delphi, are a fact of life. States and individuals consult them routinely on every matter.
iii) at the time, some people were becoming more skeptical and questioning aspects of traditional religion, such as oracles.

Question 18

Athenian attitudes to democracy

Answer 18

i) the original audience would approve of Oedipus for being dedicated to the good of the city, for speaking out in public (when Creon suggests talking in private) and for following the wishes of the Chorus/people (in not banishing Creon despite his belief that Creon is guilty). Knox sees Oedipus as an ideal Athenian.
ii) the original audience would not like his increasingly tyrannical behaviour and refusal /inability to listen, or his hubristic behaviour in how he expects others to look up to him

Question 19

Faber on Oedipus’ destructive behavior

Answer 19

When Oedipus stabs at his eyes, he is expressing not only his patricidal guilt, his unconscious need for castration, his regressive anger at the mother for having betrayed him, and his rage at himself for “ blindly “ undoing and destroying the mother; he is also ex
pressing his fear of reunion.

Question 20

Faber on Self Destruction in Oedipus, why he blinds instead of suicide

Answer 20

Death is the consummation and the punishment; incest and death are inseparable. This means that to Oedipus the possibility of death and reunion with Jocasta is an anxiety-provoking possibility and that his self-mutilation is a regressive, unconsciously” realistic “ method of coping with this anxiety.

Question 21

Faber summarized

Answer 21

• Oedipus’ psychological trauma from never knowing the truth about his family leads to matricidal behavior because of the sense of abandonment he feels.
• Oedipus’ relationship with Jocasta shifts from a sexual relationship to a maternal one when she dies. Murderous impulse arises because of the lack of primal trust, which was violated when he was an infant

Question 22

Fingarette on fate and psychology

Answer 22

“decisive forces . . . transcend the conscious and voluntary; they surge out of the depths (or heights) which activate man but which are not controlled by him” Our psychology is our fate