Oedipus the King and his Importance to Religious Festivals - Essay Example

Oedipus the King and his Importance to Religious Festivals One of the plays commonly performed to help celebrate in both the Dioysian and Apollonian traditions of the Greek culture was the tragedy Oedipus the King written by Sophocles. To understand how it could fit into each of these traditions, the characteristics of each of these cults will be examined along with their connection to the tragic elements of mimesis, hamartia, peripateia, anagnorisis and catharsis. These terms themselves require definition and thus will be illustrated with examples from the play itself. Understanding the lessons Oedipus learned through this play helps illuminate what the ancient Greeks were meant to understand from it and further highlights the value of these religious festivals in ensuring the peaceful operation of urban centers. Oedipus the King and his Importance to Religious Festivals Despite the plethora of gods the ancient Greeks had to choose from in terms of whom they wished to worship, there were two major cults that had tremendous influence over all the rest. These were the Dionysians and the Apollonians. In general terms, the Apollonian revered analytic distinctions, unique individuality and rational thought – anything that was structured and made sharp distinctions (Kreis, 2004). Dionysus, on the other hand, was associated with the concepts of drunkenness and wild abandon, the creativity of nature and the abandonment of the individual in favor of becoming lost in the whole (Kreis, 2004). Although these concepts seem diametrically opposed, they actually tend to represent the two sides of human nature and are thus both necessary in any examination into the motivations and activities of any individual. Tragedies such as Oedipus the King, through its use of the various elements of tragedy identified by Aristotle, helped illustrate the values of each of these religious traditions and clarify the need for both in order to live a happy, healthy, successful life. Much of Greek tragedy follows a consistent pattern that was once identified specifically by one eloquent orator. According to Aristotle, every tragedy is structured around five key events. These include mimesis, hamartia, anagnorisis, peripeteia and catharsis. Aristotle said all poetry was a form of imitation of real life. “Aristotle imagines that poetry springs from a basic human delight in mimicry. Humans learn through imitating and take pleasure in looking at imitations of the perceived world” (“Aristotle”, 1998). However, Aristotle did not make distinctions between abstract art and true representation as we do today. Instead, he felt that art was a condensed version of reality, synthesizing its important elements down into a more direct form that was more readily understandable and therefore more easily learned. Keeping this concept in mind, the other elements of tragedy can be seen directly in the play Oedipus the King. The idea of excessive pride plays a monumental role in Greek tragedy appearing as hamartia and is thus the driving force for the rest of the action. It is the concept that a noble man will fall not as the result of a vengeful god or violation of the god’s laws per se, but rather as a result of some inherent flawed portion of his character that causes him to act in a specific way or make a particular mistake in judgment. In much of Greek tragedy, this tragic flaw appears in the form of an excessive pride on the part of the protagonist that renders them incapable of listening to the counsel of others or of correctly perceiving the events taking place around them. This behavior or mistake will be the actual cause of ruin thus illustrating that the fall of great people is not necessarily the will of the gods but are instead manifestations of the gods allowing humans to act of their own accord, for better or worse. Pride in itself, can be seen as a positive attribute, but when it is expressed in arrogance and defiance of fate and the gods, it becomes a fatal flaw that leads to a character’s downfall. Aristotle (1998) stated “the tragic hero falls into bad fortune because of some flaw in his character of the kind found in men of high reputation and good fortune such as Oedipus.” In this statement, he indicates Oedipus had a flaw that, because of his high station, would ultimately cause his demise. Oedipus, throughout his tragedy, is a protagonist driven by hamartia and this largely contributes to his own downfall. In Oedipus the King, the action opens as Oedipus is approached by plague-stricken masses asking help from him as king. When he sees his people gathered around him as if he were a god, his response to them is “What means this reek of incense everywhere, / From others, and am hither come, myself, / I Oedipus, your world-renowned king” (4-8). Although the people of Oedipus’ day did turn to their kings to cure all societal ills, Oedipus here is taking an extra step in his own opinion of himself by taking on the persona of a god. His pride in his role is evident in the words he speaks in which he seems to be almost condescending to them for appealing to other forces than himself in their burning of incense to cloud the air. His last line, referring to himself as the “world-renowned king” helps to underscore that streak of pride even this early in the play. Throughout the remainder of the action, Oedipus’ personality clearly reflects a continued pride and a determination to force things to go his way. The people of Oedipus’ day (and Socrates) placed great emphasis on the predictions of the oracles. When Oedipus learned of his own prediction that he was doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, he was determined to avoid this fate by taking his future in his own hands in Apollonian fashion. As a result, he left his homeland in Corinth for the further realm of Thebes. He experiences the typical dangers while on his travels, meeting with strangers and being involved in a fatal battle in which only the other side lost, and encountering a seemingly unanswerable riddle delivered by the Sphinx. When he is able to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, a task that had not been accomplishable by anyone else, his natural pride in his own abilities rose to a new level. This is reinforced by the fact that he then became the king of Thebes and married Jocasta, the widowed queen of Thebes. Oedipus is confident that he has outwitted fate because he and Jocasta have several children together and the kingdom prospers, Dionysian indications of prosperity that could not have occurred had he been forced to act out his foreseen doom. However, in promising to find the murderer who has caused the plague, Oedipus shows that his pride has become so great he feels a mere announcement will be all it takes to bring the long-hidden murderer to justice: “Well, I will start afresh and once again / Make dark things clear” (139-140). He seems to think he is better than all other men and even the gods in that he will be able to find this person who has evaded capture for so long where the best efforts of others have always failed. When the blind prophet Teresias, a highly respected counselor, is finally driven to indicate that Oedipus was the murderer of King Laius at the continued abuse of Oedipus himself and against Teresias’ better judgment, Oedipus’ pride again steps in his way, preventing him from believing the possibility of the truth. Despite this, that same pride urges him to continue solving the riddles of his own parentage, an undertaking that can only have unhappy consequences. The second condition of a classic Greek tragedy is anagnorisis following hamartia. Although the fatal flaw such as Oedipus’ pride might not immediately appear as an error in judgment as it follows logically from one stage of the story to another, it will eventually become clear that without this, the tragedy would not have occurred. While the audience begins to realize the truth of the situation long before Oedipus, eventually, the main character must also realize the folly of his ways. This eventual clarity of perception is what is referred to as anagnorisis. In Aristotelian terms, this word translates to mean recognition (“Aristotle”, 1998). For the audience, this is represented by the usually sudden realization on the part of the protagonist that he is the primary cause of the suffering or detrimental situation in which he finds himself. This epiphany can reveal not only the true role of the protagonist in the wrongs occurring, but also the true nature of the characters around them. It is easy to see the irony that if Oedipus had not been so determined to escape and prevent his prophecy, he would have not fulfilled it by accident, an element of the play that hints at a Dionysian influence in that nature will always prevail. This is foreshadowed by Creon just before Jocasta and Oedipus finally discuss the various events of her former husband’s death and Oedipus’ experiences prior to his arriving in Thebes, the discussion that finally reveals the connections. Creon tells Oedipus, “You are obstinate— / obviously unhappy to concede, / and when you lose your temper, you go too far. / But men like that find it most difficult / to tolerate themselves” (814-819). In this one short statement, he sums up the entire tragedy. He illustrates Oedipus’ stubbornness and pride in being unwilling to concede his own complicity in events he has not yet heard the details of. As a result of his own impatience and driving desire to bring honor and further pride to his name, Oedipus becomes excessive in his proclamations regarding motives and punishments to be handed down. Finally, as Creon indicates, once the truth is known by Oedipus himself, it doesn’t matter what Jocasta might do to try to hide the facts from the world, that it is known by them is already more than can be born. Before he’s even fully realized the extent of his own sins, Oedipus is shaken into a realization of where his pride has brought him. Where before he was proud enough of his accomplishments, he now looks back upon the quarrel he had where the three roads met as a fateful event that sealed his own doom: “a curse / I laid upon myself. With these hands of mine, / these killer’s hands, I now contaminate / the dead man’s bed. Am I not depraved? / Am I not utterly abhorrent? / Now I must fly into exile and there, / a fugitive, never see my people, / never set foot in my native land again” (983-990). As the truth becomes more and more difficult to avoid, Oedipus only pursues it with greater urgency, even as Jocasta begs him to stop and allow the case to fall unsolved. Yet again, Oedipus’ pride prevents him from allowing even himself an escape from justice. He recognizes his actions as having taken place by too much confidence in his own abilities to avoid his destiny, yet he also cannot allow himself to mend his ways that are surely bringing him to the greatest doom. The idea of the recognition of the fatal flaw as anagnorisis leads naturally into the third element of class tragedy, that of peripeteia. Literally translated, the word means something akin to a sudden reversal based upon logic and intellect (“Aristotle”, 1998). As Aristotle used it, it meant the sudden reversal of fortunes for the protagonist that was at once surprising to the audience, but that also followed naturally as the result of prior actions and events. Although this concept could be traced through the protagonist’s character, in that the character himself suffered internal ruin as a result of their discovery of such a deep-seated flaw within themselves where they little expected to find one, it was more often than not used to apply to external circumstances. This made it possible for the audience to see the danger of ignoring internal flaws as well as understand that failure to address such flaws could lead to highly disastrous and impossible to hide results. In response to the revelations not only that he himself was the true murderer of the old king as well as the understanding that he was also the son of that king and his own wife, Oedipus can no longer justify his sense of pride in himself. Everything he’s done has been done as the slave of destiny, he has avoided nothing. In the process, he has also committed some of the greatest sins imaginable to him. Rather than face the truth and unable to take the severe wound to his pride, Oedipus stabbed out his eyes with broaches and walked away from Thebes forever, thereby sealing his doom through further prideful actions. Peripeteia has Oedipus walking away from Thebes a blind, homeless beggar rather than the respected king he should have been based upon his more noble qualities. While this is a surprise, it is nevertheless a logical possible conclusion to the events that have taken place. The catharsis sees the city of Thebes cleansed of the incestual relationship of its rulers as Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus wanders into the wilderness as the truth comes out about the death of the old king, but it will take further plays to determine what will happen to the city in the future. Thus, the theme of excessive pride is carried throughout the play as both the aspect of Oedipus’ character that drives him forward and leads him to destruction. Seen as it is throughout the various elements of the classic tragedian format, it cannot be missed that Sophocles was trying to illustrate to his audience the dangers of an absence of humility and common sense. This is, in some sense, what Aristotle was trying to communicate regarding the purpose of tragedy, which he describes as “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 … through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions” (Aristotle cited in Friedlander, 2005). Presented to a Greek audience, the lessons of maintaining a proper balance between the individualistic values of the Apollonian tradition and a healthy respect for the wild forces of nature and the whole expressed in the Dionysian tradition would have been made clear. Works Cited “Aristotle.” Critica Links. (1998). The University of Hawaii. July 14, 2007 Friedlander, Eric. “Enjoying Oedipus the King by Sophocles.” The Pathguy. (January 30, 2005). July 14, 2007 < http://www.pathguy.com/oedipus.htm> Kreis, Steven. “Nietzsche, Dionysus and Apollo.” The History Guide. (May 13, 2004). July 14, 2007 < http://www.historyguide.org/europe/dio_apollo.html> Sophocles. Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra. Oxford World’s Classics. Ed. Edith Hall. Oxford University Press, 1998. Read More