Together, these different elements will underscore how the play is teaching everyone key ideas and the way they relate to a willingness to ignore the truth and the limits of free will. (Sophocles) ("The Oedipus Plays") (Ramfos) Although Oedipus gives some reasons for blinding himself, can you think of some others? The primary reasons why Oedipus is blinding himself are based upon a failure to see the truth throughout the course of his life and for unknowingly having children with his mother
In both of these plays, the incest between the characters is unknown to them, but it represents the twist of fate that is the central theme of these two plays. Playwright Rita Dove was once Poet Laureate of the United States, and won a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry, only the second black poet to win the Prize (Bloom 59)
She wrote "The Darker Face of the Earth" in 1994, and revised it in 1996. One literary critic says of the play, "It is a poet's reading of 'Oedipus the King,' resonating with the beauty and richness of the ancient images and the harrowing dynamics of the mythic plot" (Carlisle 135)
She says, "I saw the institution of slavery as an allegory for the Greek pantheon, the gods who control everything from the beginning. There was an overriding sense that a slave in this system could not possibly emerge from it whole" (Dove)
Another aspect of this sexual behavior is the involuntary nature of much of it. Another critic notes, "Both kinds of sexual miscegenation, voluntary and involuntary, combine in the text to explain the creation of the mulatto Augustus: His mother Amalia voluntarily pursued a miscegenous relationship with Hector in response to her husband, Louis, raping slave girls" (Pereira)
The people around Ranevskaya, including her daughter as well as Lopakhin, seem powerless to stop the woman in her path to folly, but Ranevskaya also seems powerless to stop herself, even though she is an apparently intelligent, if prodigal woman. One recent review of a production of the Cherry Orchard stated: "Much of the pleasure of this vibrantly acted tale of missed opportunities…comes from the funny, forlorn spectacle of displaced people trying to pretend they're perfectly at home" (Brantley 2009:1)
Eventually, Oedipus and Jocasta learn that they are mother and son, and the distraught Jocasta commits suicide, while Oedipus becomes a beggar and blinds himself in his anguish. Another key element of drama is the tragic flaw, defined as "the flaw or defect in a tragic hero that is the cause of his or her downfall" (Bliss)
Oedipus the King Blindness and the Pursuit of Truth in Oedipus the King by Sophocles In Aristotle's Poetics, he discussed his theory of tragedy, introducing the concepts of tragic flaw or hamartia, which serves as the catalyst for the protagonist's downfall or for the tragedy of the story to happen. He determined a tragedy as a "drama" that brings about a "sorrowful conclusion, arousing fear and pity in the audience" (Roberts and Jacobs, 1998:1189)
.murder? / Killing all, without difference,/women and children? / 'Thou shalt not kill,' saith the Commandments" (Dove: 81)
First, the citizens have enormous respect, even love, for Oedipus. They acknowledge not only his political power (which they have given him), but also his pre-eminence among all human beings for wisdom, especially in dealing with things they don't understand: 'We judge you / the first of men in what happens in this life/and in our interactions with the gods'" (37-39) (Johnson, 2004)
First, the citizens have enormous respect, even love, for Oedipus. They acknowledge not only his political power (which they have given him), but also his pre-eminence among all human beings for wisdom, especially in dealing with things they don't understand: 'We judge you / the first of men in what happens in this life/and in our interactions with the gods'" (37-39) (Johnson, 2004)
(Roisman 2003:1) Although Oedipus is arrogant, and hubristic, his tragic flaw is not the flaw of over-confidence in the manner of some heroes, like Odysseus, for example, who tells the Cyclops his name after blinding the demigod, and unwittingly condemns himself to wandering the seas in punishment. "It should be noted that Sophocles never suggests that Oedipus has brought his destiny on himself by his "ungodly pride" (hubris) alone, although this is a common theme in other Greek tragedies (Pontikis, 1988)
This is why, although "not in the original myth" Sophocles chose to include the blind prophet, to contrast his insight with the sighted Oedipus' stubbornness. (Roisman 2003:1) Although Oedipus is arrogant, and hubristic, his tragic flaw is not the flaw of over-confidence in the manner of some heroes, like Odysseus, for example, who tells the Cyclops his name after blinding the demigod, and unwittingly condemns himself to wandering the seas in punishment
Arthur Miller, playwright and critic, defines tragedy in terms that are more modern. He writes, "As a general rule, to which there may be exceptions unknown to me, I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing -- his sense of personal dignity" (Miller, 2005)
Arthur Miller, playwright and critic, defines tragedy in terms that are more modern. He writes, "As a general rule, to which there may be exceptions unknown to me, I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing -- his sense of personal dignity" (Miller, 2005)
Literary critic Richard H. Palmer notes, "Aristotle specified the fall of a near-perfect protagonist who has made an error of judgment as the stimulus, the arousal of pity and fear as the negative response, and the katharsis of these emotions as the positive element in tragedy" (Palmer, 1992, p