Monday, September 13, 2010

Oedipus Rex

The Question: What does it mean to be an outsider or insider and how does it affect our personalities?

Oedipus lives one messed up life. His crazy parents try to off him because of a prophesy, he survives to live it out, I mean come one who lives like that? He was always in outsider for his entire life though. He moves to Corinth, an adopted son even if he doesn't know it. Then when he finally grows up to become a man, on some lonesome road he commits murder. Who does that? Obviously not the "insider" because that's just insane. Oedipus then ends up in Thebes, his real home. Through answering the riddle of the Sphinx he gets the throne and Jocasta for his queen. My first question about that is seriously? They just hand over entire thrones for the answer to one riddle? Problem number one right there. He has a pretty happy reign at first, after starting up a new family with his mother a plague comes down on Thebes. Oedipus decides to finally solve the death of the old king because apparently until then no one had cared he was gone. The whole inquiry blows up in his face, however. He finds the truth and plucks out his eyes and banishes himself forever. Oedipus was forever the outsider in his life. He couldn't ever be happy in Corinth because it wasn't his real home, he left thinking it was, however. His restlessness was not from the prophesy but also because he sensed something was wrong about his living there. He also caused severe damage to his real home of Thebes. Basically he brought shame down on the entire ruling family because he MARRIED his mother and KILLED his father. What good son does that? Tracking her personality through out the play he becomes more and more self obsessed and he always believes he is right. His fatal flaw of jumping to conclusions and never listening made him blind both literally and figuratively.

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