Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Oedipus Rex
In the story Oedipus Rex what I feel that you learned that you can not run away from your problems. It is simple as this no matter what we believe if something is meant to be it is meant to be. Like for example lets say in a car accident someone passes away and you say that if they were not driving at that point of time it would not have happened. In this story though it was taken to the extreme about the fate of all the main characters from Oedipus, to his mother and wife, and last his father. Because in the story Oedipus`s father is told that his son will kill him and marry his wife whose also his own mother, and in an attempt to make the prophecy not become true they take baby Oedipus to the woods and tie his feet together making him even more vulnerable to the environment, but he is found and saved. Also, when Oedipus found out about the prophecy he left his new home so that way it would not come true but the people that raised him were not his real parents so the prophecy would not have became true maybe if he was not told about it. Another thing that is learned but taken out of proportion in this story is to not make fun of or mistreat anyone that has a disability or in turn you can get the same one that they have. This story also teaches you that sometimes when you try to fix a problem the solution to fixing the problem is getting rid of yourself because you are the culprit of the problem. Oedipus`s city was having a plague because the killer of their was living with them but little did he know he was the killer.
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Oedipus Rex was difficult for me to understand honestly. I did grasp the fact that no matter how hard you try in life sometimes trying so hard to avoid something (such as your “fate”) actually causes whatever you are trying to avoid happen or occur. I believe it is more of a mental thing honestly. When you try focusing on only one thing or worry about one thing so hard to a certain extent you make that issue worse in the end instead of trying to resolve the issue. As a student athlete I put it into the perspective of sports. At times I try so hard to not make an error during a game that I actually only cause myself to make that error and often in times they don’t just come as one error, they build up into two or three errors. The mind can make you do funny things especially when you’re so focused on doing the total opposite of what you want to do. I think that because Oedipus Rex focused so hard on trying to escape his “fate” that he only created it and made it his “fate”. “Certainly: Loxias once told me that I must sleep with my own mother and shed paternal blood with my own hands.” Oedipus Rex was so consumed by trying to avoid this very thing from happening that he, himself made it happen.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a main theme in the story of “Oedipus Rex” is fate. I agree because prophecy is the main plot device of the story. If Oedipus had not heard the prophecy then he would have never had a reason to leave what he thought were his biological parents. This is the same for all the characters that hear a prophecy. The characters would not have done much of what they did in the story if they had not been told a prophecy. Although I do not think that running away from your problems is also a main theme. I think this because in the story the problem that Oedipus is trying to run from is the prophecy, which I think most people would do the same, because most people would not want to kill their father or marry their mother. I do still agree with the this post and the overall theme being fate, because of the use of prophecies in the story.
ReplyDeleteI believe that fate is definitely a major focus of Oedipus Rex, however, to me, the most predominant theme is irony. I think that is why Sophocles makes it so obvious early on in the play that Oedipus already fulfilled the prophecy and killed his father and slept with his mother. Had the central theme been fate, I feel as though it would have been a big revelation made at the end, but by exposing it so early, Sophocles opens up the door to allow him to focus on the irony throughout the story. Examples of this irony are, the fact that Oedipus met his destiny on the path he chose to avoid it, which is the most evident form of irony, and another one that you mentioned which was the act of Oedipus gouging out his eyes and becoming blind after cursing Tiresias for not seeing a true future.
ReplyDeleteKatie Nix
ReplyDeleteI think we have found that most stories we read have hidden or deeper alternative messages. I completely agree that one important message in Oedipus Rex, is as you said, “if something is meant to be it is meant to be”. I however don’t think it is the most significant message in the story. The story of Oedipus Rex reminds me of a quote from the movie Kung Fu Panda, “one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”. I believe the blog was trying to point this out. The story is created by the conflict that arose from the oracle telling the king his son would kill him. The king and queen then sealed their fate by getting rid of their son and setting the story in motion. The quote, “if something is meant to be it is meant to be”, seems similar to the quote from Kung Fu Panda, but to me they are very different. As described in the blog, the quote when something is meant to be it is meant to be, deals more with timing and being in the right place at the right time. With this quote, when referring it to the story of Oedipus Rex, a person is not going out of their way to avoid a situation, they simple avoid (or don’t not avoid) a situation by chance. The example of the car accident was a good representation of this quote. It was by chance they had been driving that morning and happened to get in that accident. But now in the Kung Fu Panda movie, much like in Oedipus Rex, a character actually took action to try and change their density/fate which in turn sealed it. This is why I think the quote and message, “one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”, fits better for the story of Oedipus Rex.
The main theme for "Oedipus Rex" is indeed fate will always have its way. In this story a man was running from his problems all his life. Later on he only realizes that instead of running away from his problems, he simply ran right into them. He was told prophecies when he was young such as he would marry his mother and kill his father. This frightened him so he left his hometown trying to ensure that these prophecies don't come true. As the story begins to wrap up we learn that he has ironically married his mom and killed his father just as he was told he would do when he was younger. This shows that you cant run from your fears cause they will only catch up to you later. The best thing to do is face your fears head on and accept the consequences. This theory is backed up in the plot of the story. I say this because if he wouldn't have ran away from the future that he feared so much in the first place then none of this may have happened.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the main theme, which is fate. Also with what you said about trying so hard that it makes you mess up. Some people may be really trying to impress someone else and they just put forth so much effort that it causes them to fail. Oedipus tried so hard to escape his prophecy that he ended up running right into it, which is what became his fate. The story was a little difficult for me to follow at times, but when I was reading about his prophecy I was just wondering at how he could have slept with his mother, because wouldn’t she be quite a bit older than him? And how he didn’t know he was the killer that caused the plague throughout his city. Oedipus tried to run away from his problems but in reality he ran right into them, which caused his prophecy to come true.
ReplyDeleteI can often understand that things happen for a reason but it is hard for me to accept it. I am a fond believer that God has a plan and that all things go according to His plan but as a person who wants what I want, the way I want it, I try to get things back on track according to my plan rather than His. It is not until later that I realize that God had the same plan for me but was only taking a different route. I’m also a stubborn person who doesn’t like to be told no or have things taken away from me. God knows what is good for me and what I deserve but I can’t always see that for myself so He does it all for me. I have also learned not to question His ways and to accept all that is happening in my life knowing that everything will work out perfectly.
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