6.3 The Unthinkable Tragedy of Oedipus
The Williams family was killed when the brakes failed and their car smashed into a tree. What a horrific tragedy.
A disaster. A catastrophe. Immensely sad. But, for Aristotle, not a tragedy! That is, not a poetic composition that conforms to the structure employed by tragedians in Classical Greece.
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative (Poetics, Part IV).
Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time (Poetics, Part V)
Aristotle conceives of tragedy as drama acted out on a stage with an action plot confined to a single day. “Character determines men’s qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse”: thus Aristotle stresses the priority in tragedy of Plot among other dramatic elements, including Diction, Song, Thought,[1] and Spectacle.[2] Let’s sample some segments from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (c 429 BCE).
ARGUMENT
While Thebes was under the rule of Laïus and Jocasta there appeared a strange and monstrous creature, “the riddling Sphinx,” “the She-Wolf of the woven song,” who in some unexplained way sang riddles of death and slew the people of Thebes. Laïus went to ask aid of the oracle of Delphi, but was slain mysteriously on the road.
Soon afterwards there came to Thebes a young Prince of Corinth, Oedipus, who had left his home and was wandering. He faced the Sphinx and read her riddle, whereupon she flung herself from her rock and died. The throne being vacant was offered to Oedipus, and with it the hand of the Queen, Jocasta.
Some ten or twelve years afterwards a pestilence has fallen on Thebes. At this point the play begins.
King Oedipus has sent Creon, brother of the Queen, to Delphi for divine advice on how to deal with the pestilence oppressing Thebes. In the famous oracle of Delphi, a smoky cave, a prophetess answered people’s questions by drawing on the wisdom of Phoebus (Greek name: Apollo) god of wisdom and of the sun. The play begins with the King addressing the people and Creon sharing what he has learned.
Oedipus. My poor, poor children! Surely long ago
I have read your trouble. Stricken, well I know,
Ye all are, stricken sore: yet verily
Not one so stricken to the heart as I. …
Many tears these days
For your sake I have wept, and many ways
Have wandered on the beating wings of thought.
And, finding but one hope, that I have sought
And followed. I have sent …
Creon, my own wife’s brother, forth alone
To Apollo’s House in Delphi, there to ask
What word, what deed of mine, what bitter task,
May save my city. …
Enter Creon. I speak then what I heard from God.[3]—Thus saith
Phoebus, our Lord and Seer, in clear command.
An unclean thing there is, hid in our land,
Eating the soil thereof: this ye shall cast
Out, and not foster till all help be past.
Oedipus. How cast it out? What was the evil deed?
Creon. Hunt the men out from Thebes,
or make them bleed Who slew.
For blood it is that stirs to-day.
Oedipus. Who was the man they killed? Doth Phoebus say?
Creon. O King, there was of old King Laïus
In Thebes, ere thou didst come to pilot us.
Oedipus. I know: not that I ever saw his face.
Creon.’Twas he. And Phoebus now bids us trace
And smite the unknown workers of his fall.
[3] God: i.e. Phoebus/Apollo, god of wisdom and the sun who was believed to inspire the priestesses at the Oracle of Delphi
Oedipus is eager to get started on the mission of purification.
Oedipus. It falls on me then. I will search and clear
This darkness.—Well hath Phoebus done, and thou
Too, to recall that dead king, even now,
And with you for the right I also stand,
To obey the God and succor[1] this dear land. …
Up! Leave this altar-stair,
Children. Take from it every suppliant bough.
Then call the folk of Thebes. Say, ’tis my vow
To uphold them to the end. So God shall crown
Our greatness, or forever cast us down.
[1] Succor: i.e. saving help
So, it seems so far that the story of Oedipus is the Hero’s Journey, right? Oedipus has saved the people of Thebes and now vows to save them again. You might be wondering how this is a Tragedy, a story with a bad ending? Aristotle observes that “Tragedy should … imitate actions which excite pity and fear,” i.e., what we think of as a bad ending. So how is it that a car crash that kills a family is not tragic? The essence of tragedy for Aristotle lies in the structural logic of the plot and the character of the hero:
The change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this moves neither pity nor fear; it merely shocks us. … Nor, again, should the downfall of the utter villain be exhibited. A plot of this kind would satisfy the moral sense, but it would inspire neither pity nor fear. … There remains the character between these two extremes—that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty (Part VIII).
Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from its inner structure, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. The plot ought to be so constructed that … he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place (Poetics Part VIV).
Aristotle frequently cites Oedipus as the classic (!) example of a tragic hero. He has saved his people, rules wisely, and now is determined to save them again. Yet Oedipus has a “tragic flaw”—in Greek, hamartia—which drives the plot to his doom. We feel pity because of his general goodness, we fear his destiny, but we see how the plot’s “inner structure” leads to his doom.
Notice Aristotle’s disdain for Spectacle as a driver of interest. Aristotle would probably not have been a fan of today’s blockbuster action films. Good poets, argues Aristotle, grab the audience with well-structured plot, not with special effects.
To lead him to the killer of Laïus, Oedipus questions Tiresias, a blind prophet who resists the question. Oedipus demands an answer, one for which he is not prepared.
Oedipus. Tiresias, thou whose mind divineth well
All Truth, the spoken and the unspeakable,
The things of heaven and them that walk the earth. …
For Phoebus—to our envoy hath decreed
One only way of help in this great need:
To find and smite with death or banishing,
Him who smote Laïus, our ancient King. …
Tiresias (to himself). Ah me!
A fearful thing is knowledge, when to know
Helpeth no end. …
Let me go back! Thy work shall weigh on thee
The less, if thou consent, and mine on me….
He moves to go off. Oedipus bars his road.]
Oedipus. Thou shalt not, knowing, turn and leave us! See,
We all implore thee, all, on bended knee. …
Tiresias. I will not wound myself nor thee. Why seek
To trap and question me? I will not speak. … [He moves to go.]
Oedipus. ‘Fore God, I am in wrath; and speak I will,
… ‘Twas thou, ’twas thou,
Didst plan this murder;[1] aye, and, save the blow,
Wrought it.—I know thou art blind; else I could swear
Thou, and thou only, art the murderer.
Tiresias (returning). I command thee by thine own word’s power,
To stand accurst, and never from this hour
Speak word to me, nor yet to these who ring
Thy throne. Thou art thyself the unclean thing. …
‘Twas thou. I spoke not, save for thy command. …
Thou seek’st this man of blood: Thyself art he.
[1] Didst plan this murder: an angry Oedipus lashes out, accusing Tiresias of being the one guilty of former king’s murder.
The accusation scene fits Aristotle’s formula of “Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation,” in which the hero’s fortunes turn sour. We begin to see his Tragic Flaw: rage. Oedipus is furious and bewildered at the accusation: you are the murderer! But how can this be? He has never met the murdered king.
Oedipus accuses Creon of inciting Tiresias to make a false accusation. To ease his wrath and anxiety, Queen Jocasta recalls a prophecy from years past that she feels will exonerate him.
JOCASTA Come, I will tell
An old tale. There came once an oracle: …
If ever son were bred
From him and me, by that son’s hand, …
Laïus must die. And he, the tale yet stays
Among us, at the crossing of three ways
Was slain by robbers, strangers.
And my son—God’s mercy!—scarcely the third day was gone
When Laïus took, and by another’s hand
Out on the desert mountain, where the land
Is rock, cast him to die. … Thus did we cheat
Apollo of his will. My child could slay
No father, and the King could cast away
The fear that dogged him, by his child to die
Murdered.—Behold the fruits of prophecy!
Which heed not thou![1] God needs not that a seer
Help him, when he would make his dark things clear.
[1] Which heed not thou! I.e. So, since we cheated the last prophecy, you need not pay attention to this one.
So it seems that Oedipus is in the clear. However, in yet another prophecy, Oedipus explains that he had fled Corinth to avoid killing his apparent father. When a messenger from Corinth informs him of his father’s death, Oedipus feels liberated from any dire prophecies. And yet, the glass won’t come clear. The story of Jocasta’s first husband’s killing at a crossroads reminds him of a rash deed.
OEDIPUS Wife, I will tell thee true. As one in daze
I walked,[1] till, at the crossing of three ways, …
A man behind strong horses charioted
Met me. And both would turn me from the path,
He and a thrall[2] in front. And I in wrath
Smote him that pushed me. …
Not a word the master said,
But watched, and as I passed him on the road
Down on my head his iron-branchèd goad[3]
Stabbed. But, by heaven, he rued it! In a flash
I swung my staff and saw the old man crash
Back from his car in blood…. Then all of them I slew. …
‘Twas mine own self that laid upon my life
These curses.—And I hold the dead man’s wife
In these polluting arms[4] that spilt his soul….
Am I a thing born evil? Am I foul
In every vein? …
God, as thou art clean,
Suffer not this, oh, suffer not this sin
To be, that e’er I look on such a day!
Out of all vision of mankind away
To darkness let me fall ere such a fate
Touch me, so unclean and so desolate!
 |
| Joseph Blanc. (1867). The murder of Laïus by Oedipus. Oil on canvas. |
The fate of Oedipus is sealed when a shepherd testifies that he had not exposed Jocasta’s child on a mountain as directed but had given him up for adoption. In this “Recognition scene,” the hero comes to understand his culpability. All of the efforts of the main characters to avoid their fates have come to naught. Oedipus has killed his unrecognized father in a fit of rage and married his mother.
So we approach the tragic conclusion. In Greek drama, action scenes occur off stage and are narrated by characters. A messenger appears on stage to inform us of Jocasta’s fate.
MESSENGER. Jocasta, our anointed queen, is dead. …
Like one entranced with passion, through the gate
She passed, the white hands flashing o’er her head,
Like blades that tear, and fled, unswerving fled,
Toward her old bridal room, and disappeared. …
And the doors crashed behind her. …
And, after that, I know not how her death
Found her.
For sudden, with a roar of wrath,
Burst Oedipus upon us. …
“That wife, no wife, that field of bloodstained earth
Where husband, father, sin on sin, had birth,
Polluted generations!” While he thus raged on, …
He dashed him on the chamber door …and in he burst
To the dark chamber.There we saw her first
Hanged, swinging from a noose, like a dead bird.
He fell back when he saw her.
Then we heard
A miserable groan, and straight he found
And loosed the strangling knot, and on the ground
Laid her.—Ah, then the sight of horror came!
The pin of gold, broad-beaten like a flame,
He tore from off her breast, and, left and right,
Down on the shuddering orbits of his sight
Dashed it: “Out! Out! Ye never more shall see
Me nor the anguish nor the sins of me.
Ye looked on lives whose like earth never bore,
Ye knew not those my spirit thirsted for:
Therefore be dark for ever!” …
OEDIPUS. Oh, pain; pain and woe!
Whither? Whither?
They lead me and I go;
And my voice drifts on the air far away
Where, Thing of Evil, where
Endeth thy leaping hither?
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| Jean Harriet Fulchran, (1798). Oedipus at Colonus. Blind Oedipus reaches the tragic end of life in exile. Oil on canvas. |
Jocasta is dead and Oedipus has pricked out his eyes in horror. A tragic ending which grows out of hidden flaws of character. In the centuries since the time of tragic poets like Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus, tragedy has taken many forms. It often strays a long way from Aristotle’s restrictive formula—one day of action, no spectacle—but his internal logic is generally there. Tony Montana, Tony Soprano, and Walter White deal in villainy for which Aristotle would have felt no sympathy of pity, yet their fates are determined with relentless moral logic by their tragic flaws.
References
Aristotle. (c 350 BCE). Poetics. Butcher, S. H. Translator. (1922). London: Macmillan. Internet Archive https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html
Blanc, Joseph. (1867). The murder of Laïus by Oedipus [Painting]. Paris, FR: Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Blanc_Le_meurtre_de_La%C3%AFus.JPG Oil on canvas
Fulchran, Jean Harriet. (1798). Oedipus at Colonus [Painting]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13899118 Oil on canvas
Sophocles. (c 429 BCE). Oedipus King of Thebes. Murray, G. Trans. (1917). Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27673/pg27673-images.html
a meaningful sequencing of story events that builds suspense through conflict and rising tension culminating in a climactic resolution
an immensely widespread narrative template in which a protagonist is called from ordinary life to an adventure in a challenging or dangerous realm and returns bearing a treasure of some kind
according to Aristotle, a drama which inspires pity and fear when a hero we care about comes to a bitter end that grows out of a tragic flaw (hamartia)
the fault of character in an otherwise worthy hero which triggers a chain of events ending in the character’s doom