Oedipus the King is a Greek play written around 430 BC by Sophocles. It is one of the most influential and vital play to be written in human history. As a consequence, it became the foundation from which most tragedies were written (Knox, 71). Although some of the storylines may appear to be out of place in modern societies, it has a lot of storylines that are very relevant in the contemporary world. Although it was written over two centuries ago, Oedipus the King play still fits and applies in our society today.
People in ancient Greece believed that the gods already decided their destinies and fates. They never thought that there was anything they could do to change that decision (Feagles, 152). However, Oedipus tried to change the destiny that had been decided of him by the gods. The gods had sealed his fate; he was to grow up and marry his mother and also kill his father. It was also to be that he would leave his city and family for a faraway place. Later in the play, he realized that by moving away from his city and his family, he had already fulfilled his destiny. It is also important to note that his parents attempted to change his destiny, but it backfired on them.
For instance, Oedipus is discovered by some shepherds and taken to a Corinthian kingdom, and King Polybus and his wife adopted him. He was bred and cultured in their tradition to the point that he taught they were his birth parents when he was growing up. He later learns about the prophecy when he was in Delphi. As a result, he leaves the kingdom, believing that his fate was to kill his parents. He meets Laius on his way to Thebes, but Oedipus doesn’t know him yet (Knox, 12). They fight at the crossroad over who should pass first, and he ends up killing Laius, his father, before proceeding to Thebes. He enters into a plagued land under Sphinx, who puts forward a riddle to every person who passes by and kills those who cannot unravel it (Edwards, 3). Oedipus answers the riddle and saves the land. He is crowned as the King in reward and given Jocasta, his mother, as a wife. He did not know that Laius was his father and Jacosta, his mother until when the plague hit Thebes several years later. The plague was Apollo’s curse to Thebes for accommodating the killer of Laius, and the only remedy to it is to punish that killer. Oedipus realized that he was the killer after searching the truth and connected the dots of the prophecy. He blinded himself and sent to exile.
In contemporary society, we still have some religions, especially in the eastern part of the world which have similar beliefs. In the western part of the world, most people believe that they have full responsibility for their fates and destinies. For instance, they have the power to change the things they do or those they don’t do (Donn, 231). According to Walton (119), he notices this aspect as well for he says that Oedipus is the legitimate son of the previous King, and he was not a turannos. Another similarity between Oedipus and modern society is that people have the capacity of changing themselves internally and developing themselves with time.
It is clear that Oedipus biggest flaw as an individual was the sense of pride – the Greeks called it hubris. However, we cannot wholly justify his pride, especially after he saved Thebes from the King of Sphinx, but it was the one that led to his downfall. He came from a place where his ego had overpowered him by getting the better of him. For instance, despite being warned continuously about his fate concerning the pursuance of his course, he still maintained his position on that matter (Kousoulis, 153). Therefore, we can allude this scenario with a modern society where pride still grows in members of the population. For instance, human being today pride in technology. It is important to note that the invention of the nuclear or the atomic bomb was a great invention. It was a realization of a long-held dream of people who were working on it for too long. However, it should not be an excuse for the enormous destruction it can cause to the human population. Countries that have this ammunition threaten to attack their adversaries with a lot of pride despite warnings and when they do the effects are unimaginable as it was the case of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the United States in 1945.
As stated above, fate played a significant role in ancient Greece. For instance, it draws Oedipus to the choices and decisions he made. There is a possibility that if his father, Laius, would not have abandoned him, he might have left Thebes on hearing the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother instead of leaving Corinth. This storyline highlights the significant role played by fate in our lives. For instance, people make a lot of decisions and choices. However, it seems that there is always a bigger picture that plays in their background that directs them to their fates. It is also important to note that even science today tends to lean in the direction of proving the intertwined relationship between the past and the awaiting future. For instance, prominent scientists like Yakir Aharonov and Richard Feynman speculate in their works that causality is a two-headed arrow and the past influences the future and even the future may influence the past (Aharanov, 876). This evidence is in most cases referred to as entanglement, and it is prevalent in quantum mechanics. Entanglement is almost the same thing with romantic entanglement where there is a potentially special and troublesome relationship.
The play presents a lot of appealing questions that have not aged for all these years. For instance, are we really free individuals as we always think or we are just lying to ourselves that are we are free and independent beings? Is true that we can roam around the way we want? Can we really make our own choices and have our own way of thinking? Are we in a position of determining what we become of us tomorrow? Are we simply puppets that are always responding to of arresting force that is invisible to our eyes? I think this play would have influenced the founding fathers of the United States of America in some way. It inspired them to desire a different society that what Oedipus lived. One that an individual can be whatever he wants to be if he works hard leading to the conception of the term “the American dream”.
Sophocles clearly presents the issue of human freedom. For instance, when the play opens, we see that Oedipus has been living happily with Jocasta together with their four children for a long time. Besides, he is revered by the people of Thebes as not only a brave but also a wise leader. They see him as a man who defeated Sphinx and lifted their lives (Stein, 1394). Oedipus appears to be living a prosperous and happy life until the time when the plague arrived. Sophocles makes Oedipus’s fall to seem dramatic at the height of his success at the beginning of the play. The author of the play is not concerned to demonstrate whether the prophecy will come to pass because it had already happened instead of how Oedipus would handle the revelations of his crimes personally. It is important to note that only human beings appeared to Oedipus, and no god appeared to him. Oedipus also casts himself out of Thebes without any forces of a divine figure. The oracle from Apollo represents the only divine influence in the play. Also, various levels of human messengers stood between the words of the gods and the ears of Oedipus. However, he never considered himself powerless. This is seen from his constant use of the first-person pronouns I and me. He does not escape his punishment. Therefore, this play continues to act as a model of how people in modern societies must and can exercise their freedoms of choice including when they have to face powerful forces like gods, fate, or the law.
Oedipus the King play is also relevant in our society today because it gave us the term “oedipal complex” via Sigmund Freud (Mahony, 295). As a consequence, it has turned out to be one of the famous examples as far as the psychoanalytic reading of a play is concerned. It is important to note that many people before Freud believed that human beings have both a conscious and an unconscious mind. However, it was Freud who argued that the unconscious mind of an individual followed a similar pattern, especially those of the same gender. A classic example, in this case, is the idea that boys would generally want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers. However, they suppress this desire in their unconscious mind. Sophocles’ play is influential because it manifests the primal unconscious desire of young boys to kill their fathers and marry their mothers. This play aligns with the theory by Sigmund Freud strikingly and persuasively.
In conclusion, I have always believed that the essence of this play is the Oedipus lack of self-belief, particularly in his own goodness. For instance, if he would have been certain of his own goodness, he would not have believed what the representative of the oracle from Apollo when he told him that he would murder his father and bed his mother. He would not have moved away from Corinth, which unintentionally resulted in his own demise. This lesson applies to our modern societies in the sense that most people are never true to themselves, and they end up making dangerous mistakes for not believing in themselves. If people in our societies were true to their own moral beliefs, there would be no chance of giving up or giving in. They would fight hard for what they believe. Also, they would not likely believe some stranger who tells them about who they are what they are capable of doing.
Work Cited
Aharonov, Yakir, and M. Suhail Zubairy. “Time and the quantum: Erasing the past and impacting the future.” Science 307.5711 (2005): 875-879.
Edward, Terence Rajivan. “How did Oedipus solve the riddle of the Sphinx?.”
Fagles, Robert, ed. The three Theban plays. Penguin, 1984.
Knox, Bernard, and Sophocles Bloom. “Introduction to Oedipus the King.” Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations (2006): 71.
Knox, Bernard. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus. Penguin, 1984.
Kousoulis, Antonis A., et al. “The plague of Thebes, a historical epidemic in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.” Emerging infectious diseases 18.1 (2012): 153.
Mahony, Patrick. “The Oedipus Rex of Sophocles and Psychoanalysis.” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 7.4 (2010): 290-306.
Stein, Mark. “Oedipus Rex at Enron: Leadership, Oedipal struggles, and organizational collapse.” Human relations 60.9 (2007): 1387-1410.