Thoughts on Oedipus Rex

            The play, Oedipus Rex, or the King, starts with a problem. The wonderfully crafted tale leads through the life of Oedipus as the story evolves until the end, where everything is fully revealed. the play begins with a plague striking the city of Thebes. The priest and the people cry to Oedipus for help. A prophet proclaims to the people that they must “drive the corruption” from their lands and they will be free. The priest, Tiresias, accuses Oedipus as the corruption saying that he killed the previous king of Thebes, Laius. He also says that the murderer, the corruptor, killed his own father and married his own mother. Jocasta tells the defiant Oedipus that the prophecy was made that her and Laius’s child would kill the father and marry the mother so they had the child killed. Oedipus begins to believe some of the prophet’s story as the events are unfolding. He summons a shepherd, who is the witness of the killing of Laius. A messenger comes and says that Polybus, the king who Oedipus thought was his father, is dead. The messenger then says that Polybus was not Oedipus's real father, but found him as a baby abandoned on a mountainside. The shepherd then arrives and Oedipus interrogates him about the killing of Laius. The shepherd tells Oedipus that he killed Laius, his own father. Now knowing that he is the prophesied child, Oedipus is overwhelmed with shock. Jocasta, his own mother and wife, kills herself because of the atrocity. Oedipus blinds himself when he sees that his wife/mother is dead. The play ends with Oedipus being taken away from his daughters, his sisters.

            The play is a tragedy. It ends in horror with the two main characters dead or exiled. It is not like many modern plays (from Shakespeare to modern) in that it is only one main event, rather than several separate acts or scenes. The entire play is set in a court with a large group of people observing everything that happens. It represents that no political scandal can be hidden from the citizens. While the play is a tragedy, and its characters are not typical of the people of the time, elements of Greek worldview are still expressed. The heavy dependence of prophecy, both by the oracle at Delphi and Tiresias, play an immense role in the play. The oracle’s prophecy caused a king and queen to try to kill their own son. Tiresias is presented as insane and is hated by Oedipus but eventually is found to be right. The word of the prophets is as much truth to the Greeks as the Bible is to Christians.

            The view of gods, and especially prophets, is very similar to that in The Iliad. Achilles knows that the prophets communicate with the gods and therefore deserve respect. Oedipus, like Agamemnon, refuses to accept the word of the prophets, and ultimately faces his downfall. Their lives are controlled by fate. Determined by a higher power, no human can escape it. The Greeks, as seen in Oedipus Rex and the Iliad, have a strong belief in fate. The dependence of the Greeks on the gods is not a correct worldview, but it was successful in that it served as the basis for the most powerful society in the world for several hundred years. As Francis Schaeffer points out, society must have a strong base to be successful. Christian society has its roots in Scripture and in God. The infinite standard serves as a basis for all belief and reason, and dictates our lives. The Greeks had that strong base in their gods. Greek society was far more intertwined with the idea of gods than the Latin society. Although they had the exact same gods, just differing in name, the Greeks were far more pious in their worship and devotion to the gods. They were still wrong with their ideals, but it was sufficient to support Greek civilization. This play was not meant to be a display of Greek worldview or ideals, although it did to a degree, it was simply a play. It was not the grand epic like the Iliad and the Odyssey. It did not have a specific moral like Aesop’s fables. It most certainly was not a parable like Plato’s cave analogy. It was simply a play, a system of entertainment for the Greeks. Its renown has lasted through the ages as one of the greatest tragedies of all time.