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Delahoyde & Hughes
Orpheus
OEDIPUS REX
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Oedipus Himself:
A very telling instance of what's wrong can be detected in the whole
notion of the riddle of the Sphinx. Here's Joseph Campbell's discussion
of the riddle:
The riddle of the Sphinx is the image of life itself through
time--childhood, maturity, age, and death. When without fear you have
faced and accepted the riddle of the Sphinx, death has no further hold on
you, and the curse of the Sphinx disappears. The conquest of the fear of
death is the recovery of life's joy.
Hubris:
The Chorus:
The Drama:
Fate:
Irony:
Oedipus is rather impressive as a leader. He wants to take everything on
himself. When it's suggested he send for a prophet, he's already done it,
for example. Ironically, he doesn't follow through with how all this
applies to him, how he really is responsible for it all. Notice
(in most translations) how he uses the personal pronoun "I." He seems
full of himself, but there's a blind spot in the middle of all this
pomposity.
The Sphinx in the Oedipus story is not the Egyptian Sphinx, but a female
form with the wings of a bird, the body of an animal, and the breast,
neck, and face of a woman. What she represents is the destiny of all
life. She has sent a plague over the land, and to life the plague, the
hero has to answer the riddle that she presents: "What is it that walks
on four legs, then on two legs, and then on three?" The answer is "Man."
The child creeps about on four legs, the adult walks on two, and the aged
walk with a cane.
But! Has Oedipus faced the riddle? It looks as if Oedipus simply "got the
right answer"! Immediately one imagines the parade and hoopla
accompanying this first deliverance of Thebes, leading to Oedipus'
treatment as savior now again, a role in which he thrives.
(The Power of Myth, 151-152)
This is the Greek notion concerning arrogance from pride or passion -- a
human being not knowing his or her place as a mere human being.
The riddle of the Sphinx actually should jar one back to humility, should
align the consciousness with the rather humble condition of being human.
But again, I don't think Oedipus sees this at all: to him it's just a
matter of "getting the right answer" -- the difference between doing
really well on the midterm vs. actually learning something.
The chorus here serves to provide a more generalized view of the
situation and to key us into the larger consequences of the problem
besides the mixed-up life of one or a few characters. It can provide more
than the set-up, but additionally some analysis and comment. More modern
uses of the "chorus" can be found with the Supremes-esque singers in
Little Shop of Horrors and perhaps the mice in Babe.
Interestingly, no significant action takes place on stage. We hear about
dramatic spectacles second-hand. Also, there's no real suspense since the
story is well-known to its original audience. But spectacle is not what
Greek drama is about. (The Romans on the other hand launched productions
in which all the gory bits are conducted on stage -- but that figures.)
This is not a case of the cheesy "back in the old days of radio you had
to use your imagination not like today when everything is handed to you
on a silver platter you damn spoiled post-war delinquents" syndrome.
Instead, the point here is that the real effect of the play is not the
maiming nor the suicide but rather the "realization" itself as the true
tragic horror. It's a psychological drama.
We have a darker vision here than in the epics. Fate again supersedes the
gods, but here there don't even seem to be any gods, certainly not ones
that we can appeal to for their intervention. Here it's just the human
and his or her fate, which is stark, harsh, and frighteningly detached.
(This play is sometimes used to generalize a pronouncement that all
Greeks considered humans to be puppets.)
Perhaps the bigger they are the harder they fall. But happily, for all
the grisliness of the story, Oedipus emerges with a tad of dignity.
Insofar as he is to represent us all (Sophocles typically focuses on a
general human type), the tragedy is modified somewhat by the final
awareness.
There is the heavyhanded business of the literally blind "seer" vs.
Oedipus' metaphoric blindness, and then all the "light" and "darkness"
interplay. But there are many other true dramatic ironies in this play
also. The important matter here is to distinguish true dramatic irony
from what the media like to bandy about smugly as ostensible irony, which
is usually nothing more than coincidence, or not even that. Here's an
example from Walter Scott's "Personality Parade" in Parade
Magazine:
Q. How old was Rita Hayworth when she broke into films? Who were
the men in her love life besides those she wed? -- Titiana M., Detroit,
Mich.
The first two sentences of the "A" answer the questions. The rest is
bitchy bullcrap being passed off as fate. Her Alzheimer's is not "irony."
It's not even coincidence; really it's just a misfortune. There was no
irony involved in the situation surrounding Hayworth's statement about
Mature. So Walter Scott is a jackass, and so are a host of media people
invoking "irony" to pass off their manipulations irresponsibly to the
public.
A. Hayworth was 16 when she was hired by the Fox studio in 1935.
Between her five marriages, she was romantically involved with Victor
Mature, Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes, David Niven and others. Her affair
with Mature, she once confided to a reporter, "is one I'll always
remember." Ironically, Hayworth came down with Alzheimer's disease, which
deprived her of her memory.
Campbell, Joseph, with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. NY: Doubleday, 1988.
The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Volume I. 6th ed. NY: W.W. Norton and Co., 1992.