1. Do you agree with how Oedipus tried to avoid the prophecy? Could he have done something else to avoid the prophecy or should he have just ignored the prophecy? Wouldn't he have just avoided the prophecy altogether if he hadn't married at all or if he decided against killing anybody? How would these decisions have affected Oedipus' life?
2. What evidence can be listed for the motif and image of physical and emotional suffering? How is this motif significant to the play?
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I don't agree with how Oedipus tried to avoid the prophecy. No, I don't think he could have done something else to avoid it because it was a decision made by their gods and once they make a fate there is no turning back. Those ways, such as not marrying or killing could have worked, but since the fate was created by a "god" there would have been no way around avoiding the prophecy and it would have been fulfilled at some point. If he had been able to get around it though, he probably wouldn't have had such a hard life and would have gone on to be king over Corinth when Polybus died.
ReplyDelete1) Oedipus did not chose to avoid his prophecy when he was born, his mother and father chose this for him as they gave him away to die in the forest. However, if they had not done this I feel that the phrophecy would have come true in one way or another. I believe this because during these times people strongly believed in their religion and they believed the Gods had great power. Because they believe this, I feel that they would let it happen without knowing their control over the situation.
ReplyDelete2) One of the motifs of emotional/physical suffering is through the idea of blindness. We have the blind prophet who cannot see but suffers from the truth that he knows. Then there is Oedipus who puts himself in physical suffering by removing his eyes. But he also suffers because the only visual memorizes he has are the negative actions that he has done. The motif is significant because it creates an irony. Oedipus learns the truth from a blind prophet and then ends up being blind himself.
ReplyDelete2) The motif of suffering is evident throughout the entire play, and it effects Oedipus' life from the very start. We learn that as a small child his legs were pinned together, strong enough to leave permanate scarring, this caused him enough pain that the sheperd has pity on him, trying to relieve that pain, but in the end causing an even greater suffering. This shows the irony that Sophocles is famous for, the action that was meant to save a child from pain caused that child to suffer the greatest pain and torment imaginable. The pain of killing one's father, marrying their own mother and then ripping out their own eyes. The entire plot begins with the kingdom of Thebes suffering from a terible plauge, this connects back to the suffering of Oedipus as a small child. Everything begins with suffering and so it is a key feeling throughout the play.
ReplyDeleteOedipus did not choose to avoid his prophecy. Jocasta and Laius were the ones avoiding the prophecy originally. They were not successful, and the prophecy still followed. Sophocles emphasizes that the course one takes will still reveal the same outcome, and fate will not change. If it is destiny, it will not change. Making different decisions would not have worked. In the end, Oedipus would still wind up coupling with his mother, and killing his father. The fact that he did not know that Laius was his father, and still killed him, shows how no matter what, fate will still occur, even if the path to it changes.
ReplyDeleteQuestion #1
ReplyDeleteAs I commented on another post, would it have been possible for Oedipus to just not marry anyone? Couldn't he have avoided part of the prophecy by simply steering clear of women and never having sex with any of them? In theory, this would give him a 0% chance of ever sleeping with his mother.
However, the fact that Sophocles chooses to have Oedipus try to find a way around the prophecy by finding a woman which he believes is not his mother is an example of how a man is imperfect compared to the gods, and that the gods cannot be outsmarted.
1. This refers back to the theory that if you try to avoid fate, it becomes unavoidable. On the other hand, if you let fate be, you may avoid everything all together. The prophecies became a self-fulfilling prophecy because Oedipus and Laius refused to ignore them. For example, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it is revealed that a prophecy was made shortly before Harry Potter's birth, saying that the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord Voldemort would be born shortly. To stop the prophecy from coming true, the Dark Lord attempted to kill Harry while he was an infant, but his curse backfired on him, vanquishing him for 13 years in the process, and transferring some of his powers to Harry. Dumbledore tells Harry several times that the prophecy is only true because the Dark Lord believes it. Harry is free to turn his back on it, but the fact that Voldemort will never turn his back on it, and therefore never rest until he has killed Harry, makes it inevitable that Harry will have to kill Voldemort, or vice versa. This is similar to what happens to Oedipus because since his father did not turn his back on HIS prophecy, Oedipus is forced to act on his, though he doesn't even know it.
ReplyDeletep.s. Yes, I DO refer everything back to Harry Potter.
I agree with the fact that Oedipus did not try to avoid the prophecy, Jocasta did not want it to come true so she tried to alter it by sending Oedipus away. Later he just did not want to accept the prophecy that he killed his father. I don't think that there was anyway that he could have avoided his proohecy. No matter what he did I think that he would have ended up with the same conclusion. The fact that Apollo who is a powerful god, and the son of Zues, came up with the prophecy, seeled the deal that the prophecy was going to come true.
ReplyDeleteAlthough if Jocasta had not given up Oedipus and he had grown up with his actual parents, then he still might have killed his dad but there would be less of a chance that he would have slept with his mother because he would have known that Jocasta was his mom and unless he is a total freak, he would have no desire to sleep with her. That might have been one way to change the prophecy.