Today, the name Oedipus is typically first associated with inappropriate familial relations. And with a name linked so closely to such a despicable action, many unfamiliar with Sophale's Oedipus Rex imagine Oedipus must have been a man of no morals -- given that he married his mother and slaughtered his father. But the play itself reveals a more complex story of a righteous man who, because of a foretold prophecy and a hidden childhood past, ends up in the worst of ways.
Out of fear of a prophecy that their son would bleed the life from his own father and take his wife, Oedipus' parents -- king and queen of their realm -- an order that their first-born baby boy is taken out to the mountains with his hands and feet bound and killed. Yet obviously, this does not happen. The man tasked with doing the deed did not follow through and Oedipus ended up being raised by the King and Queen of another land. They raised him to be good and righteous. Oedipus grew up not knowing the truth of his past and loving his parents very much. And because of the love instilled into him for his family and kingdom, when he was told the same prophecy, he left home in an attempt to stop it. It is his love and desire to do the right thing that set him on the path to his end. His desire to protect his parents placed him at that crossroads with his true father -- whom he unknowingly slaughtered during an altercation. His love for the kingdom he inherited after correctly answering the sphinx's riddle drove him to find the previous king's murderer -- his father.
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In marrying the widowed queen, Oedipus' relationship with his birth mother drastically altered. Had it not been for the prophecy which drove him to the very woman he now calls his wife to order his death, her true connection to him would not have been unknown. But because of past actions that led to Oedipus growing up away from her, when they meet again, they do not recognize one another.
Due to the prophecy, the father figure in Oedipus' life is not his own. He felt nothing for the man he killed on the roadside. Nothing. When he should have felt everything. He was cheated out of that father-son bond. When the truth was revealed, Jocasta, Oedipus' wife and mother, hung herself distraught. And Oedipus, at the end of his wits and fallen from grace, could not bear to look at the results of his actions -- the ones set in motion by the prophecy -- and gouges his eyes out. He had done terrible things. Yet they were done with the best of intentions. When Oedipus left his home -- it was to protect his family. When he investigated the prior king's murder -- it was to avenge his death for the kingdom. He solved the riddle of the Sphinx and brought an end to the plague of his new kingdom. He was a well-loved and fair leader. Yet because of his and his parent's fear, he ended up murdering his father and having relations with his mother, fulfilling the words of the oracle.
Sophocles’ work is not about a soulless man capable of terrible things but of a tragic hero who, despite his best intentions and hardest efforts, commits the sins he went to such great lengths to avoid. Oedipus is so much more than a 'villain' and a terrible human. It is evident that Oedipus did not have a great life or history of origin, but his naive qualities are really what shapes the tragedy as a whole. The uncertainty led to a chain of events and revelations that made Oedipus' story a true tragedy. To Oedipus, who he was in the moment was insignificant to where he came from, creating turns in his character and significant events for the reader. He is, as the book examines, a flawed individual who makes mistakes and finds his way into sticky situations not entirely of his own creation. Not unlike the rest of the world.
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